Kids can’t fight cancer alone. Nor can their parents. No matter how strong we may seem, a good support network of friends and family goes a long way in helping!
Grandparents visited and stayed with us to help, which was a boon in disguise. Uncle visited quite often, to read books and play games, which our kid enjoyed very much. We have been super lucky to find a couple of very good friends who have been going out of their way to help. We keep running out of words to thank them!
As parents, we found it very useful to talk to other parents whose kids fought cancer and had positive outcomes. Understanding the best practices, do’s and dont’s, side effects to watch out far, tips to overcome them, questions to ask the doctors etc were very helpful. Although our kid was young (five when diagnosed), we found the suggestions from adult cancer survivors to be quite helpful. For example, we learned about the importance of juicing, which has since become a daily routine for us. We also learned about the benefits of alkaline diet, RO water, increased protein intake and other tips to help overcome the side effects of chemo.
As odd as it may sound, we initially avoided online support groups and search engines as we found the deluge of information quite overwhelming. Frankly, there’s too much information out there with little quality control, ranging from speculations about likely causes of cancer, anti-cancer diet, to articles and posts about kids developing various complications, relapses, negative outcomes… We were already crazy busy helping our kid fight the side effects of chemo and overcome the emotional trauma, that we didn’t have the stomach for hearing negative outcomes. We chickened out and avoided online support groups for a while…
Later, when our kid was more stable emotionally and physically (around the Interim Maintenance phase), we ventured into online support groups. We found a couple of good online parent support groups on Facebook (e.g., Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) to be quite helpful.
Inspired by the support groups, we started this blog and the companion page, Brave Kids Fight Cancer on Facebook, to help share our experiences and ideas to help kids stay positive through the long and difficult treatment period. Hope you find it helpful. Please join and let us know what worked for you!
