ParentingTeensOnline observes Breast Cancer Awareness Month by recognizing all the families living with breast cancer and other chronic diseases. Here are the stories of two women struggling to keep life normal for their teens while also battling breast cancer.
When Nancy G, of New York City, left her doctor’s office on a September day three years ago, she didn’t realize she had Stage III breast cancer. She didn’t know that her treatment would include a lumpectomy, a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation over the next ten months. But she did know her situation was serious. And she knew she didn’t want her 17-year-old daughter to worry.
“I tried to make it sound very treatable,” recalls Nancy, a single mother. “I made as light a case of it as I could.”
Helene A., of Brooklyn, NY, took a similar approach when she was diagnosed and began treatment for breast cancer last year. She even went a bit further, joking about her illness and treatment with her husband and children, 15, 19, 22 and 25. She was fine with her 15-year-old son, Steven, calling her a penguin when a chemotherapy medication, Taxol, bothered her legs and made her walk funny. Helene simple bantered back and called him a brat.
“We kept it light, and I think that’s important,” she says. But then she adds in retrospect, “I don’t know if I did such a service to them keeping it light.”
Amelia Rogers 10/10/07
We tend to think that teens are selfish beings and can’t see past their own petty concerns. But it’s more to the point that they are trying to make sense of feelings and situations they haven’t encountered before. I would be interested to see interviews with teens who are dealing with life-threatening conditions, too.
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