Cancer friends

I was just remarking to Musical Daddy that since we're in this cancer thing for a much longer haul, we could really use some cancer friends. Specifically, parents of little kids who have cancer. I hope that there aren't too many around, because cancer sucks, but if they're nearby, we think we want to be friends with them.

Here's the thing, and please don't take this the wrong way as if we don't appreciate your love and support:

Every conversation that we have with anyone is colored with the issue of The Boy and his cancer. Usually when you talk to someone and you ask how they're doing, you may also ask how the kids are and what they are up to, and it's a pleasantry, and it's fun. Except with us. Every time you talk to us, and you know you do this, you have to ask us how The Boy is, and you know that you're going to get some answer that is just chock-full of cancer talk. And sometimes, we want to give updates. Sometimes, we don't. Sometimes we just want to say "The Boy did a great job standing by himself today" or "The Boy made SUCH a mess eating fried rice" or, to a fellow toddler parent "That poo was SO disgusting, and of course, his hands went right for it."

But with cancer-friends, it would probably feel different to talk about treatments and illness and other cancer stuff. We'd talk about it and table the discussion. Then we'd talk about typical kid stuff, knowing that none of us wants to talk about cancer stuff anymore and none of us wants to.

So we love to have the support of our friends and family. Sometimes it helps that other family members have gone through cancer stuff. Sometimes it doesn't, because we want to believe that The Boy will have a better outcome than my mother-in-law or my sister-in-law's father. As in, they died of cancer. As many people do. We want it to be more like my mother's cancer, where she had surgery, a bunch of chemo, some radiation, and then she was done. Clean scans ever since. Of course, the whole on-treatment relapse thing already makes it more complicated. But point being, we want him to come out on the other side as a normal 3 year old or however old he'll be when he's done, with just some cool scars.