Captain Chemo

A mother’s worse nightmare is, perhaps, the death of a child. But a serious illness with an uncertain future is, perhaps, more frightening.

This is the case of a friend of my friend, Beth.

A few weeks ago, she had a perfectly healthy almost-five-year-old Buzz Lightyear fanatic. In the span of a week, her son lost the ability to walk and was diagnosed with Stage IV Ewing’s Sarcoma; the placement of the cancer? A tumor in his back and the bone marrow.

It escapes my ability to reason how something like this happens. How is it that a child has to understand what it means to be in a hospital, undergo surgery, chemo, and radiation?

Her son had surgery, and doctors were able to remove 90% of the tumor in his back. When the tests came back, they discovered it was also in his bone marrow, and so began Captain Chemo’s — as he is lovingly being called– journey in battling cancer.

My heart breaks. It started tearing at the seams when she first posted about him crying at night and being told it was just “night terrors,” and then it tore some more when she was told it was a possible kidney infection. But when they discovered the tumor, and when he was diagnosed, then, it really broke apart. And he’s not my son. But he could be.

At my baby shower, my friend was there with baby Aaron, two months old. When my son was born, while on maternity leave, we went to Sawgrass Mall and roamed around with the kids in the stroller (Aaron is four months older than L), and we even sat on a bench outside of Target and nursed. And I want to ask, illogically, aren’t kids who are breastfed immune to this?

Four years later, she’s going through what can possibly be the hardest thing she’ll have to go through, and my heart breaks for her and her husband and for their family.

I do the only thing I can do: I pray, hard. Because little Aaron has to beat this. There’s just no other option.

I believe in the power of prayer and positive thought. So I’m bringing this to the blog world. This is Aaron, before the nightmare began.

Please pray for him (or, if you don’t pray, please send good, positive thoughts his way), so he beats this, so he remains the happy little boy he is.

Please pray for his mommy and daddy who need all the strength they can get to maneuver their way through this nightmare.

I’m on Team Aaron all the way….