Mommy's Booby Problem

I've sat down a few times to write about my cancer through Jack and Anna's eyes, but each time I tried, I just closed the laptop and walked away.  I didn't know where to start or how to really convey how much it sucks for a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old to live with their sick mom, the uninvited breast cancer (and all the doctors that came with it), and their dad who really isn't o.k. with it all either.

From the very start, I give credit to the Dana Farber website and my doctors for helping me find age appropriate ways to talk to the kids about what was going on with me, in baby steps, one day at a time. That approach worked pretty well with the early stage of appointments, procedures, and surgeries.  Steve and I sat them both down and reassured them that the doctors were helping me get some bad stuff out of me.  Of course, being inquisitive children, they asked, "where is the bad stuff in you, mommy?" and I pointed to my chest, my right breast, and from that point on, Anna referred to my cancer as "Mommy's booby problem."

Now that things have become more intense with chemotherapy treatments and the related symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and hair loss, the questions have definitely become tougher.  The ability for Jack and Anna to cope with what they see and hear is all the more challenging for them; adding to it is the fact that everything around them is new.  Their house, their yard, their neighbors, their friends are all gone - nothing looks right.  It is really hard to ask your kids to stop yelling and crying, in a 2-bedroom apartment nonetheless, when in actuality, they have every freaking right to hate all this.  In their world, this thing, my cancer, is happening to them.  But, they can't yell at those shitty cells in my body, so Steve and I will have to do.

Jack has asked questions like, "when is this going to be all over?" and "what if you don't get better?" I try to use times I have alone with him to be more specific, provide details in a sequence that hopefully reduces the abstraction.  Last August, when I was sick with viral meningitis, he asked if I was going to die, so I know he has the ability to create doomsday scenarios in his head.  So, I sit there with him, hoping something sinks in, he shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders and in split-second fashion, switches gears and tells me the cool, new Dude Perfect stunt he saw on-line and that Alabama Crimson Tide is SO much better than LSU.  That makes me feel better and here I'm trying to make him feel better.

Anna loves to play hair salon - she really has amassed quite a collection of salon tools.  We usually take turns doing each other's hair.  A couple of days after I got my hair cut short in preparation for chemo, Anna stopped asking to take turns with me.  She just wanted me to do her hair and I didn't push her to do my hair or to tell me why things had changed.  But, recently she said to me, "I want your hair back to the way it was Mommy."  I had to stop myself from saying something that wouldn't make sense to her in that moment and I didn't want to scare her by starting to cry.  I reserve my crying for the bathtub, at about 2am, it works for me.  I asked Anna, "how do you want my hair to look?" and she replied, "long, you know, about to here (she points to her shoulders)."  Knowing that Anna loves to shop, I said to her, "well, let's go see if someone has my hair out there in a store and maybe it will be purple."  This seems like a good fall project, right?

Parenting is constantly adjusting and making it up as you go along.  Cancer is the housemate that has forced us to be even more patient, creative, and spontaneous.  And when we are, those little moments that bring such life, laughter, and love happen.  Spur-of-the moment trips like going out to Fairview Beach (tims2.com) and showing Jack and Anna a little bit of the Redneck Riviera/Parrothead fun that helps mom and dad deal with the insanity of life (Jack seems to be interested in Keno already).  And, our timing was perfect because we just made, in seamless fashion, the pontoon shuttle that Steve worked on almost 20 years ago.  I might have been thinking of my booby problem, but I knew in that moment our kids weren't and that meant the world to me.

And then this happened:

Me: Jack, tomorrow I go for my chemo.
Jack: You get to go to the restaurant tomorrow to play Chemo?!?

Not a bad idea, Jack.  Let's see if I can get my chemo moved to the Keno bar.