A lion in the house

One of the child life specialist and I were having a conversation on a slow day in oncology and talking about one of the patients that was dying. He mentioned a movie he had saw on childhood cancer called "A lion in the house" and suggested that I watch it. So I found it on amazon and ordered it and finally got a chance to watch it a few days ago. It is a docummentary that follows five kids with cancer through years of treatment till remission or death. It was a very interesting doccumentary and did well at showing all sides of the struggle. There was a few things that really stood out to me.

In one part of the movie an older brother is talking about his brother who has been battling leukemia for ten years and says. 'no one really knows how he feels because no one really talks to him.' and he kinda laughs about it while it shows his little brother at his birthday party kinda off by himself. It kinda hit me how true that is in alot of cases. Everyone talks ABOUT the little girl or boy with cancer but no one talks TO the little boy or girl with cancer. I suppose alot of people don't know what to say, or how to approach the issue. And alot of people can't see past the disease. Sometimes we forget they are kids not diseases. That is one of the main goals of child life is to look past the disease and treat them like the kid they are. They still want to play and have fun. They still want people to talk to. They want to be treated normal. Many of the kids in the video mentioned how it was hard at school because people wouldn't talk to them. This doesn't just apply to cancer but to all types of diseases and conditions. Talk to these kids! they may be some of the strongest and most inspirational people you will ever meet. You don't have to talk to them about their disease. I almost never talk to these kids about their diseases. Talk to them about batman, barbies, or baseball, it doesn't matter. let them choose the topic

At the end of the video one of the pediatric oncologists says "doctors aren't leaving oncology because kids are dying, rather they are sticking with oncology because kids are dying." He also says 'It is NEVER gets easy to see a kid die. I hope it never does. If it gets easy I need to switch careers.' This was a bit reassuring for me to hear. Sometimes it does get to me and I wonder. should I be immune to all of this? Should I be able to see a kid suffer through cancer and lose their battle and just be able to shrug it all off? I've come to the conclusion that the answer is in fact no! It should effect me! It should motivate me to be better, to try harder, to learn more, to help more, support more, and to do everything I can so it doesn't happen again.