When Mom Has Cancer: How My Son Gave Me the Strength to Survive

When I was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the first words out of my mouth were, “What will happen to my son?”

As a single mother of a five year old, my diagnosis was earth shattering on more than one level. The paralyzing terror I felt at the mere idea of not surviving was rooted strongly in my worry about his well-being. When I found out that I was stage one and that my cancer was curable, I felt so much relief. I am lucky, some parents are not as lucky as I am.

But I was still faced with the harsh reality of knowing my son was going to see this entire process up close and personal. It killed me, and still does, to know that his childhood has this dark cloud hanging over it. I tried as much as I could to shield him from the worst. When my hair started falling out, we buzzed it into a mohawk, and let him put blue hair dye in it. He thought it was absolutely wild that he got to do that and it turned such a traumatic experience into something that he could have fun with.

I remember the social worker at my oncologist's office sending me home with those children’s books about cancer. Reading those to him helped his understanding and that was how I broke the news to him. Being as small as he was, he didn’t fully understand. I thought my heart was going to rip in half that day. I came across those books a few weeks ago and I had to shove them in a closet. I can’t even look at them now without feeling like I’m falling down a tunnel. One bonus about him being so small is that the word cancer didn’t have the same connotations for him as it does for older kids and adults. So that was one bright spot.

Having to see your child watch you go through chemotherapy and fight for your life is something no parent ever wants to endure.

But my son gave me strength.

Sometimes I look back on my treatment, a grueling six rounds of DA-EPOCH-R, and I know that he was the one that got me through it. There were so many days I was in agony that getting out of bed seemed not only pointless but not a reality. But then he would come bouncing into my room and I could see how much it really mattered to him that I get up. So I would. I would find some untapped pool of sheer willpower I didn’t know I had left and I would get myself up. Even if I could just hold it together while he got ready for preschool and walk him up to the door. If I dragged myself off the couch to help my mom (our caregiver and life support) with his bath, I could see the relief in his little face. I could see his worry when I wouldn’t get up so I tried as hard as I could to not let him see the worst of how I felt. And that drive made me stronger and helped me from falling into a puddle of depression.

He needed to see me fight to do those daily mundane tasks. He needed to see his mom was still standing.

Sometimes I’m not sure I would have made it through without my love for him pushing me every step of the way. The pain, the hopelessness, the depression, and the constant sickness was a daily battle. It would have been so much easier, some days, to just succumb to my bed and not even get up. To just lay down and wallow in all the misery I was feeling physically and mentally.

But as a mother, I could not do that. I could see how much it scared him when I would just lay in bed so I would force myself to sit up. To drag myself to the living room and sit on the couch. Such small steps but they meant so much to him.

The courage my son gave me, along with the strength, was my driving force for getting through my cancer battle with the optimism I did have. From the beginning, for every surgery, biopsy, or test I used him as my motivation to move forward. I told myself that I had to do this because I needed to do it for him. He needed me and I needed to have the courage to make sure I did everything I needed to do so that he would not lose his mother.

It’s amazing how your children can help you find courage you never knew you had.