Football is hardly ever on at my house, but I turned it onto “Thursday Night Football” for some reason. The announcers were talking about the team supporting Cancer and my boy asked “What is that?” Hmm. I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond. I could have said:
I would have just said “OK Google: What is cancer” and she would have read something like:
“Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Cancer develops when the body’s normal control mechanism stops working. Old cells do not die and instead grow out of control, forming new, abnormal cells. These extra cells may form a mass of tissue, called a tumor. Some cancers, such as leukemia, do not form tumors.”
https://www.cancercenter.com/what-is-cancer
I didn’t do that, but I did say something like
“It is something that happens in your body where your cells in your body get sick and it ends up taking your life.”
I told him that is how his Grandma Watson (My mom) passed away. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2007, many years before he was born.
Even though I have had several people near me experience cancer, such as Leukemia, Skin Cancer, Cervical Cancer, Brain Tumors, Colon Cancer, etc. I still feel like I’m pretty uneducated about it. It’s something I see in the news daily. Reading the obituaries and stories about people of all ages dealing with it is heart breaking. When a child is involved it is even worse!
A few days after the football game, we saw a St. Jude Children’s Hospital commercial and he wanted to know if that is where people go with cancer. I don’t know much about St. Jude, but a quick search has revealed that it is a very good place. They do a lot of research on cancer and are dedicated to help children with cancer. If you want to check it out here is a link: https://www.stjude.org/
When my mother was battling her cancer she was the recipient of many units of blood. There were surgeries that required blood or times when she just needed it for some reason or another. I made it a goal of mine to try and donate as often as I could. I have recently been unable to due to some blood pressure issues, but hopefully I will be able again soon. If you can donate, I encourage you to go out and donate. If you can’t, encourage those around you who can. You can learn more here: RedCross. I have also signed up with Be The Match to see if I can help someone. It’s been over 8 years since I’ve done it and I haven’t heard anything.
I definitely need to learn more and help my son learn more. I found this cool site on the St. Jude website where you can send Halloween Jokes to the children of St. Jude. It sounds like fun!
