Description

Alexandra explains why she believes her struggles with small bowel cancer has made her a better mother and shares how she described her unique chemotherapy side effects to her six-year-old son.

Transcript

How a Patient's Battle with Cancer Made Her a Better Mom You know, since being diagnosed, or prior to being diagnosed I always thought that I was, you know, on top of everything and a real present mom. After the diagnosis, it really made me reevaluate a lot of things that I was doing. I was extremely ambitious. You know, I wanted to go to every single networking, whatever it was, and a lot of times that meant having to get a sitter for my son. You know, he was fine. He was very well adjusted. You know, he didn’t complain, “Mom you are not here”. He was okay because I always had made sure he was, you know, with loving, in a loving environment, but after the diagnosis it just, all that stuff didn’t matter anymore and all that mattered was him, you know, and really pouring all what I would have poured into a job or my career, pouring that same love of energy into him and making sure that I give him all those life lessons that my family, my mom and dad had given me, you know, and passing them down and not waiting until he gets older to tell him some of these things. Telling him now like, you know, if you do this, these are the consequences that are going to happen earlier on. Then later on in life if you continue to do whatever it is, you know, and not waiting until he was older. We did discuss my illness. You know, it was kind of hard to hide. I didn’t have any hair, no eyebrows and, you know, my sister and I would joke that I was drawing them on with a Sharpie, you know, and I got pretty adept with art. And just explaining to him, you know, that the medicine that I have to take to make me feel better made me lose my hair and I had the chemo shiner so I had like the two black eyes and one day he came into the bedroom and I was laying down. I just had a treatment the day before, and he said, “Mommy, who punched you in the face?” I said, “What do you mean.” He goes, “You have two black eyes”, and I go, “No,” I said, “Remember I told you about the medicine, you know, that makes me feel better causes this”, he said, “Well, it’s not making you look better; it’s making you look worse”, and I just laughed but, and he just went on about his business, but you have to find those little moments, you know, to inject some humor into it. I just think cancer was not the worst thing that ever happened to me. It really wasn’t. It made me be more present and I think that women who have gone through this, or any other illness, you would know exactly what I am talking about. You are in the moment. You don’t take anything for granted. You know, you, and I would say don’t sweat the small stuff. You really stop sweating small stuff or the small things that you would blow off, really start to be more endearing. I think it’s made me a better mom because I have to focus not only my health but his, you know, I don’t want him to have to endure what I am going through. So we have changed our eating habits and making sure that we make healthy choices, you know, going forward, where before it was like, “Okay, well yeah, we’ll go through the drive-thru for McDonalds, whatever, you know, happy meal,” but then I started really thinking about that. If he thinks that this is the way to eat, he will grow up with that. So we are just teaching him how to be healthy, teaching him to be thankful for the things that we have and teaching him to always, you know, honor even the small things and be very mindful that we have been very fortunate to be able to still even be here and always being grateful for that. This made me closer to my family; we were always close but I think we have a more greater appreciation for each other. Now, I mean they are my rock and my backbone. I would not have gotten through this if it wasn’t for my parents and my sisters and my nieces and my cousins and my entire family, you know, just sending all that positive energy my way. You know, I just, I think if you have a strong support system it’s important and I do feel for some women that don’t have that and your support system doesn’t have to be people you have blood ties with. It could be your co-workers; it could be your girlfriends. Those people that want to be there for you. It was overwhelming for me, all the love and attention that I got from my family and my friends – they just poured out so much love and emotion to the time that sometimes I just felt so undeserving. It would make me cry and I would just sit there and think, “Oh my god, okay, this is, how am I going to be able to pay them back for all that they’ve done?” You know and then I would tell that and the payback is that you are here – that’s it. You don’t owe us anything. We are honored to be able to come in your time of need and be there because you would do that for us. I know it’s probably odd to say that but cancer wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me, you know?