Maintaining a sense of normalcy when a child has cancer

Mickey Guisewite, Parent With A Purpose, shares advice for parents with a child diagnosed with cancer on how to try to maintain a sense of normalcy in life
Pediatric Cancer Advice | How To Maintain A Sense Of Normalcy
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Maintaining a sense of normalcy when a child has cancer

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I think it's really hard to function and have a normal life when your child is going through a life threatening illness. However, I think it's extremely important that you try to make your life as normal as possible. I felt that my job, as a mother, was to make our life as normal as possible when we were at home. I did this by trying to have normal family dinners, taking the kids out to the movies when we could. If our son was home from treatment, he was feeling well enough, and his immune system was okay, we try to do something simple like go out for a walk. When you have a child going through cancer treatment, cancer overtakes your life. I think it's really important not to talk about cancer all the time, because it can consume everything. When we have family dinners at home, we made it a rule that we would talk about anything else other than cancer. We joke. We had fun. We talked about movies, politics, sports, anything but cancer. That needed to be compartmentalized.

Mickey Guisewite, Parent With A Purpose, shares advice for parents with a child diagnosed with cancer on how to try to maintain a sense of normalcy in life

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Mickey Guisewite

Parent with a Purpose

Mickey Guisewite is a former advertising executive and syndicated newspaper columnist who started The Bottomless Toy Chest after her son successfully completed cancer treatment. The Bottomless Toy Chest is a nonprofit organization devoted to delivering toys, crafts and hands-on activities to hospitalized pediatric cancer patients. Mickey lives at home with her husband, son, daughter, two dogs, two cats and two turtles. When she’s not delivering toys to sick kids, she’s at home trying to find a tiny space on the couch among her two-legged and four-legged family members. 

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