Moms Don’t Get Sick

When you become a parent, you realize that you would give your life for that little baby. Protecting them is an overwhelming duty that you immediately gain and that pressure can be frightening. You imagine having to lift cars or reenact the movie Taken. You never imagine keeping yourself alive would be your biggest battle for your kids.

I had my first baby at 22 and that’s when my dream job began. I loved being a mama and caring for my little nuggets. I loved watching them hit new milestones, become their own little person, and thrive everyday. It is so cliche to say but they really did show me my purpose in life was being their mom. So when I was driving home with earth shattering information, I thought about my babies immediately. All their lives, I had been their mommy and their person. What if I couldn’t be that anymore? How do you tell your babies that you’re sick?

We had gone back and forth with what to tell them or if we even should tell them. I had told a dozen people by now but I still was not prepared for this. Sam and I went into the girls room where they were watching tv on the floor. We sat down in front of them and said we needed to talk. The girls were no stranger to mommy having trouble with her boobies. I had been in the hospital for it once before and had numerous clogs while breastfeeding Bo. Mommy being sick was unfortunately not a new thing but it was about to be a much bigger thing.

I looked at them and said “you know how mommy has a boo boo boobie?”. I was answered with nods from them both. I continued…”well mommy’s boobie is making mommy sick. I am going to have to get some medicine for me to feel better but the medicine is going to make mommy feel yucky for awhile. Mommy and Daddy want you to know we love you and if you have any questions to always ask us”. Then came the question that would break me. Maggie looked at me and said “mommy, why are you crying?”. I quickly said “I’m not crying” but then decided against that and answered with “you know what, I am crying because I love you so much and it’s okay to cry. If you ever feel like crying you should”. The girls again nodded and claire finally said “okay, can we turn the tv back on?” in true Claire fashion. I laughed and was brought back to the reality that this conversation was more for Sam and I than for them.

Even though they didn’t fully understand what we were telling them, the conversation became one of the hardest things we had to do as parents. We stood up and left the room but as I closed their door I looked at Sam and realized it was finally hitting us. This was actually happening. I had cancer and we didn’t know how bad it was. I had been “fine” only days before. We had been planning what we would do when he finished residency in July. We had been discussing our Thanksgiving plans and what the theme would be for Bo’s first birthday. We were now telling our two young children that mommy was sick and we honestly didn’t know if we would have to one day tell them that mommy wasn’t going to get better.

Sam and I held each other for a very long time as horrible thoughts rushed through my head. Bo was 11 months old and if I couldn’t beat this diagnosis he would grow up not remembering me. Maggie and Claire would have such few memories of me. If the cancer had spread and I was no match for it, I would have to look at my three babies and say goodbye.

Fuck that.

I was NOT saying goodbye. I decided to say take my boobs cancer but you will NOT take me away from my family. I would see my babies grow up. I would be at every birthday, every holiday, and every single day for much longer than this cancer wanted. I would grow old with my best friend and be the couple on the front porch in the rocking chairs. Saying goodbye was NOT an option.

People have seen me through this journey and said that I do it with such positivity and I am so strong. It’s not easy to do it that way. Choosing to fight and not let this completely destroy me, not only physically but emotionally, was the hardest decision I had ever made. The easy choice was to cry, to scream, to let the cancer consume me completely. All of that is terrifying but to me all of that was not as scary as my overall greatest fear, leaving my babies. I refuse to do that so the only way to handle this is to be bigger than it all and beat it.

Maggie, Claire, and Bo may never know they played an enormous part in this fight for my life but they will also never know what it is like to say goodbye to their mother at such a young age. There is no saying goodbye.