| Books for Moms With Cancer | |
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by Laura Dolson
It's instinctive. A mother gets the diagnosis of a serious illness and one of her first thoughts is for her children. Questions begin to bubble up: "Will I be able to take care of them?" "What should I tell them?" and (the worst) "What if I die?" Questions that strike at the deepest fears of every parent. How can a mother negotiate through her own terrors AND help her children cope in the best possible ways?
I'm happy to say that there is expert help out there, and I bring you reviews of one book for parents, and one for children. First, a gift for Mom:
How to Help Children Through a Parent's Serious Illness by Kathleen McCue, M.3A., C.C.L.S.
Kathlenn McCue has helped hundreds of families where a parent has a serious or life-threatening illness - and it shows. This book is not just theory - it is peppered with real children with real parents trying to weather this crisis in the family. Her close observations and keen insights will be a boon for any mom who is concerned about helping her children (in other words, all moms!). She starts out with two key points:
1. Even if the worst happens, children can be supported in a way where they "emerge whole and healthy and ready to go on with life".
2. Even if the parent makes a full recovery, children can be "permanently scarred by a parent's medical crisis".
The goal, of course, is for every child to be in the first category, whatever the outcome for the parent.
The book covers the whole gamut - talking about diagnosis, explaining illness, weathering treatments, hospital stays, homecoming. There is a chapter about chronic illness, and one about coping with dying and death. There is also a chapter that covers special circumstances like single parents, AIDS, mental illness, and hereditary disease (although this chapter has far less depth than the others).
And feelings. All the complex, bewildering, painful feelings that emerge when the person you depend upon most is very sick. McCue emphasizes how to help children continue to feel a sense of security when the center of their world is changing. How to enlist schools and other resources to help with the support. And perhaps most importantly, the warning signs that show things are not going so well with your own child's ability to cope with the situation, and steps to take to avoid a negative spiral. McCue says:
In a family medical crisis, your children inevitably are going to lose some measure of parenting - and children respond very strongly to that particular loss. We can minimize the loss, but we can't make it not exist [...] your job now is to let children know that the anger and fear are okay, are right - and to help them live and thrive beyond these emotions.
There is an abundance of compassion, insight, practical advice, and even some humor in this book. (I especially liked the story of the family that dealt with the news of the father's cancer recurrence by going out into the yard and smashing their leftover Jack O' Lanterns with baseball bats, until they all got very silly and collapsed with laughter.) It's tempting to recount everything the book has to offer, but I can only advise that you get your hands on a copy and read it for yourself.
And now, one for the children:
Our Family Has Cancer, Too! by Christine Clifford
When my 10 year old saw this book, she immediately picked it up, and started reading, probably because the cover engages kids with a comic book style. Her comment: "It's a good thing there are books like this!"
Indeed. This little book (about 6" square and 64 pages, many of them full-page comics or a small amount of text) is written from the viewpoint of a child - as if told by a sixth grade boy with a younger brother whose mother has breast cancer. He tells the story of finding out that his mother has cancer, the questions he had, the talks with his mom. He goes though his reactions to her surgery and treatments, and talks about how his family coped with the changes in his mother. Clearly, humor was one of their main strategies.
This isn't surprising. Clifford, who also wrote the book Not now...I'm Having a No Hair Day: Humor and Healing for People with Cancer, believes in the power of humor and laughter, and it seems this helped to create a family atmosphere where communication could happen through humor. The book is based on how her family made it through the difficult year of her cancer treatments. It's a great book to read together as a family, especially because Clifford has sprinkled the text with notes for parents, set aside in separate boxes. Example: "You may wish to stop now and ask the children what they know about the word cancer." Also, at the front of the book, there is a note to parents where she shares a bit of the history of her own mother's struggle with breast cancer, and the effect it had on the family. She is determined to make a difference for other families.
I recommend this little gem.
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Copyright © 2001 by Laura Dolson. All rights reserved. Please submit reprint requests to gyncancer@baymoon.com
The material on this page and Web site is for informational and educational purposes only, and should not substitute for medical advice. Anyone having questions about the application of information appearing here to a specific person or situation should obtain advice from a qualified physician.