Part 1: Living with a cancer parent and keeping sane...

Well, I guess this story starts in 2011, March 24th. That's around the time my Mum found out she had stage 3 breast cancer.

Let's go back in time…I was just finishing a day of school, happy as you please, to find my mother crying in the car where she was waiting for me and my little brother.

She was on the phone, and I had this inkling that something was wrong. My mom never cried, at least not from sadness. So something was wrong. By this time I'd known that she'd been going to tests, and seeing all kinds of doctors. But my mind never crossed to what was actually happening.

My mum had cancer, and in that one blazing hot afternoon, my life changed.

I'm good with words, which makes this kind of easy to write. But ask me to tell you verbally how I felt at that moment would  be an impossible feat for me.

That night my mom sat me down and asked me how I felt about the 'situation'. I shrugged, because to tell you the truth, it hadn't really sunk in by then. I'm still a little foggy about what happened after that day.

Did I go to school the next day? I can't remember.

What I can remember is that when it finally hit me, I was left breathless, with burning eyes and a running nose. "Oh, God, my Mom has cancer. My Mom is sick. Cancer kills!" Those words ran through my mind relentlessly. And I couldn't stop them. I ran out of class and began crying. I'd never been so humiliated in my life...

Skipping on six months, I was still a little shell shocked. Mom had seen doctors, she'd been given her treatment plan and I'd gone to school looking like a zombie. I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself, so I did the only thing that I could. I wrote. I holed myself up in my room and wrote into the absurd hours of the morning until I was so emotionally drained that I just fell asleep, with my laptop still on.

Needless to say my school work began to suffer from late nights of insomnia, my workload piling up and all the worries about my mom.

When her treatment began I started caring less about school, and more about her.

Mom hated when I missed school, so I went to please her. But when I sat in class, all I could think about was my mom and how she was doing with her treatment. I had to coach myself to say 'Dad's with her. She's fine.' All the while I sat in class and stared out the window. And that's when people began noticing my silence.

The first time I told anyone about my mom's cancer, I was with my two best friends. When I'd finished telling them, I began crying. And ever since then the crying hasn’t stopped. Without my knowing, my mom stared emailing my teachers, telling them of the cancer and that she wanted them to keep an eye on me. I started noticing the careful looks, and questions, until I finally found out what was happening. Suddenly everyone was looking at me differently.

Suddenly I was that kid with a cancer parent.

I guess I started pulling away from my friends right about that time. Sure, I still went with them to movies and had sleepovers. But somehow it wasn't the same anymore. I felt numb inside. I laughed and smiled and pretended to “LOVE LIFE!” when in fact I was dying a little inside each day from thinking about my mom and her cancer. Everyone kept telling me stories of their grandparents who'd had cancer, and who'd survived. There were always some who didn't too. I wasn't feeling too good around this time, so I pulled away some more and mostly just kept to myself.

This caused trouble at home. I became angry.

You know the five stages of grief or something? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Well, I was somewhere between denial and anger. The smallest things annoyed me senseless (like if a plate was in the wrong place) and I would lash out at the closest person (usually my little brother) and then I would feel so guilty afterwards.

I locked myself in my room a lot of the time and escaped with a book. I couldn't deal with anyone, let alone my mother, the person who needed my help the most.

Her treatment was in full swing by this time. But I still couldn't accept the fact that my mom was sick.

My mom, who was so strong, so solid and awesome, was suddenly too weak to lift her hand.

I couldn't believe my eyes or hide the tears when her hair began falling out...

To Be Continued...