Pediatric Cancer
“Her tumor was the size of a grapefruit. I don’t even know how it fit in her body. There’s no protocol for neuroblastoma. Everything is experimental. Different doctors have different opinions, so I have to make choices that you couldn’t imagine. Horrible choices. She’s had several rounds of chemo, antibody therapy, a stem cell transplant, and a twelve-hour surgery. The surgery was risky. One doctor tried to talk me out of it. I don’t understand this stuff but I still have to make these decisions. I think I’ve made all the right choices so far but the next one could be the wrong one. It’s so stressful. You know that feeling you have when you’re waiting for a call back from a job interview? That’s all the time for me. Except it’s not a job. It’s my kid’s life. I push all the emotional stuff to the back burner. I feel like the only way to keep moving is to stay numb. My only therapy is talking to the other moms here. We’re all going through the same thing. So that helps. But then again we lose a lot of our friends here. Her best friend’s cancer just spread to the brain. So that’s scary as shit.”
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