Our family has been touched by childhood cancer. We have been a fortunate family with good health and good genes. Of course, we’ve had our share of heartbreaks with death and illness, but its always been older people in the family. Never one of the children. When its a child its very different. Its unexpected and our natural impulse is to protect the child. Any of us would rather take her pain than watch her go through it.

I’ve worked with children who had childhood cancer. I’ve seen the suddenness of it and felt the emotional uncertainty and pain of watching a child suffer. Still, its different when its a child you have known as active, healthy, strong and adorable. One day she’s playing, turning cartwheels in her grandmother’s yard. My sister sends pictures of her and her sister playing at Thanksgiving. Then there’s a weekend of emergency room visits and various and sundry diagnoses and medications that don’t stop the symptoms. Then on December 1st, there’s the diagnosis. Leukemia.

With that diagnosis, our family’s world changed.

My world didn’t change as much as my sister’s. Hers not as much as her daughter’s and no one’s world changed as much as Lily’s. But the ripple affect is there all the same. It spreads out and touches everyone who knows them. It spreads like a …. cancer.

I’ve found that I view things a bit differently. I see those little bald children in the commercials on television very differently. They aren’t just little bald children that are someone else’s child. I see their faces more clearly and understand in a way I never did before that they are anyone’s child.

My niece is just 7 years old. Since her diagnosis on December 1st, she has changed from a carefree and innocent little girl to a child dealing with problems any adult would have difficulty dealing with.

The video below is of the 5th birthday of a little boy who was on the same floor in the hospital with Lily. He’s been sick for a year. Today, his family got devastating news. His mother had posted the video on his CaringBridge site and I watched it. I saw a little boy, who just for that day, forgot he had cancer and played with his friends with a broad smile on his face. Like any other child. Full of life and fun and childhood dreams. Knowing the news they got today, I cried for him, for his family and for all the children who are much braver than I could ever be. They truly are heroes.