Pediatric Cancer
“Sebastian was diagnosed when he was twenty months old. He needed several rounds of chemo just to shrink the tumor to the size of an orange. He couldn’t eat for fifteen days because they didn’t want to feed the tumor. He was in so much pain. The lining of his stomach had burned away. Every time he woke up, I’d just rock him back to sleep. I never wanted him to be awake. I was hoping so hard that he was still young enough to forget everything. But the cancer kept coming back. And he grew old enough to realize he was sick. And that broke my heart. I was up with him one night after the cancer came back again. He’d already had six surgeries at this point and we were doing more chemotherapy. He was throwing up and had diarrhea. I felt so bad for him. And I was so tired and felt so guilty for neglecting my other children. And Sebastian said to me, ‘I’m so happy, Mommy.’ And I was so confused because I couldn’t understand how he could possibly be happy. Then he smiled, and said: ‘Because I love you so much.’”
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