Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Hannah did well today, and the only side effects from this last round appear to be a bit of tiredness. We left school early today, and she was very tired for Mrs. V, her tutor. She went to bed at 6pm tonight, right after she ate only an ear of corn for dinner. Otherwise, she has been her normal happy self today.

I have struggled on whether I wanted to include this poem here, but have finally decided to include it. I don't know who the author is, but I read it on an online group for pediatric brain tumors. This life is very hard to explain sometimes, so most of the time when people ask you how it's going, you can only respond "ok". It is not a rosy poem, it's a quick glimpse into the life of a child who has cancer. These words are so true, although not that nice to hear. If you would rather skip it, I understand. Maybe not the best for young kids to read either. I certainly HOPE it will never be anything any of you will ever have to hear. We need a cure for this awful childhood disease so that no other child will suffer this way.

xoKim

I HOPE YOU NEVER UNDERSTAND

I hope you never have to hear the words
“Your child has cancer”.
I hope you never have to hear
“The prognosis is not good”.
I hope you never have to watch your child
prepare to undergo chemo,
have a “port” surgically implanted in their chest,
be connected to an IV pole,
look at you with fear in their eyes and say,
“Mommy will it be okay?”

I hope you never have to hold your child while they vomit green bile.
I hope you never have to feed them ice chips for lunch.
I hope you never have to watch the “cure” you pray for
slowly take away your child’s identity, as they,
lose their hair,
become skeletal,
develop severe acne,
become barely able to walk or move,
and look at you with hope in their eyes and say,
“Mommy will it be okay?”

I hope you never have to stay in the hospital for weeks at a time,
where there is no privacy, sleeping on a slab, your face to the wall,
where you cry in muffled silence.
I hope you never have to see a mother,
alone, huddled in a dark hospital corridor,
crying quietly,
after just being told “there’s nothing more we can do”.


I hope you never have to watch a family
wandering aimlessly,
minutes after their child’s body has been removed.
I hope you never have to use every bit it energy you have left,
with all of this going on around you
to remain positive, and the feelings of guilt, sorrow, hope and fear overwhelm you.
I hope you never have to see your child’s head bolted to a table
while they receive radiation.

I hope that you never know what it is like to take your child home,
(grateful but so afraid)
in a wheelchair because the chemo has damaged their muscles,
35 pound lighter,
pale, bald and scarred.
And they look at you with faith in their eyes and say,
“It’s going to be okay Mom.”

I hope you never have to face the friends that have stuck by you and hear them say,
“Thank God it’s all over”
because you know it will never be over.
Your life becomes a whirl of doctors, blood tests and MRI’s,
and you try to get your life back to normal
while living in mind-numbing fear that any one of these tests could result in hearing the dreaded words:
“The cancer has returned”.

I hope you never have to experience any of these things.
Because only then
Can you really understand.