Welcome To the Cancer Chronicles
Blogging My Family Cancer Story to Help Yours.
If you’re here odds are you are someone or know someone with a child with cancer, surviving cancer, or gained their wings. Cancer hits our families like Thor’s hammer and from day one we are expected to comprehend and make decisions on our child’s life. It was tough for me not to just cry and so to be able to cope and process all the information, I slipped into work mode. Immediately, I was able to cordon off my mom's brain hysteria and deer in headlights gaze to be able to think through all the information given to me. So what is my work mode you’re asking?
I am a Registered Nurse, specifically in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. This means that the greater part of my 12-year career has been caring for children with cancer and blood disorders. To make things more interesting (read what are the odds) my husband has also spent most of his 16-year career in the same specialty. Our journey is that of a rainbow baby conceived with IUI, born at the beginning of a pandemic to two pediatric cancer nurses, who was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor at 8 months old. Our colleagues had to deliver the diagnosis and care for us. Due to Covid-19 restrictions and our other child, my husband and I were forced to lead separate lives for 10 months.
So this is what my blog and I offer you, dear reader. I have experience caring for families handling a cancer diagnosis of many types for many years. I have experience caring for my child with cancer now.
I know what it’s like to give up your career to care for your child. I witness my husband taking on the full burden of a now one-income family. I struggle with my mental health while supporting positive coping with my eldest child. I find the quiet moments and the crazy times both exhausting and beautiful. All these experiences, professionally and personally, I offer to you as a guide, resource, validation, and hope.
So I leave you with something I’ve always told my families: Every day find and celebrate a good moment, regardless of how big or small, because our child is still a child foremost. My daughter waved goodbye when I said bye to someone today. That is a 9-month-old milestone and she figured it out at 18 months. I cried.
