(A clever teenager got in on the act after reading, "You Know You're the Parent of a Kid with Cancer When ...")

You are frustrated becaus those handbooks have no information for you! Caregivers and babysitters are two completely different things! You are visiting at the hospital (AGAIN) and the front desk guy waves at you and automatically asks if your here to see "that little kid". You visit the hospital so much, people start asking if you're a relative. You arrive at the house chewing grape gum and the kid tells you, "Spit it out! The smell is way too strong!" You arrive drinking a diet soda and are given a lecture about how it has caused cancer in lab rats. Your mom mentions that she has a little lump on her wrist, and you completely freak out....until she tells you that the doctor said it's just a cyst. The kid is 10, and already drinking Boost. You arrive and the kid is pleading with his mom, "No, don't buy anymore icecream. I want cantaloupe." The kids play hospital with you and get you hooked up to a long trail of IVs made entirely out of drinking straws and scotch tape. You have been babysitting for 2 hours, keeping the kid busy so he won't get bored, and he announces, "You're really wearing me out." Your mom comes to you whenever she needs medical adive, even though you usually refer her to the med encyclopedia You actually look things up in the med encyclopedia You are getting frustrated because your search engine won't list any good sites on "pediatric melanoma" You look neuroblastoma up in your American Heritage Dictionary, and it isn't there Anytime you see a kid wearing a baseball hat backwards at the department store, you think it's the kid you babysit for You decide not to take the kids to the pool at the YMCA because of E-coli, overcrowdedness, and the fact that you'd be in real trouble if you taped the Broviac up the wrong way. There's a list of phone numbers for medical personal a page long taped next to the phone. Mom is more worried about leaving her 10 yr. old with ALL with you than her 2 week old infant. You have watched "Why Charlie Brown, Why?" with the CK's sibs so many times that you have most of it memorized You're the only 17 yr. old you know who has ever gone to a blood drive You actually know what a Broviac-Hickman is Every time you go to the mall, you're tempted to buy another cute hat You are no longer totally and ultimately disgusted when someone throws up. You have been quoted saying, "Hey, puke happens." You have spent at least one afternoon hanging out in the Pediatrics Hem-Onc unit just so Mom could eat some normal food. You no longer get lost looking for the Ped. Hem-Onc unit You actually know that the Ped. Hem-Onc unit exists You ended up at this site while tracking down info on BMTs That story about getting stitches in your head is not a thriller anymore You draw silly comics for the local hospital's children's cancer newsletter, and you have plenty of inspiration You think that it is soooo sweet when the kid gives you a bunch of chocolates from his trick-or-treat, until he mentions that he couldn't eat them because the chemo made them taste like junk It is a total riot when you and the kid trick his mom into thinking that the rad is making him glow in the dark by taping glow necklaces along the veins in his hands. You lie awake at night trying to think of more things to add to this list You check your e-mails every day not for cute stories from your friends, but for updates from the hospital! The kids rush up to you when you arrive and one announces, "Hey! You can take us to the park today 'cause my brother's counts are up!" The kids can name every intstrument in their toy doctor's kit, and they know exactly how to use them The kids see a Children's Miracle Network commercial on TV and demand to know if you've donated anything because 'that place built the playground at my hospital' The kid is paging through one of those "Everybody's Different" coloring books and announces, "They talk about having black hair and red hair and yellow hair and brown hair and short hair and long hair and all that, but they never talk about being bald!" The kids are eating alphabet soup and one remarks, "Hey!I got all the letters for 'chemo'"! One of your worst fears is that the kid is back on that energy thing-Prednisone You are so annoyed because in almost every movie that you've seen about with cancer, the person doesn't live. Now that is unrealistic You think that kids with no hair are so cute (because they are) You spend all night trying to get through to Delilah (America's sappiest radio DJ, The Queen of Love Songs) to dedicate a song to the kid because you know that today was a bad treatment day Having the braces on your teeth tightened does not seem so painful once the kid lightly tells you how his last LP and BMA went You're already booked to spend 2 weeks of your summer volunteering at one of those Cancer Camps The kids never kiss you goodnight when you put them to bed because they're afraid of your germs Your health teacher mentions "oncology" and you don't say "What's that?" You are so ticked off because nobody at your school has ever heard of the "Gold Ribbon Project" before It's your fault that the hockey team has agreed to help you raise money for the kid's BMT fund-by shaving their heads You start to wonder how much the high school public would put in the kid's BMT fund to see you shave your head You have a links to children's cancer sites on your web page You take little packets of coffee and tea to the nurses in the Pedeatric Hem-Onc Unit Jell-O® and Popsicles® are the kid's favorite snacks. You begin to feel tempted to use the sharps container for dirty diapers. You refuse to babysit for other families when the flu is goign around because you don't want to pass it on to the kid. Babysitting dates are cancelled because the kid ends up in the ER with a temperature. The kid begs you to go with him for his return to school...as his bodyguard. You realize that hospital food is pretty much the same thing as school food, except that they moniter everything that you eat at the hospital, and you can't trade with cold lunch kids. You realize that hospital cable is not as good as real cable. You can tell your mom whether or not the Ped Hem-Onc unit has positive air pressure. You have learned new words that even your parents don't know! Your browser contains more web addresses for cancer sites than for shopping sites. You never say stupid things like "I wish you had cancer!" anymore. You arrive and the kids are singing "Oh Where Is My Hairbrush?" by the Veggietales, pretending to act the whole thing out, and they have a perfect cucumber. (you'd have to hear the song to understand) You know it for a fact that Darkwing Duck and the Mighty Ducks are on Toon Disney late at night, because you were up late with the kid and his sudden nausea one time. You begin to feel like you are the only teenager who has ever babysat for a CK, although there must be someone somewhere. An 82% cure rate is not good enough! You are visiting in the hospital and ask, "Is the red stuff Adriamycin or Cytoxan?" and the kid responds, "I told you before, Cytoxan isn't red." You begin to think that you might look good in scrubs someday. You start wondering if you are actually qualified to be babysitting the kid. The kid drinks Gatorade as a fluid replenisher, not a mid-game soccer drink. People with tubes don't bother you. Extra lab specimen containers are in the cupboard right next to the sippy cups. You are asked to draw a bald princess paperdoll for the little girl in the hospital room next door. Your prayer request notebook is overflowing. You can properly spell "leukaemia" in Queen's English. The kid has started to tell everyone to quit comparing him to Michael Jordan. You know it for a fact that September is National Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. You've taped the St. Jude's telethon. You get upset because the hospital vending machine is out of Dasani bottled water (now that the kid has convinced you to quit drinking diet soda). You start thinking that your blue surgical mask makes you look very mysterious. You somehow ended up in the hospital parking lot...still wearing the mask. Every time you touch something, you feel like you have to wash your hands. You wonder why they don't make bandage tape in cool colors. You start thinking that Medline could make a fortune off of surgical masks with happy smiles printed on them. You have been officially puked on. You start getting sick of the throwing up jokes, even your own. You've found out that the Child Life Therapist is a lot of fun! You wonder if you've broken the record for most games of "Clue®" in a 24 hour period. Setting up dominos in a hopsital room is quite interesting (watch out for the nurses' feet). You wonder how many ballpoint pens those nurses have gone through while doing the kid's chart work. "Remission" is a beautiful word. The kid that you babysit for has been in the hospital so long that he loses his sneakers under the adjustable bed. He's been there so long that the both of you have the hospital's Nitendo 64® games pretty much mastered. By only visting, you have learned all of the pediatric oncology nurses' first names. (Goes to show how much you visit.) You buy more get well cards than birthday cards. You know which party store has the cheapest Mylar® balloons. You never babysit on Fridays, because Friday is chemo day. You get irritated because even though she knows his name, your mom always refers to the kid as "that little boy with the cancer". The planned lunch consists of toast, white grape juice, and strawberry swirl ice cream. The kid offers you the untouched Big Mac that he begged his mom for, admitting, "I just can't eat it."

While visiting the hospital, you are sent out on an errand to get two Happy Meals, a Big Mac, a vanilla malt, and six coffees. You are asked if you would like to see the kid's new "pics" from his latest CT scan. Instead of Ricky Martin or Prince William, there's a picture of a pale, skinny, completely bald 10 year old in your locker. The kid is in a hysterical fit of laughter because you are in the process of trying to fix the hospital TV...and he knows it's unplugged. The kid asks if he can go "roller-balding". You don't let the kid go roller-blading because you aren't sure if he has enough platelets to safely do so. You have discovered another great radiation prank: glow in the dark chalk! (non-toxic, doctor-okayed only). Anything that glows in the dark is referred to as "radioactive". You spend a whole afternoon sticky-tacking "radioactive" plastic bugs to the hospital room's ceiling. One minor problem with BMTs is: no babysitting until after the kid has been home a few months! You hate "graft failure." Hate it, hate it, HATE IT. You visit the hospital more than the mall. You've realized that unused IV tubing makes great longgggg drinking straws. You swear that as soon as you hit your 18th birthday, you're getting yourself on the National Bone Marrow Registry. The kid holds a spelling bee in his hospital room and all the words are names of medications or treatments. You know what PICU really means, but have trouble with SCUBA and NASA. Gatorade®, Jell-O®, and Popsicles® are a food group of their own. The kid managed to survive of pink Gatorade and red Popsicles® alone for 2 weeks (along with TPN). You see the kid on TV and think that they are interveiwing him about some leukemia thing, but it ends up that they are talking to all kinds of kids about the new computers at their school. You find yourself explaining multiplication with pill dosages ("If you take 6 pills every day for 5 days, how many do you take in all?"). You refuse to help the kid practice "heading" (a soccer move) because you swear that his nose will start bleeding. You wonder why in the world he wants to learn heading anyway, because soccer is a "forbidden" contact sport. The kid is not allowed to floss his teeth. You can't take one step into the kid's hospital room without him yelling, "DID YOU WASH YOUR HANDS?" It's a blast when the kid gets his hands on a bottle of Coppertone's color change sun block: have you ever seen a kid with a blue head? The kid is warned not to go out in the sun without wearing a hat that covers his entire hairline. After some thinking, he announces, "I can't remember where my hairline was." You don't get scared when you find a still packaged hypodermic needle in the medicine cabinet. You whine about your recent MMR shot to the kid and he sighs heavily, "You are such a BABY." You already have the Children's Miracle Network Radiothon and Telethon marked on your calendar (Now, when do they start selling sweatshirts again?). You are amazed at how much can happen in one month. You fear the day when you turn 18 and have to get your own MEDICAL INSURANCE. (Unless you stay a full-time student) You are slowly but steadily turning into a human database for information on Pediatric ALL. The kid you are babysitting says can we stay inside and do nothing today instead of the usual" let's go outside and play." Platelets, plasma, whatever...you're hooked up and your blood's running through the centrifuge. Again. The kid can't stand you one day and begs you to come over the next. Hormonal imbalances stink. You laugh, smile, cry...but you're nobody's mom. You figure out that once in a while there is a point to eating a whole bag of Cheetos even if you're not going to be able to keep them down. You're talking and you forget that not everybody speaks fluent "medical-ese" The kid is lounging around on his hospital bed in shorts and a T-shirt, with a blotchy radiation tan. You think he looks great! That urinal or whatever sitting on the hospital bedside table doesn't bother anyone. You smack a flyer on the school bulletin board that reads "GIVE PLATELETS" from your local blood bank. Quite a few people have a pretty good guess on who smacked that flyer up there. You get summoned to the principal's office. They want to know why you're wearing an isolation mask. You wear an isolation mask to school for a whole day (even lunch) because the kid dared you to. A concerned person asks if you've been injecting drugs into your arms. The scars are from blood donation needles. The kids are so excited about that new PBS show "Caillou" ...until they realize that it's not about a kid with cancer. You're in a panic. The kid's loose tooth just came out, his platelets are bad, and there's blood all over the living room carpet. You know two important French phrases: "NO" and "C'est Le Vie", translated "That's Life". And hey, life is great. You have it down that the word "chloroma" has nothing to do with photosynthesis. The kid who had no appetite three days ago has eaten an entire box of macaroni and cheese, three hotdogs, and a banana...alone. You can correctly identify over a dozen chemo drugs and antibiotics...but can't recommend a good anti-inflammatory for your dad. You have been hearing about the trip to radiology and the cool laser thingie for over an hour...and you're still listening. The kid's younger brother is getting taller than him. You ask the kid what he wants for his birthday. Who would've guessed: hair, good counts, and a growth spurt. You find out (the hard way) that all the high school's books on cancer are completely outdated. You are in trouble for deciding to spend most of your summer working at a 'healthy-kid camp'. ("Did you take into consideration that THERE ARE NO OTHER CANCER BABY-SITTERS AROUND HERE?!!") You must spend a whole afternoon giving out the details of a trip to the new restaurant. You are fed up with the swirly straws, the color change straws, and the noisy straws. The kid will not sip anything! You notice that at kids' church sporting events, the kid runs the slowest but cheers the loudest. The song about puke all over the bathroom floor is provided for comfort, not ultimate disgust. While spending an afternoon with the CK's sib, you get to hear all about 'my brother throwing up in the Wal-mart parking lot'. The kid has paid nearly a million dollars so far to keep his happening hair cut. You get to the hospital to visit and happen to hear the kid yelling to his mom, "Get me a T-shirt, the babysitter is here!" The definition of 'too sick to go to school' has been greatly revised. You get your afternoon snack at the blood bank. The story about the kid getting his teeth cleaned sounds horrible (blood, blood everywhere). Half the time when you babysit, the kid is in either baggy shorts and a T-shirt or pjs. The kid refuses to wear a bike helmet without a bandana on underneath. It is essential that you know basic first aid for nosebleeds. On more than one occasion, you have been called into the bathroom to make sure that the kid's urine is the right color. You are jealous of kids who get the regular induction, consolidation, maintenance protocol. You are known to say, "Stop doing that...I don't feel like calling 911 today." You know that if 'regular' parents were reading this list, they'd never hire you. (Puke? Blood? Sarcasm about calling 911?) You sit around drinking grape Pedialyte because you do not have the heart to eat the frozen pizza in front of a kid with nausea. Upon attacking a laundry pile: "Hey, you'd never know you threw up all over this one!" You begin to wonder why the doctors keep giving the kid anti-nasuea drugs when they never work. Benadryl is a super-med. It takes two hours to watch a 45 minute video because the kid keeps falling asleep. You can admininster asthma meds, antibiotics, and chemo pills, but may not even think about giving anyone tylenol without calling Mom and the doctor. You are waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to write a pamphlet called, "So You Babysit for a Cancer Kid?" Mom and the kid get home three hours late because the 11 o'clock appt. didn't actually start until 12:30 PM. Your family teases you about having a crush on that front desk guy at the hospital. You're busy babysitting when the kid asks if you'll call his mom...he thinks his counts are low. You have to go through a banter of "I'm too old for a babysitter," "yeah, but you can't stay home alone," every time you come over. You get yelled at: "You don't have to write it down! I can tell my own mom what I ate today!" The younger sibling sits watching TV while his older brother is puking in the bathroom. You are fed about a dozen marshmallows because the kid wanted to toast them, but he couldn't actually bear to eat them. The younger sibling has plans for when you come over to watch just him (soccer, baseball, the pool, the park, bikes...anything that otherwise would end after about fifteen minutes). And now a few related to my experiences with Aubrey, who's 4. You find out by experience that getting sand off a bald kid's head is a lot easier than getting it off the head of a kid with hair. The little girl you sit for confuses you with one of her nurses. You think it's so cute how Mom has matching hats for all her daughter's outfits. You get to hear all about how the little girl picked a bikini over a one piece, because "if I weared it to clinic, the tubies can stick out the top's bottom." The Wallpaper on your cell phone is an 8-year old girl with Leukemia You're allowed to visit her in PICU and you sit with her for hours watching her sleep and holding her hand. You're so involved the nurse thinks you are a relative You can communicate with her through eye movements. I have to acknowledge the 2 kids who have provided me with so much of this input (some of it has been imagined up): "AJ"—10 1/2, T-Cell ALL since June 99, one "almost successful" BMT in January 00 and younger brother Ty, 6, a great kid. —Sarah, "the sitter" Thanks, Sarah—you're a special young woman