Parker Smith
The Fear of the Unknown
A fifteen year old's journey through having a parent with cancer.
What happens when your whole life is changed forever by one sentence?
It was January 9th of last year. We were in the emergency room and I can picture the doctor coming in and saying, “we think your mom has cancer.” I remember instantly going into denial and thinking what do you know, that's outrageous. Then I realized she gets paid a lot of money to know exactly what she's talking about.
It felt as if her words were a fist that had just punched all the air out of my lungs. The room was silent other than the sound of my sister crying. My mom got up and said, “Okay we're done crying about it, what are we gonna do to solve the problem?” The doctor told us about some tests they were going to run in order to figure out exactly what kind of cancer it was, and that she would be back later.
I can’t remember what happened from then until I got home, which was about a three hour period. Me, my sister, and her fiancé, now husband, walked in the door to our house and my sister just started bawling. They hugged and I went to my room to try and get at least a couple of hours of sleep. I had so many things running through my mind that the world seemed to be moving in slow motion. I remember finally making it to my room and I just started crying. I was so exhausted at this point that I just fell asleep with my clothes and shoes still on. I woke up about four hours later, got ready, and went back to the hospital. That day seemed like the longest day of my life. We were just sitting there waiting, minutes felt like hours and hours like days.
Over the period of a week we met my mom's oncologist, learned that she had Hodgkin's lymphoma, and what course of treatment we were going to take. The next Tuesday she had her first chemo treatment. As we walked into the room, I remember thinking that it would smell and just feel like death and sadness, but it was the opposite. I felt at home, which really freaked me out. Who wants to feel at home in a place that should be so sad? It just felt like I belonged there. I was very comfortable and relaxed. It was a big room with probably nine to twelve chairs for patients with a smaller chair for a friend or family member next to it. We started talking to the people around us, and we all talked as if we had known each other forever.
Two months had passed and we were finally halfway through her treatment and it was time for a PET scan that would tell us if the treatment was working. The two days of waiting after the test felt just like the first two days we were in the hospital. The fear of the unknown. The test came back, saying the cancer had shrunk by nearly 50%. A couple months passed and we were at the end of her treatment. There I was again, fearing the unknown. The results of that scan said she was cancer free. It was so exciting! It was like carrying a bag filled with heavy rocks up a mountain and I finally got to take it off and rest.
Then, the doctors reminded us that sometimes one of the side effects of chemo is the potential for a different type of cancer that is resistant to chemo, such as leukemia, which is the sixth most deadly cancer.
I have kept the thought of this in the back of my mind since July. I have a tendency to push people away when I am fearful that they might leave or die. I separate myself as much as possible from this person just in case something does happen. I realized the other day that I have unintentionally been doing this to my mom as a security tactic. I have let my grades drop, stopped doing my chores, and even started playing with her head and emotions by telling her that her punishments were making my life easier and that I enjoyed being grounded.
I realized that like the days we were waiting for results from the tests, I was living my life with the fear of the unknown. This mentality is okay for maybe a day or two at a time, but if you are constantly thinking about it it’s not even living. Every second is unknown, we can make educated guesses for what's going to happen, but none of us truly know what will. We have to live in the moment, love on the people we are with, look at the things we do know, and forget about the things we don't.
It was January 9th of last year. We were in the emergency room and I can picture the doctor coming in and saying, “we think your mom has cancer.” I remember instantly going into denial and thinking what do you know, that's outrageous. Then I realized she gets paid a lot of money to know exactly what she's talking about.
It felt as if her words were a fist that had just punched all the air out of my lungs. The room was silent other than the sound of my sister crying. My mom got up and said, “Okay we're done crying about it, what are we gonna do to solve the problem?” The doctor told us about some tests they were going to run in order to figure out exactly what kind of cancer it was, and that she would be back later.
I can’t remember what happened from then until I got home, which was about a three hour period. Me, my sister, and her fiancé, now husband, walked in the door to our house and my sister just started bawling. They hugged and I went to my room to try and get at least a couple of hours of sleep. I had so many things running through my mind that the world seemed to be moving in slow motion. I remember finally making it to my room and I just started crying. I was so exhausted at this point that I just fell asleep with my clothes and shoes still on. I woke up about four hours later, got ready, and went back to the hospital. That day seemed like the longest day of my life. We were just sitting there waiting, minutes felt like hours and hours like days.
Over the period of a week we met my mom's oncologist, learned that she had Hodgkin's lymphoma, and what course of treatment we were going to take. The next Tuesday she had her first chemo treatment. As we walked into the room, I remember thinking that it would smell and just feel like death and sadness, but it was the opposite. I felt at home, which really freaked me out. Who wants to feel at home in a place that should be so sad? It just felt like I belonged there. I was very comfortable and relaxed. It was a big room with probably nine to twelve chairs for patients with a smaller chair for a friend or family member next to it. We started talking to the people around us, and we all talked as if we had known each other forever.
Two months had passed and we were finally halfway through her treatment and it was time for a PET scan that would tell us if the treatment was working. The two days of waiting after the test felt just like the first two days we were in the hospital. The fear of the unknown. The test came back, saying the cancer had shrunk by nearly 50%. A couple months passed and we were at the end of her treatment. There I was again, fearing the unknown. The results of that scan said she was cancer free. It was so exciting! It was like carrying a bag filled with heavy rocks up a mountain and I finally got to take it off and rest.
Then, the doctors reminded us that sometimes one of the side effects of chemo is the potential for a different type of cancer that is resistant to chemo, such as leukemia, which is the sixth most deadly cancer.
I have kept the thought of this in the back of my mind since July. I have a tendency to push people away when I am fearful that they might leave or die. I separate myself as much as possible from this person just in case something does happen. I realized the other day that I have unintentionally been doing this to my mom as a security tactic. I have let my grades drop, stopped doing my chores, and even started playing with her head and emotions by telling her that her punishments were making my life easier and that I enjoyed being grounded.
I realized that like the days we were waiting for results from the tests, I was living my life with the fear of the unknown. This mentality is okay for maybe a day or two at a time, but if you are constantly thinking about it it’s not even living. Every second is unknown, we can make educated guesses for what's going to happen, but none of us truly know what will. We have to live in the moment, love on the people we are with, look at the things we do know, and forget about the things we don't.