How Cancer Changed My Life

By Candice Hurston | VOX Staff

Collage by Candice Hurston| VOX Staff

By then, I was already numb to the spoon’s touch. Guided by my hand, it moved robotically, piercing the surface of the vanilla mound and shaving off the top. From there it glided through the air and made its landing in his opened mouth. I watched him slowly pull the pudding from the spoon with his thin lips, smiling that whiskered smile I’d always known as he swallowed the desert.

“Is it good?” I asked.

He shook his head “no” then promptly opened his mouth to receive another helping. Perplexed, I complied and repeated the process. It was the first time in a long time that I’d spent so much time with him. At the time I couldn’t have known it, but these bites would be my dad’s last.

A Word that Shakes Life Like An Earthquake
I find it strange, even now, how a six-letter word like cancer can turn everything upside down and change a person’s view on life. Until three years ago. I had no idea what a “difficult” experience truly was. Selfishness consumed me. I thought I was the most important thing in the world, and I had no true value for the life I’d been given. I often changed the focus of casual conversations to depressing rants about how much I hated life and everything in it. A friend was once telling me about an exciting time she’d had at another friend’s birthday party, and I began to grumble on about how it didn’t matter to me and how stupid it must have been because I wasn’t invited. With an attitude like that, it was no wonder my friends could barely stand to be around me.

Gaining Knowledge through Pain
When I first heard my dad’s voice cracking on the answering machine, I remember wondering to myself what lung cancer was. I didn’t understand why my father thought he was going to die or why my mother was crying.

EhealthMD.com, a Web site that provides information on various medical conditions, defines lung cancer as an uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in one or both of the lungs. When the number of abnormal cells becomes too great, a tumor develops. These tumors grow out of control and attack the normal cells nearby. The more these tumors spread, the harder they are to treat. Unfortunately my dad’s cancer wasn’t found until it was in its final stages. Less than 3 percent of people diagnosed with lung cancer are under the age of 45. Dad was only 44.

Hanging in the Tree House
After we got the news of my father’s diagnoses, my mother took my brother and me to Dekalb Medical Center for a peer mediation group called The Tree House Gang. The group strives to educate and support children whose parents have been diagnosed with cancer. Peter R. VanDernoot, the founder of The Children’s Tree House Foundation, states that every year 592,000 sons and daughters will learn one of their parents have cancer. I’d never thought I’d be included in that number, and I most certainly never imagined being a member of the Tree House Gang.

At first I hated being there. I thought I was dealing fine with my father’s diagnosis, and I didn’t need this attention like the other kids. Then one meeting, a little girl who couldn’t have been any older than 6 sat down next to me and smiled. She told me about her father who’d died a year earlier and how she’d felt after he was gone.

“Being in this group helps a lot and I come to every meeting,” she said. Her eyes were bright, and she had an aura of confidence about her. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I only nodded. And then she hugged me and told me everything would be OK. After meeting this child who had a stronger presence than most adults, I felt ashamed of myself for wanting to give up on the Tree House Gang so soon. I decided to stick it out a little longer.

The Beginning of the End
For months after the diagnosis, time moved in a foggy haze. I knew I was alive, and I knew I was functioning, but I wasn’t mentally present for any of it. My father told me years ago that that kind of thing happened to him a lot when he’d get overwhelmed with life. Black outs were what he called them. It was like I was watching myself from the outside and couldn’t control anything I did.

I didn’t want to believe my father was dying. When he lied in his bed coughing up blood, I thought he was faking. When he went through bouts of confusion and couldn’t remember where he was, I thought he was making a joke. I wanted to scream “Cut the act Dad, we all know you’re fine!”

But he wasn’t fine. I finally realized that when he was no longer able to feed himself, and I had to hold his spoon like he’d done for me 15 years before.

All the Walls Finally Fall
One day, the haze cleared itself, and I returned to my body. It was a mellow school day that started out with me answering the usual questions of my classmates and teachers: “How is he doing? How are you doing?”

Always the answers were the same: “He’s doing fine. I’m doing fine.” I went to my usual classes and sat in my usual seat. The usual guy leaned over to sneak a peek at my responses to the classwork. And, as usual, the teacher scolded him. But then the intercom buzzed on and instantly my heart stopped. The female voice commanded me to report to the counseling office.

A huddled form was leaning against the wall parallel to the counseling office. As I approached, I realized it was my mother. My lungs inhaled deeply, and my mouth morphed into the best smile it could. I tried to sound nonchalant, asking what was going on. My heart, of course, already knew. She looked up at me, and it seemed like the weight of the world was sitting on top of her shoulders. Her eyes were distant and glassy.

“Your father passed away this morning,” she told me quietly.

I never believed time could stop like it did in the movies. But right then, time —no, the very world—stopped.

I was standing on the ocean floor with the waters divided to my sides, being held back by the dam of emotional blockage I’d produced over the months. But with those few words the dam broke. All the feelings I’d deprived myself of came rushing toward me. They smashed into me, surrounded me, drowned me and pulled me down into a little ball of misery that couldn’t be consoled.

The End of A Life, the Start of Another
In those six months between my dad’s diagnoses and passing, I went through a metamorphosis. I watched someone who I’d always held as the strongest man in the world fight a battle he knew he was going to lose. He once asked me on one of his worse days if all the chemotherapy and pain were worth living the little time he had left. I realized now he was contemplating ending his life. But he kept fighting. It was the most inspirational thing I’d ever witnessed.

Because of my father, I was able to see the true value of life and learn to appreciate it for the wondrous gift it is. I no longer find myself hating my existence, but eagerly awaiting each new day. My dad savored every second, and I can now do the same.

Candice is a senior at Stephenson High