PART 1
The doctor pulled the curtain shut before he sat down.
That was the first thing that scared me.
Doctors don’t usually sit down when they’re about to tell you everything is fine.
My daughter, Emma, was six years old.
She had complained about headaches for a few weeks, but nothing about them seemed serious enough to make me imagine the word that was about to destroy our lives.
Cancer.
The doctor looked at my husband and me.
“I’m sorry, but we found a mass in the back of Emma’s brain.”
For a second, I didn’t understand the sentence.
I heard the words.
I just couldn’t connect them to my little girl.
Emma was supposed to be at home arguing with her brother over the TV remote.
She was supposed to be asking for pancakes.
She was supposed to be growing up.
Not lying in a hospital bed while doctors talked about brain surgery.
“What happens now?” I finally whispered.
“We’re transferring her to the children’s hospital. The neurosurgery and oncology teams are already being contacted.”
My husband’s hand found mine.
Neither of us said anything.
We just stared at our daughter.
She was asleep.
Completely unaware that the world around her had changed forever.
That night, I sat beside her hospital bed and watched the monitors.
The machines beeped.
Nurses walked in and out.
The lights never seemed to turn off.
And every time Emma opened her eyes, I smiled.
“Mommy’s here.”
She smiled back.
“Are we going home tomorrow?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Not tomorrow, sweetheart.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
I didn’t know if that was true.
But I needed her to believe it.
5
The surgery came quickly.
The doctors explained everything they could.
There were risks.
There were complications.
There were words I never wanted to hear connected to my child.
But I signed the papers.
Then I kissed Emma’s forehead.
“Be brave, baby.”
She looked at me.
“I’m not scared if you’re here.”
I walked out of the room before she could see me cry.
Hours later, the surgeon finally appeared.
“We were able to remove the tumor.”
I nearly collapsed.
“But we’re going to need the pathology results.”
So we waited.
Again.
More machines.
More tests.
More nights sleeping in a hospital chair.
Then the results came.
Medulloblastoma.
Brain cancer.
The word felt impossible.
But Emma was alive.
And that had to be enough.
I told myself the worst day of my life had already happened.
I was wrong.
Thirteen days later, I was standing in another emergency room.
This time, my four-year-old son, Noah, was beside me.
He had been complaining of headaches too.
At first, I thought it was stress.
Maybe he was reacting to everything happening with his sister.
Maybe he was simply exhausted.
Then the doctor came into the room.
He pulled the curtain closed.
And sat down.
My blood ran cold.
He looked at me.
Then at my husband.
“I’m sorry…”
I stopped breathing.
“We found a mass in the back of Noah’s brain.”
My husband grabbed my hand.
I stared at the doctor.
“No.”
He continued speaking.
But I couldn’t hear him anymore.
Because thirteen days after my daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer…
my four-year-old son had just been diagnosed with what appeared to be the same disease.
