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April Fools?

Based on a true story

By Katelyn ReevesPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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It was April 1, 2001. I was sitting in our living room on our old, floral print couch in front of the wood stove with my mom, dad, and little brother who was three at the time. I was sweating, partially because I was wearing a furry pink bath robe over my pajamas while the wood stove was turned all the way up, and partially because I was nervously reading aloud, “Green Eggs and Ham,” a book I had not yet memorized. If you are wondering why we were sitting in front of the wood stove with it turned all the way up in April, it is because we lived in North Idaho where nine months out of the year it snows. While I was reading, my mother was sitting on one side of me helping me sound out and pronunciate the words I had not yet memorized. My little brother was sitting on the other side of me looking at the pictures on the pages. My father was sitting on the other side of my little brother and was without a doubt probably thinking about his upcoming turkey hunting season instead of listening to, “Green Eggs and Ham” for the thousandth time.

I was a little bit over halfway finished reading the book when my little brother stuck his index finger in his left ear to scratch it and his finger came out covered in blood. “Mommy! Look my ear is bleeding” he exclaimed. I stopped reading as the blood coming from my brother’s ear caugh both of my parents attention. After asking my brother a series of questions, such as, “Does your ear hurt?” they finally decided they better call the doctor’s office. Since it was after normal business hours, the doctor on the phone told my parents that since there was no pain or fever to just bring my brother into Quick Care the next morning. By the time they got off of the phone, it was bedtime for my brother and me, and I was grateful that I did not have to continue to read aloud after this interruption.

The next morning my parents did as the doctor had instructed them to the night before- they took my brother to Quick Care to have his ear examined. There was no sign of infection or a ruptured ear drum, so they gave us to a referral to a local Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor (ENT). Over the next two months, we had several appointments with the ENT. The first thing that I noticed about this ENT, was that he was not a very kind, patient doctor. He did not seem to even like children at all. So, why did he become a doctor? I wondered. The other thing that I did not like about this ENT, was that he upset my mom.

About two months after the night my brother pulled his finger out of his ear only to find it covered in blood, my mother received a phone call at work from the ENT. What the ENT told my mother on the phone are words that no parent should ever have to hear, “your child has cancer.” It was stage three rhabdomyosarcoma that my little brother had been diagnosed with. That is why his ear was bleeding two months ago.

After receiving the news from the ENT that my brother had cancer, my mother immediately left work and picked my brother and I up from day care. On the way home, my mother was crying. I did not understand why she was crying at the time, but seeing her cry made me want to cry and it scared me. I knew there was something terribly wrong because I had never seen my mother cry before.

That afternoon, my grandparents came to our house to be with us and make a plan. The ENT had referred my brother to a hospital, two-and-a-half hours away from our family home in North Idaho. My mom, my dad, my little brother, and my grandmother all piled in the car and headed for the hospital. I stayed with my grandfather that week to finish up kindergarten. Unfortunately, my mom and brother had to miss my kindergarten graduation the following week as they were still at the hospital.

The remainder of 2001 and the first six months of 2002 were absolutely awful for my entire family. My brother started receiving chemotherapy treatments. This caused his hair to fall out and made him very ill. He received tons of different medications (some of which made him very grumpy) and underwent many surgeries. He also received radiation that year. We all had to be extremely diligent about washing our hands and staying healthy so that we would not pass on any sick germs to my brother’s already compromised immune system. It took an emotional toll on everyone as well. For my parents it was not knowing from one day to the next if my brother was going to be alive as well as traveling to and from the hospital, work, bills, cooking meals, cleaning the house, and oh yeah, they had another child- me. For me, it was being scared because I knew something was wrong, but did not understand it and being sad at the long periods of times I would have to go without seeing my family as they would be needed at the hospital and I still had to go to school, so I would often end up staying with our neighbors.

After a long, dreadful year of this, on June 1, 2002, my mother received another phone call. This one was from my brother’s pediatric oncologist. He called to tell her that my brother was officially cancer free! This time, my mother cried happy tears. If you are a parent or a sibling of a child with cancer, you probably know that even after they are deemed to be cancer free, there are still years of appointments to follow with their oncologist and other specialists. So our lives were never “normal” after that awful April night in 2001.

I want to end my story on a positive note. Almost exactly 20 years later, my little brother is now 23 years old. I am blessed to say that he is healthy and doing great. He will be graduating from college in a couple of weeks and will be starting his career in construction management. I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. My brother having cancer was a terrifying, stressful time for my whole family, but my family and I met some pretty great people through different organizations after my brother got sick and perhaps most importantly, it made us all more compassionate people and taught us not to judge others as you never know what they are going through/have been through.

siblings
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About the Creator

Katelyn Reeves

I’m just an Idaho girl who loves to write and tell stories. 💁‍♀️

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