“The caretakers play a crucial role, but there’s no way to...

“The caretakers play a crucial role, but there’s no way to predict how a parent will react to this. Sometimes they are the best helpers. They come in wanting to win. They say, ‘We’re going to beat the crap out of this thing.’ And that positive attitude flows down to the child. ‘I can’ becomes ‘we can.’ But sometimes the parents give up before treatment begins. You see it in their eyes. The battle is lost before we start. They say ‘I can’t,’ and that becomes ‘we can’t.’ The child becomes defeated and that hurts us. Because the child is the captain of this team and we need our captain to be strong. But I’m not judging these parents. They are experiencing the toughest thing a human can go through. On a scale of zero to death, this experience is right next to death. So it’s not fair to judge a person’s response. And there’s very little we can do about it. It’s almost impossible to change someone’s attitude. Because there’s never one reason that a person feels defeated. There are twenty or thirty reasons. People bring their entire lives with them into this hospital. We can provide encouragement. We can say, ‘Things will get better soon.’ But we can’t change someone’s entire life.”

—————————————————-

We’re almost 90% of the way toward our goal of $1,000,000 to help the team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in their fight against pediatric cancer. MSK handles some of the toughest cases of childhood cancer, and our donations will go toward the development of specialized treatments to give these kids a chance. Thanks so much to everyone who’s donated so far. Even if it’s a small amount, please consider contributing: http://bit.ly/1TpFcdy