September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. I learned this a couple of weeks ago from a social media post by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. I also learned brain cancer remains one of the top two causes of cancer death among children. I want to share an experience I had at MD Anderson, and ask that you please act on behalf of children with cancer.
Two days after my craniotomy, it was almost time to go home. Before I could be discharged, I had to have one last MRI to make certain there were no complications. I was wheeled into an MRI “staging” area with several other patients as we waited to have our scans. The staging area was cramped with almost no visual or auditory privacy as each patient sat about 10 feet apart. To my right was a little boy, probably 7 to 8 years old, holding a Captain America blanket and sitting on his mom’s lap. He was the cancer patient.
I only sat there for 15 minutes before getting called back, but I doubt I will forget what it was like to hear them talk. I knew what it had been like for me and my family to go through our experience up to that point, and in the moment I got a different perspective. I thought about what it might have been like to go through that as a parent to a child with cancer. I thought about what it might be like for the child. I have thought about these things many times since. One thing I have concluded is I think the children, parents, and families enduring through a pediatric cancer or other serious diagnosis have to be some of the strongest people in the world.
Before my own cancer diagnosis, childhood cancer is not something I really wanted to engage with. It can be upsetting to acknowledge and reflect on the existence of it. But when I was recovering from surgery I thought about that mother and son a lot. Just that very brief exposure to two people living through it made me want to do something, however small my effort might be. I knew the bare minimum about St. Jude, so I learned more. It is an incredible place. I signed up to support their cause and am looking forward to doing more in the future.
I do not plan to use this outlet to ask people to take action very often, but I think this cause deserves it. You may already support St. Jude in one way or another, but if you haven’t yet, please check it out: https://www.stjude.org/
Your support does not have to be in the form of monetary contributions. You can follow St. Jude on social media and help their causes by sharing posts and calls to action. In doing so you might receive a benefit in your own day-to-day life. There were numerous times in the past year that I was inspired or grounded by stories from St. Jude that popped up on my news feeds. Thank you for considering it and for reading.
Nick
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