Pockets full of prayers

Telling the kids about cancer and supporting them through their reactions

Gearing up to tell the boys about cancer was agonizing even though it was only about 48 hours from the biopsy result. We decided to work with a social worker to determine when, how, and where to do this. My parents joined us as we plan to attack daily life as a family of six under two different roofs so we can use all the space resources and Love possible to keep Cruz (10) and Koda’s (7) lives as routine as they were when they had two full strength parents. We were hesitant to have the conversation the evening before school started or the evening before soccer practice and the Holy Spirit sent us a little message when I looked down at my phone to see that soccer practice had been canceled the same night as our social worker call. We decided that would be the best window we could have a conversation and then we could do something fun together afterwards.

We gathered the boys after school and said we need to have a family check in. Please come in the living room. I started and explained that they know that I broke my hip and they know that I’ve been taking a lot of tests and going to a lot of doctors appointments to figure out why that happened and to help make it heal and we have learned that the reason it broke is because cancer is back in my body. There were some questions of why and what are we gonna do and to answer this we still had to say we don’t know and the unknown is hard, but we’re gonna do it together. It was hard that I did not have a treatment plan yet to share with them, but it was important to us to feel that we were not hiding anything from them. Even before this conversation, Koda had expressed frustration that I was crutching around and not a fun mom anymore, and Cruz had yelled in my face, “Do not die” on two separate occasions. This is evidence that they are so observant and have great emotional antennas. So we needed them to know that through all of this we don’t plan to hold anything back and whatever we know they will know, and there will be a lot of unknown that we will navigate together.

My dad explained that I would get sick in order to get better that the medicine that I was going to get was going to be hard on my body and they would see me go through changes.

Cruz said “why can’t you just have a surgery again? You should just have a surgery and we should just go to the Florida Keys and go fishing.” That’s what happened the last time when I had my mastectomy and he has very fond memories of being with his Maine grandparents my dad and chandler on that trip from that point on Cruz was fixated on going fishing for the next week all he wanted to do was plan a fishing trip as soon as possible where he could go out on the boat and have some joy and distraction of catching some big fish. (flash forward he was able to catch and cook some big rock fish off of a boat in Santa Cruz the following weekend)

Koda’s reaction was different of course. Koda said “people die from cancer”. I was glad that we had worked with the social worker on our response to this and the way that I responded was, “My doctors are not saying that I am dying”. They are saying we have a plan to shrink and get rid of the cancer cells.

Then Koda stood on the couch dancing around asking. “What color is the cancer? How big is it? Where is it? What does it look like? What shape is it? Can we just pop it? Is there a way that I can just squeeze it to pop it?” and then he started to do a little booty shaking dance, saying well maybe this will work… maybe this is the way to get the cancer out. I told him that I’ll try the booty shaking dance, my doctors will tell me the plan and I would ask my doctor all of his questions. I didn’t have the answer to all of the questions that he was mentioning, but I would do my best to find out.

My mom explained that routines will continue and that we have lots of people supporting us, and that there will still be joyful moments as we go through hard things, she talked about the fact that there would be a new kind of normal.

My dad reminded them that there are a lot of fun things coming up that are very fun, Sports, family birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Your mom is going to get sick before she gets better. To this Koda responded, “so on the inside the chemicals will be working but on the outside you’;; still look the same”

Chandler told the boys that we will need their help too, that there will tasks they can do to help and that we are going to have daily check in’s so that they know everything that is going on at the same time that we know.

At this point Koda checked the clock and said, “well its been 19 minutes are we done with this check in now?” We said we could be done, but we can talk longer now or later if they have more questions. They said, can we play basketball and then go to dinner?

The following week has had moments of Joy. And as we predicted moments of challenge: hard bedtime questions and crying to sleep, not wanting to go to activities, wanting to leave school early…

So many questions have come up since this chat and especially since chemo has started: Why would God let this happen to you? It’s hard on me to have a mom with cancer, I’m just 7 and a half and this is the second time? I don’t like people taking care of me I want my mom to be able to do that. When will this be over? Promise me you won’t die. Are you going to get more sick? Why did this happen, it wasn’t supposed to happen? I guess these hard conversations are good. We have open lines of communication…

All this to say… We want the boys to feel the prayers of our village. My parents feel the prayers, messages, phone calls and visits from friends lifting them up. Chandler and I have constant encouraging text reminders and offers of support. We have said our pockets are full of prayers. my dad mentioned that the boys don’t necessarily know that people are praying for them. Cruz’s soccer coach made a point to ensure that he knows that his family is praying for him, and this lit Cruz up in a special way. Now that you know that they know everything (and they don’t have phones to text so prayers can’t fill their pockets in the same way), please help them feel the ripples - they don’t need things, or treats, but notes and hugs, quality time, and reminders that they are being encouraged, protected and lifted up, and collectively we have Faith and Hope.