“(My daughter) and I just had this conversation in the van.
(My daughter): Can I be a Mommy when I grow up?
Me: That’s what we are fighting for, baby girl!
Normally, when a kid says something like this, a parent can just laugh and roll with it. “Sure, kid, you can be anything you want.”
When your 3 year old daughter has cancer and has already had 2 years of chemotherapy and quite a bit of exposure to radiation as a result of many x-rays and CT scans, you know her chances of pregnancy are less. When a future possibility is radiation, you know her chances would be greatly reduced again. When you know the scary side effects from the chemotherapy she’s already received and you know the high chances of having her tumor fight back and need another round of surgery/chemotherapy, thinking as far into the future as adulthood doesn’t happen often.
Many of you see a happy, smiley, normal looking kid. We start to blend into our environment and seem like we are healed. But the above is what runs through our minds during innocent van conversations.
This is childhood cancer.
This is my reality.”
– A Dragonfly Mom
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