My Beautiful Angels

Many people have thoughtfully inquired as to how Luke and Kyle are faring through this whole ordeal, and the answer is that I think that they are doing fabulous!! Kyle is only 19 months old and so he is fairly ego-centric and oblivious. As far as he is concerned, as long as someone is around to feed him, ohh, about every 8 minutes or so and as long as he gets to run around creating mischief and as long as he sees Pete or I every once in awhile during the day for hugs and kisses, he is completely fine. Luke, on the other hand is 5 going on 15, and so is clearly more aware of what is going on. But overall, he seems to be handling things great. His routine hasn't changed much, other than the fact that his grandparents or our nanny now do some of the things (like walking him to school or making his dinner) that I used to do. But I have tried my best to keep our times together as normal as possible, so as far as he knows the medicine is not really doing much of anything to me other than making me a bit more tired. Every so often he'll ask me if the tumor is gone yet and I tell him that it's getting smaller but probably not gone quite yet. And so he makes his hands into tiny little fists and pretends to punch my stomach so that he can knock out the tumor. How can I not LOVE his fiesty little spirit??

Luke did ask me the other night whether people with my kind of cancer ever die. I nearly fell off the couch when he asked me this and the only thing that I could think to say at the moment was "No, sweetie, they don't." Yikes! Nothing like telling your child a flat-out LIE! He then responded, "Well, some cancers cause people to die, though, right?" Where the heck is he learning this stuff?? "Yes," I replied, "some cancers can make people die." I then paused, feeling guilty about my earlier blatant lie and decided to "correct" myself by saying "Actually, Luke, the cancer that I have does make some people die but only if they don't take their medicine or if they don't go to the doctor. That is why it was so important a few weeks ago for Mommy to find the right doctors and get started on my medicine." Luckily, that seemed to appease him and he moved onto the next topic.

Anyway, I mention this because I know that some of you who are reading this blog have interactions with Luke and/or have interactions with children who he interacts with (e.g., his classmates or playdates) and so I ask that you please be careful of what you say when Luke or other children are present, since death and dying are obviously scary and confusing subjects for children this age...and the thought of having to talk about death and dying with my child is scary to me!!