20 + Things a Cancer Kid Knows By Heart
by CeCe Benningfield
If my kids could write about my cancer, this is most likely what they would say or things I have heard them say. This is in response to the Huffington Post’s 20 Things A Mom Knows about Cancer. I figured I would flip it.
- It is the most earth shattering thing to be told that your Mom has cancer.
- Moms of any age can get cancer. Even young ones.
- Moms can have a total meltdown in the kitchen and still make birthday cupcakes for your soccer team while having cancer.
- She will puke in a toilet, swallow a mountain of anti-nausea meds and still go to baseball practice with cancer.
- Moms can schedule your dentist appointment, write a novel and make a two page to-do list, all while toting an IV pole with chemo.
- Treatment straight up sucks. Even Moms feel like this.
- You can tell her side effects are bad when she can’t climb the stairs to do five kids worth of laundry.
- We learn to do our own laundry.
- You hate it when you are sick because you know you are putting your Mom at risk. But who can control the flu? And who can tell your Mom to not sit by your bed with Sprite and crackers and kiss your fevered head? I’d like to see someone try.
- Moms can do chemo and then sit through a double hitter in the Texas heat at the baseball fields.
- We don’t go in Mom’s bathroom. She says it is danger zone. Just don’t.
- Sleeping upstairs with your sick parent downstairs teaches you interesting life skills, like waking up on your own to catch the 6 a.m bus, make your own lunch and email your own teacher if need be.
- It super annoying when people call your mom a hero. She was my hero before she got cancer. Cancer doesn’t make you a hero. It makes you sick.
- Some Moms can have the opposite reactions to medications... like for instance, something that makes an adult sleepy might make them get up and clean the house at 2 a.m. Sometimes the meds make them sleep even when they are trying to hear about your day.
- Scan days are always stressful. Waiting for the doctor to read them makes your Mom cry no matter what the news. Going to school while you know your Mom is getting results is even harder.
- You realize nothing is as important anymore as getting your Mom well. How will Dad ever do what she does?
- You'll never forget the first time you see your Mom lose her pretty long hair or when she throws all of her hairbrushes away.
- We get cancer jokes. Mom yells at the shampoo commercials. No one else would think that was funny but we do. If she doesn’t get her ice cream at night, she will threaten…”Don’t make me throw the cancer card down.” We all laugh and give her the ice cream.
- You learn creative terms to try to explain chemo to younger siblings. “Ninja meds” make mom really tired. No, she can’t read to you at night. Oh wait…here she comes.
- Kids get a crash course in oncology. You learn the stages of cancer and what they mean. Life really sucks when you hear the number four.
- You brace yourself for the biology assignments when they go into depth about how cancer works. I just want to throw something at the teacher. Writing essays or journal entries equally suck-“Express your biggest fear” or “tell about a time when you overcame adversity” . No, thanks. Rather not.
- Chemo looks different. Kids know that. It can change forms. Mom has done four different kinds. We have nicknames for all of them. The Red Devil, the Bad Crap, the Light Stuff, Ninja meds, and the pills. No chemo is the same. No cancer is the same.
- You learn to look for the “look” between your parents. It is the look that tells you if something has changed. A bad scan, a different med, more surgery. No one else notices.
- Cancer makes you grow up really fast. People don’t realize you are juggling school, sports, church, friends and social pressures and a sick Mom. They forget. You don’t.
- Statistics don't mean a dang thing when it comes to your Mom. God has the last say. Tomorrow is never promised. Your Mom is your steady hand but Jesus is the Rock.
