Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul (6 page)

What I really know now is that we never really know. So now when I wake up, I am grateful for whatever time I have. I feed the birds and stray cats. I pick flowers and plant some. I call my sisters and friends. I help Rachel with her homework. I feel stronger each day. “Hope” is the word, I guess; that is so important now. If I have hope, I can do my best to do all I need to do to get well.

Mary L. Rapp

Kids with Cansur

C
hildren have a remarkable talent for not taking the adult world with the kind of respect we are so confident it ought to be given. To the irritation of authority figures of all sorts, children expend considerable energy in “clowning around.” They refuse to appreciate the gravity of our monumental concerns, while we forget that if we were to become more like children our concerns might not be so monumental.

Conrad Hyers

The setting remains vividly etched in my memory: My husband, Craig, and I are sitting in a brightly sunlit consultation room at the Mayo Clinic. A children’s cancer specialist opposite us delivers as compassionately as possible the devastating news that our six-year-old son has a particularly deadly form of advanced cancer. Craig and I look at each other in shock, then I ask tearfully, “Is Jason going to die?” The doctor offers a somber reply.

Years have passed, yet I can still hear those words, the doctor’s grave tone, his hesitation before answering, “If I am to be honest, I have to tell you... probably yes.”

I suppose it’s natural for parents to avoid thinking the unthinkable. Who imagines that their home will be invaded and their child abducted by this vicious intruder? Certainly I didn’t. Children’s cancer, I thought, happens only to those wonderful, strong women canonized in the
Ladies’ Home Journal.
At the time of Jason’s diagnosis, I had never known anyone, adult or child, with cancer. I was a housewife and mother of four, one an infant daughter; Craig, a hardworking husband and father. We were a typical, close-knit family from rural Worthington, Minnesota. Our son’s sickness crashed into our lives like a flaming meteor through the roof of our cozy home. To say we felt unprepared and overwhelmed is an understatement. Our son didn’t die. Two grueling years of intensive chemotherapy, radiation and surgery—not to mention our flooding heaven with prayers—saved his life. Today, Jason is a healthy, active teenager, a loyal Dan Marino and Larry Bird fan who rattles the walls of our home with rock music. He is also the author of
My Book for Kids with Cansur.
(The title’s misspelling was as close as he could come at the time.) Jason wrote it toward the end of his medical treatment, when he seemed well on the way to recovery.

I remember the two of us curled up on a sofa one afternoon, flipping through a children’s book about cancer, written by a young patient. As in several others we’d read together on the subject, at story’s end the little boy died. “What a terrible book!” Jason fumed. “Why do they always write books and make movies and stuff about kids who die? Didn’t they ever hear about somebody like me, who had cancer and grew up and lived? Why don’t they write a book about that?”

Stuck for an answer, I suggested, “Maybe you ought to write your own book, Jason,” never dreaming that he actually would.

“Well,” he said with a huff, “maybe I ought to.”

Several months later, I was washing dishes when Jason bounded into the kitchen. “Here it is,” he said as he casually handed me his “book,” scrawled in a yellow spiral notebook. I admit, I’d expected some cutesy, silly little thing; nothing too profound. But as I turned the pages, tears streamed down my face. “If you get cansur, don’t be scared,” my son advised, “cause lots of people get over having cansur and grow up without dying.” I found it remarkable that a child could possess such insight about a disease many adults struggle to understand.

That night I gave it to my husband to read. Closing the cover, Craig wondered aloud, “Wouldn’t it be something if we could get this into the hands of other mothers and fathers who are just starting down the path we’re finishing up?” If our son’s surviving cancer had taught us any lesson, it was that nothing is impossible.

You’d be amazed at your resiliency when your child’s welfare is at stake. I love it when people say to me now, “Gee, Geralyn, you’re such a strong person. I could never survive something like that.” Of course they could. As parents, you do whatever you have to for your ailing child. You don’t have a choice! Our family’s story is by no means one of heroism, just of human beings’ remarkable ability to adapt and survive.

If there was one mistake my husband and I made, it was not realizing how a child’s cancer impacts every family member, and that each has his or her own capacity to cope. Relatives, friends, teachers and co-workers all feel the profound effects of a youngster’s catastrophic illness.

Cancer researchers have made enormous and rapid progress, especially in the field of childhood cancers. Had Jason been stricken 20 years earlier, he almost certainly would have died within a matter of weeks. In the mid–1960s, only one in five kids survived cancer, as opposed to one in three by the mid-1980s. Like most parents of children with cancer two decades before, we would have been gently advised to prepare for our son’s imminent death. Today’s cure rate has reached an all-time high of more than two in three, with recent medical advances further supporting hopes for a child’s recovery.

Reprinted with permission from Harley Schwadron.

It takes love and faith to emerge from such an experience intact, and it’s not easy. I must tell you that when this happened to Jason and our family, I thought our lives would always center around his disease and could never, ever be pieced back together again. But as time passed, that proved not to be the case. Our lives have evolved and we realized we were not alone. People do withstand this crisis. There can be life after children’s cancer. We are proof of that.

Geralyn Gaes

Cancer Has Been a Blessing

Y
ou gain strength, courage, and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“I want you to know right now, don’t try to save my breast and put my life in danger, I can live without a breast.” I said those words to my oncologist when diagnosed with breast cancer.

I received this diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer when I was 38 years old. This is a rare and very aggressive type of breast cancer. It accounts for only 1 to 6 percent of all breast cancers and it has a very high rate of recurrence. I was told the doctors could treat me with chemotherapy and put me in remission for probably three to five years. Most likely after the remission, I would have a recurrence, and at this time they know of nothing that can eradicate the cancer. I told the oncologist I wanted the best treatment for my disease that he knew of. I was willing to do anything. Three to five years’ remission was
not
acceptable to me. My doctor told me of this aggressive protocol that was being used at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston that he would recommend for this type of breast cancer.

The protocol required that I have strong chemotherapy for three days a week, every other week for four cycles. Then I would be admitted to Dana Farber for very high doses of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. I would then need to have a modified radical mastectomy followed by six weeks of radiation. Needless to say, I was in shock. I knew this was going to be bad, but I never expected it to be this bad. When he said I needed a bone marrow transplant, I knew my cancer was more serious than I had thought.

After I was diagnosed by the surgeon and before I consulted with an oncologist, I took my then five-month-old granddaughter for many walks in her carriage. We walked and I talked to her. When I was outside with her, I could think more clearly, and I made many decisions while with her. She may have only been a baby, but she was a great listener and I decided then that I could not keep on crying, asking God, “Why me? Why now?” It would have been very easy to feel sorry for myself, but I realized all those thoughts were not productive. I realized that I had to face this head on and fight for the chance to be a part of my granddaughter’s life for many years to come. I told her that I was not going to go anywhere and that her “Grammy” was going to be here for her. She is one of the major reasons that I was prepared to fight and willing to do all that I could to beat this cancer. When the doctor asked me if I would be willing to go through this very difficult protocol, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

After a consultation at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and acceptance into its protocol, I began chemotherapy in July of 1993. In November, I entered Dana Farber for the high-dose chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. Fortunately, I didn’t have too many serious side effects from the transplant and I came home on Thanksgiving. I had set a goal for myself to be home with my family for my favorite holiday of the year. After recovery, I had a modified radical mastectomy early in January of 1994. At that time the pathology on my breast and lymph nodes came back with
no residual cancer cells.
This was the best news we could have hoped for. I then had six weeks of radiation. In April, I finished the protocol and in June went back to work after being on sick leave for a year.

Cancer has changed me in many ways. My whole outlook on life is so much clearer now. I didn’t realize how much I took health and life for granted until I thought mine was in jeopardy. Now every day is a gift and I am grateful that I have this time. When you have had cancer, your future is so uncertain. I faced the fact that I might die before I reach old age; therefore, I need to make the most of the time I have now. I appreciate my life so much more now that I have had cancer.

I also realize how strong I am, even though I never thought of myself that way. So many people tell me how strong and courageous I have been through all this and now, as I look back on it, I realize I did what I had to do to survive, as would most people. I didn’t think of it as courage that made me do what I had to do, I thought of it as survival. But now that I can look back and reflect, I realize that it did take strength and courage to face cancer the way in which I did—courage and strength that I didn’t know I had.

One of the most important aspects of my life that helped me conquer breast cancer is a loving and supportive family. Without them, I am not sure what my outcome would have been. I had so much to live for and was not ready to leave them yet, and I was not ready for them to go through life without me. I wanted to be a part of their lives for many years to come. Knowing that they were all there for me, supporting me, helped me to get through all the treatments and all the hard times when I wanted to give up. They were my source of strength and support, my motivation and inspiration.

One day, if any of them are faced with the same diagnosis, they will do the same. I hope that I set an example for them and that I have inspired them. I also hope that they gained knowledge and strength from my experience. I strive to help other people who have to go through this same procedure, to give them information and educate them about this treatment. It helps to know that someone else may benefit from my experience. My mother taught me that everything happens for a reason. She feels that I was given cancer so that I could help someone else. Today, that is my mission, to help others get through this and to look at me and think,
If she got through breast cancer and survived, then I can, too.

Cancer is such a dreaded disease and it has robbed us all of so many wonderful people. I have lost a grandfather, two aunts and a cousin—all to cancer. Even though it was terrible to lose them, it also gave me strength. I saw what they all went through and it made me stronger. I was determined not to go through what they had gone through.

The day before I went to Dana Farber for the high-dose chemotherapy and the bone marrow transplant, I went to the cemetery to visit my cousin, who was just four years older than I when she died just a few weeks earlier. I knelt at her grave and vowed to her that I would go to Dana Farber and get through this transplant for her as well as for me. I know that if she could have gone through what I was about to, she would have done it willingly if it meant she would live. When she died, people worried about me, but I told them all that I was going to gain strength from her death because she was an inspiration to me when I was diagnosed.

While I would never want to go through a cancer diagnosis again, it does not seem so frightening to me now. I have learned that you can battle cancer and win. Although cancer is terrible, for me it has also been a blessing. I am stronger and better now. I have so much self-confidence and faith in myself now. I now know that I can do anything. I can face anything that is thrown at me. I just have to face it head on and take it one day at a time.