Cancer: the ugliest, cruelest, harshest word in the English language. There is nothing worse than hearing a loved one say, “I have cancer,” especially a parent. In December of 2014, my mom sat me and my siblings down to deliver the news that has forever changed our lives—she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her roller coaster ride of a journey, battling breast cancer, did not just take her along with it, everyone in my family was deeply affected by her illness. As a child of someone with cancer a whirlwind of emotions will consume you but no one will understand.
You are angry with everything and everyone.
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There is nothing more infuriating than watching helplessly as someone you love suffers. For your entire life your parents have given you everything you needed, loved you unconditionally, and the one thing you want to do most for them, you can’t. You can’t take the cancer away from them, you can’t stop the hair from falling out of their head, you can’t even tell them everything’s going to be okay—because the truth is, you don’t know if that’s the case. You’ll want to scream, punch the wall, and curse God, why would He do this to your family? You are ticking time bomb, waiting to explode on the next person that tells you ‘it’s going to be okay’, because they don’t know that. What if it’s not?
There is a never-ending feeling of guilt.
The question of “why couldn’t it have been me?” will pop into your head at least three times a day. You will want nothing more than to take the pain away from them, and will constantly be consumed with guilt for being the healthy one. If you go out and have fun, you feel guilty for leaving them sick in a hospital bed. If you awake in the middle of the night and hear them moan out of pure pain, you feel guilty for sleeping comfortably. If you look away as a needle slips into their arm to take the pain away from them, you will feel guilty for being a coward – they’re the sick one, and you can’t even watch. You’ll cry as you watch them shave their heads, and forget how absolutely beautiful they are, but will feel guilty for having a full head of hair. Everything you do, every memory they miss out on, you will feel guilty.
You feel neglected, followed by more guilt.
You will constantly feel in the shadow of your parent’s cancer. You can graduate high school or be admitted into a prestigious university and the first thing people will still say to you is “I hope (insert parent’s name here) is feeling better.” You will feel like your accomplishments are not recognized but only for a brief moment, then the guilt will once again consume you. How can you think such awful things? How can you envy someone with cancer? Those terrible feelings of neglect, will make you hate yourself.
You know the hospital layout like it’s the back of your hand.
After sitting in a hospital waiting room for what seems like days, just to hear an update on how your parent’s surgeries went, you learn a lot. For instance, you will know which café has the softest chocolate chip cookies and which one has the worst salads. You know which chair is the closest to an outlet and which TV plays your favorite news channel. You will learn which nurse is the nicest, and which one to avoid. You meet people who are going through a similar crisis, and pray that their loved one makes it out alive. Those people in the waiting room become your family for a day. The hospital becomes a second home, and for brief moment you’ll forget the pain and suffering that occurs there.
You become aware of just how many people loved you (and your family).
You’ll come home from school every day and someone will have dropped off a new home-cooked meal. Your extended family will start coming around more. Your entire community will surround your family with love and send their condolences. Your house will constantly smell likes flowers, but that’s okay, they make your mom/dad smile. Your living room will be filled with old friends, reminiscing about old times. You will see your parent laugh, and for a moment everything will seem normal.
You feel like you have no one to talk to.
Literally no one understands. It feels like not a single person in whole entire world will get what you’re going through. No one will realize how terrified you are of losing your parent or the amount suffering you go through watching your parent battle cancer. They won’t get that you can’t go out all the time because it’s your turn to take care of your mom/dad. They don’t realize that you don’t want to go out all the time because you’re petrified by the thought that they might not be there when you get back. Not a single person seems to understand the whirlwind of emotions that consume-- so you bottle them.
More often than not you’ll cry yourself to sleep.
You will tell yourself more often than not to be strong. You refuse to cry in front of your parents to show you’re mature enough to handle this crisis. You won’t cry in front of our siblings because you need to be strong for them. You will put up a front and tell everyone “mom/dad is doing great,” later that night you will climb into bed and cry. It won’t be a few tears either, you will sob. You will cry until you hyperventilate and your body tingles. You will shove your face into a pillow so no one hears you until you become exhausted. Sleeping becomes an escape to your never-ending horror story.
You realize just how amazing both your parents are.
You’ll watch your parent with cancer go through hell and back. They will make fighting this deadly disease look easy. They will ease your pain as they sit in excruciating agony themselves. They will dismiss the evil thoughts of you losing them with a lighthearted joke. They are the strongest person you know, but you can’t forget your other parent. They sacrifice their job, time, and money to ensure that your life changes minimally as your mom/dad battles cancer. They are sleep-deprived, but won’t accept help. They take on the role of both parents with no complaints. In your eyes they are Superman.
