Worrying about your child's relapse after cancer treatment

Mickey Guisewite, Parent WIth A Purpose, shares advice for parents about worrying about their child's relapse after being successfully treated for cancer
Worrying About Your Child Having A Relapse - Pediatric Cancer Advice
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Worrying about your child's relapse after cancer treatment

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I don't think my worry about my son having a relapse of cancer will ever completely go away. As a parent, I think I am programmed to worry. But as a parent of a child who had a Stage IV illness, it makes it particularly difficult not to worry. However, I think what has helped, is time. The farther he gets away from treatment, the easier it gets. At first, right after he finished his treatment, every single time he got a bruise; every single time my son got a headache; every single time he got a nosebleed, I didn't call our Pediatrician. I would place a frantic call to our Oncologist sure that the cancer had come back, but it didn't. More and more time went on and the cancer still didn't come back. Now, we're in a place where it's years later and I look at my completely healthy, strong son and it's -- I suppose anything can happen, but it gets harder and harder to think that the cancer really could come back. Now I look at my beautiful, healthy 17 year old son and I really doubt that the cancer will come back. I don't worry about it so much anymore.

Mickey Guisewite, Parent WIth A Purpose, shares advice for parents about worrying about their child's relapse after being successfully treated for cancer

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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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