Childhood Cancer Survivors, Aren't Invincible

You can tell, from the title what this post is about, but I will tell you why and why it hits so close to home for me. As many of you know my youngest son Keegan was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma 4S as newly turned 3 month old.  The words "your son has cancer" were at the time the most terrifying words I had ever heard.  However, 3 months later when my son was just a freshly turned 6 month old we heard even more scary words "Your sons cancer is spreading, and he will need an 8 hour surgery, and chemo"  When my son was diagnosed I didn't know babies BABIES could have cancer.  I knew preschoolers and older kids got cancer but I didn't know babies could.  For some reason, I just guessed they were immune to that awfulness. How very uneducated I was.  In 9 months time I got a very big education in childhood cancer.  My son had been through 2 surgeries, and 4 cycles of chemo all before being 9 months of age.  He had been in the hospital for 2 fever spikes, and pneumonia.  We had bounced our family from here to there and there to here.  Being separated from my other two children and husband a few times, because someone had to be with Keegan at the hospital and a few times we couldn't all just stay there.  It was a rough emotional time, that nearly killed my marriage and threatened to pitch me into a dark depression.  Thankfully I had a large support group of OTHER childhood cancer families and THEY got me through it.  I read what other families were going through....and I just thought "My God woman, why are YOU complaining?  Things with YOUR son are golden compared to some of these families! YES things are rough for you, but they could be so so so much worse.  Your child could be one of those that are dying right now"  So that pretty well helped me snap out of my bleak days. 

Keegan has done very well the past 4 years.  He's been No Evidence of Disease for 3 years, and all of his scans, and urine labs come back looking normal every time.  Now, obviously I know the realization that at any moment a SINGLE cancer cell could bring our world to a screaming crashing halt but I try to not let that be my focus of life, but it is there in the back of my mind every single day, nagging and trying to eat away at my sunshine, but I don't let it!

Keegan is here, he's a fighter, he's strong.  He can do ANYTHING he wants to do.  However...he's not invincible.

After tornadoes ravaged Moore, Oklahoma this past week and we all heard about Plaza Towers Elementary that was devastated in the tornadoes and the lives of the children that were lost, the stories of these children started to be known.

While all of the  children that died in that tornado, their little precious lives brought to an early end due to one of Mother Natures most deadly disastrous, one child in particular really stood out to me.  A child who had just over come Childhood Cancer.  His name, Christopher Legg, he was 9 years old.  He had been diagnosed with a type of skin cancer, and had just spent all of the previous summer undergoing chemo, and had been bound and determined to make it back to school in August.  He loved football, and seeking justice.  He could have been anything from a great football star, to a top lawyer or anything he wanted to be in this world.  He had over come cancer, and was eager to learn.  His parents probably had that false sense of security (they might not have, but it might have been lingering a bit).  When you have a child faced with a potentially fatal illness such as cancer, you are amazed at their ability to fight through it and even if they don't beat the cancer you see them fight with such spirit and ferocity you didn't know a child so small could possess. You don't TRULY believe your child is "invincible" but with all you have watched your child face, and praying your child doesn't die from cancer, or a cancer related issue (chemo often causes organ failure, and infection from chemo and radiation knocking out the bodies immune system can cause just as many deaths in these children than the actual cancer itself).  But you are warned those things could happen.

I know for me, I'm a worry wart and I constantly worry about all of the "what if's" in life when it comes to raising my children and what could hurt them or what might happen etc etc.  Horrible horrible habit but it's not one I've ever been able to shake.  I send Keegan off to preschool every day, I send Keegan outside to play, we go to the park, he rides on a bus, rides in a car (this summer I am going to try and let all 3 kids and myself ride in a small airplane at the air show in town, I think the kids would LOVE it)  All of those things...are a potential dangerous risk where any of us could die at any moment. You take chances, just walking out the door.

When I send my kids to school...I do not expect to get a phone call that my child has died.  I do not expect a tornado to hit their school, I do not expect my child to die in their school.  I do not expect a shooter to hit their school. As we've all too painfully learned in the past several months...those are all things that CAN and DO happen.  Are they are regular occurrence?  No.  COULD they happen at my child's school? Yes, it's not likely, but it COULD still happen there is at least a 1% chance that something could happen.  I have 3 small children.  I know that if anything SHOULD happen in a car, or at school, I run the risk of losing one of them.  Those are the hard words to type.  But it's true. Devastatingly, painfully true.  While Keegan may have beat childhood cancer....and that is an AMAZING accomplishment, it's logical to understand that he isn't invincible beating cancer doesn't make you immune to other disasters, accidents, illness.

The child is a bit of a dare devil, and it scares the holy living day lights out of me.  He's already crashed into a parked car with his bike, and crashed into a phone pole with his bike (thank GOD for helmets)! He climbs everything and jumps off of everything he is FEARLESS.  I've always said that it won't be the cancer that gets him, it will be something he does on his own (at a MUCH older age!!).  I can see him being a race car driver, or bike racer or something FAST and crazy. He's going to be kind of an adrenaline junky I do believe when he gets older.  He just loves going fast and crazy and full force (cept on the swing set, he's not a fan of swinging too high, which is odd). 

My heart breaks so much for the family of young Christopher, I can imagine their fear and worry during his cancer, and the fear and worry they had during this storm.  Christopher's best friend Haydn stayed right by his side, apparently the two were inseparable.  Apparently, young Hayden made sure he was the one to tell Christopher's parents that their 9 year old son had not made it.  Can you imagine a 9 year old boy shouldering such a painful sentiment back to his best friends family?  He had covered up his best friend, and stayed by his side until rescuers came and pulled him out, and he told them his friend had not made it.  I cannot imagine the pain that child is going to feel for years to come. 

Please, keep all of these children in your thoughts and prayers.  The lives of those lost, and the lives of those surviving children who will be living with the fact that their class mates and friends, did not survive.  I hope this summer can bring some kind of healing to them, somehow. 

I have always said children should never have to know pain and death and suffering.  Children are innocent, an unmarked slate ready to make a mark on the world. But I guess without pain, without suffering we cannot grow, we cannot build on the emotions and relationships we have, and those that we lose.  Life and death, pain and suffering, love and heart ache are a natural part of the world, and it makes us who we are. It can either drive us forward, or hold us back the choice is ours.

Mae