You Know You're the Parent of a Kid with Cancer when ...

The Third Hundred!

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  1. Your surgeon is met with a ball of soap foam nearly hitting him in the head as he enters pre-op to inform you that it is time to remove that tumor.
  2. Your two year old corrects his uncle, insisting that blood can also be yellow.
  3. You don't feel comfortable leaving the house until you make sure that your diaperbag has a fresh supply of heprin flushes, medical tape, bandages and day's supply of pills.
  4. You can consider yourself the Martha Stewart of hospital supplies when you realize the endless crafts that can be made with a few tongue depressors, medical tape, bandages and a magic marker.
  5. The twenty minutes it takes to go to the hospital cafeteria for coffee is your escape for the day.
  6. Your two year old can pass as a prep nurse as he helps gather and lay out the supplies needed for central line maintenence.
  7. Chemotherapy in the treatment room tranlates into "one hour naptime" for you... and you look forward to it.
  8. All of your grocery lists have lab results on the back of them.
  9. The doorbell rings and your 2 year old runs to open it yelling "my medicines here" with a big smile on his face!
  10. You're the only mom in the grocery store reading the labels so you are sure to buy kiddie food with the MOST calories in it.
  11. Your teenager is arguing loudly in the radiation clinic with friends he has met in treatment about what songs to play or not play at their funerals, just in case, and you think nothing of it as everyone around you stares absolutely appalled that you are saying nothing.
  12. Your child asks if the oncology nurse knows what she is doing when accessing the port.
  13. The "second opinion" oncologist says you know more about the specific sarcoma than he does.
  14. You don't have anymore squirt guns because your 13yr old says he can shoot a lot farther and more accuratly with the 30ml syringes
  15. You have so many get well cards on the wall you forget if it's wallpapered or painted.
  16. You are thankful for EZ-MAC invention. They are all my sons eats in the hospital. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.
  17. The coat rack has more hats than any thing on it—we have to have a hat for everywhere we go now.
  18. Your daughter's favorite song is VeggieTales®' "Oh Where Is My Hairbrush?"
  19. Your idea of a romantic date with your husband is getting adjoining chairs so you can watch the same movie while donating platelets.
  20. You're so busy with all the appointments for your cancer kid that your other kids haven't been to the doctor for a checkup in three years.
  21. Upon discharge you leave two bags full of brand new toys and books on the curb and don't miss them for a couple days.
  22. Your daughter says she could clean her room a lot faster if she didn't have cancer. When you ask why she says, "Then I wouldn't have so many toys to put away."
  23. Your friends give you scented hand sanitizer for your birthday.
  24. You've taken your child trick-or-treating in the hospital dressed as a doctor.
  25. Everyone rubs your child's head, because the new hair is SO soft!
  26. When you can use the hospital bed railing as a pillow without discomfort.
  27. You give directions around the hospital to the medical staff.
  28. Your sixth-grader missed so much school that he's now hooked on "Days of Our Lives" and he's glad when Friday is hospital instead of school so he can stay up late to watch "ER."
  29. The cashier at the cafteria tells you she has missed you when you went home between treatments.
  30. Your four year old who is finished with treatment tells the hairdresser, "I guess you have to cut it, the doctror won't give me more chemo to get rid of all this hair in my eyes!"
  31. You catch your children playing "doctor" and it makes the show "ER" look amateurish.
  32. Your child's first case of poison ivy really confuses her younger brother—he thinks it's a "poison IV"!
  33. Having received chemotherapy & radiation for a bone marrow transplant, your daughter pulls out clumps of her hair stating, "This one's for grandma, this one (clump) is for Aunt Niki, etc." because the family wants locks of hair.
  34. When your husband has more hair than your daughter.
  35. When your family from out of town doesn't recognize your child because after a BMT her hair grew back curly and not stick straight.
  36. When you have more pictures of your child bald than with hair.
  37. When you don't have any change left in your purse because your child threw it all in the fountain at the hospital. We hope he gets all of his wishes.
  38. When you know the people at the hospital's McDonald's on a first name basis.
  39. When the hospital has assigned you your own parking space.
  40. When your child prays every night that she will wake up in the morning with hair.
  41. Your child has been in the hospital so long that when he returns to school everyone thinks he's the new kid.
  42. Your child learns in Health that not all females have a tube in their chest.
  43. Your child's life-care worker has used his/her teddy bear to demonstrate how the chemotherapy kills the Leukemic cells.
  44. After finishing treatments your child realizes that not all food has a metallic taste to it.
  45. Your child can tell you her temperature within .3 of a degree without a thermometer.
  46. Your child can start her own IV-Prep.
  47. When referring to your bald child, people say note that she still has her eyebrows.
  48. You potty train your child at the age of six because he has finally had his catheter removed.
  49. When you can stand in the mall talking to another cancer patient that you don't know about how to tie bandanas.
  50. When you buy a new laptop on your credit card because your child is going into isolation.
  51. When you feed french fries through an oxygen mask when they are on prednisone.
  52. My 4 year old uses his sister's empty (and needleless) syringes to play with in the bathtub.
  53. When the receptionist at the ER says, "It's been awhile since you've been here!"
  54. You hide a remote controlled fart machine in your son's chart holder outside his hospital room and shut the door leaving the blinds open j-u-s-t enought to peek out to watch as you let the machine rip a big one when someone walks by! Especially the doctors! This is to keep yourself laughing and entertained while your son is recovering from a bone marrow transplant.
  55. When your kid thinks that EVERYONE who has been to Disney World® had leukemia at some point in their lives, and must've had a Wish granted!
  56. Your son is the only pre-schooler around that can name off the blood cells and their function.
  57. The cashier at the hospital cafeteria has seen you so often that she mistakenly rings up your food with an "employee discount." This really happened!
  58. When you take the sibling to the ER and one of the ER nurses says, "Didn't you use to work here? you look so familiar."
  59. Waiting at a busy junction in the car, you get your child to remove their hat and look pathetic in the hope someone will let you in...
  60. When sleeping with your eyes open is the only sleep you get.
  61. You're watching football with your son whose on prednisone and think if his "Chargers" lose again in the last few minutes it'll kill him.
  62. You have a X-Ray of your child's favorite stuffed animal
  63. On a clinic visit for a bad cough/cold the doctor asks "how long have you been sick?" and your 2nd grader says "since kindergarden."
  64. When on an active day your child yells "I'm a little hypodermic today" (aka hyperactive).
  65. When your 6 year old can carry on in conversation about platelets with his playmate's mother.
  66. When your child knows what the entry code to punch into the prize room.
  67. When you use empty syringes as squirt guns.
  68. Other parents email you because you have more information about the latest neuroblastoma treatments than the official website.
  69. You schedule a blood transfussion before you go on vacation "just to be on the safe side."
  70. You allow your daughter to wear her Hip Hat with Hair to the McDonald's® Playplace just so you can get a good laugh when she decides it's too hot and whips it off in front of the other parents and kids.
  71. Your daughter's oncologist has her son's first birthday at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times so all her patients can come.
  72. You put a plate of food on the table at dinnertime and your 6-year-old shouts, "Hey! This isn't what I ordered!"
  73. Your child cries her first night home because she's "homesick" for her favorite nurse so you make a special trip to the hospital for a visit.
  74. Your daughter's favorite joke is "Last night I dreamed that I was eating spaghetti, and when I wolk up I was bald!"
  75. When a year after treatment ended, your 5 year old daughter answers the question from a stranger "Why is your hair so short and your sisters so long?" with-- "Cuz I had cancer and all my hair falled out!" without skipping a beat.
  76. When you watch The Children's Miricle Network on TV and see most of your 3 year old's friends.
  77. You're surprised when you don't feel a port while picking up your other child.
  78. The pharmacist knows you by your child's name.
  79. You stockpile pb&j sandwiches during "that time of the month" - the dexamethaZONE!
  80. Your child has had so many surgeries that you've started to put notes on their surgical sites to give the O.R. staff a laugh. "Objects in my body may appear larger than they are."
  81. With a 5 cc syringe in his hand, your child wants to play vet and chases the family cat under the table saying, "here kitty, you need a spinal tap now."
  82. When you can draw up 10 different meds without checking a list at 6am while making the kids breakfast, feeding the cat and juggling a nauseous baby on your shoulder
  83. You have a birthday party at your house and on the every corner of the table, you have a bottle of Germ-x® or Purell®.
  84. Your children have 5 different antibacterial soap bottles in their own bathrooms and they love washing their hands.
  85. When your 3-year old (not the cancer kid) complains about his asthma medicine: that his 'chemo' tastes yucky too.
  86. When your 5 year old writes her first book and the title is "The Many Other Uses of your Mask."
  87. When your 3 year old gets his first wiffle haircut and cries, "Now it looks like I got chemo too!"
  88. When your 5 year old makes up bone marrow jokes such as, "What does Santa say on the bone marrow unit? Grow, grow, grow!"
  89. You brave the expressways for the first time in your life to get to the hospital.
  90. The security guards asks where in the hospital you work.
  91. When your CK can deliver her own Top Ten Reasons Why It's Better to be Bald, David Letterman style.
  92. When your two-year old wants to know why she has sooo many "bobbie buttons" because of all the scars from her numerous Broviacs.
  93. While spending a weekend with another cancer family, you overhear your 6-year old son & their 4-year old daughter discussing whether or not he took his 7½ pills, if she took her 6½ pills all at once and how many 6 mp tablets they each take.
  94. When your friends call you up and ask where your CK would like to have their kids birthday party.
  95. When your child names her new stuffed animal "Anesthesia" instead of "Anastasia."
  96. When you are up reading this list at 3am because you can't sleep...and you are trying not to laugh too hard, because you don't want to wake the baby up!
  97. When you know exactly how many seconds you must hold down the adjustable bed controller butto, to get the angle just right so you can be comfy in the bed.
  98. When you pull up to the complementary valet parking in front of the hospital and the valet tells you that he has memorized your license plate number!! Or when he asks you if you have lost weight, or cut your hair!! (We are very friendly with these guys!! :) HA!!)
  99. When you can tell the Intensivist exactly how much pentobarbital it takes to knock out your unsedatable 3 year old and exactly how and when to give it so she won't wake up during the MRI.
  100. When the ER nurse asks about the family on a first and last name basis.


Just want to thank you, for the great entertainment. My son had three bone marrow transplants six years ago and I wish we had some thing like this to read during the tough times. It is great and it made me laugh and think back to all those times; it really hit home. We also stayed at the Ronald McDonald house and the hospital for eight months.
Lori S.


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