I hope you never have to hear the words, "Your child has cancer."

I hope you never have to hear, "The prognosis is not good."

I hope you never have to watch your child undergo radiation or chemotherapy or emergency surgery.

I hope you never have to see a rubber tube surgically inserted into their chest, be connected to IV machines for hours and hours.

I hope you never have to watch your baby boy look at you with fear in their eyes.

I hope you never have to hear your child Scream so loud it hurts your heart.

I hope you never have to hold your child as they vomit green bile.

I hope you never have to sit there for 4 days waiting for your child to move.

I hope you never have to inject morphine into your child every 20 minutes to stop their pain

I hope you never have to feed them through a tube in their nose, through their chest just to keep them alive.

I hope you never have to watch their bodies become so thin because they don’t eat for 32 days

I hope you never have to watch the "cure" slowly take away their identity, as they lose their hair, become skeletal, then swell up from steroids, develop severe ulcers in their mouth that stops them eating, become barely or unable to walk or move, and look at you with hope in their eyes and say, "I love you."

I hope that you never have to stay in the hospital for weeks, months, at a time, where there is no privacy, sleeping on a make-shift bed, with your face to the wall, where you cry in muffled silence.

I hope you never have to see a mother, alone, huddled, in a dark hospital corridor...crying quietly, after just being told, "There is nothing more we can do."

I hope you never have to watch a family wander aimlessly, minutes after their child's body has been removed.

I hope you never have to use every bit of energy you have left, with all of this going on around you to remain positive, and the feelings of guilt, sorrow, hope and fear, overwhelm you.

I hope you never have to see a child receive radiation over and over again.

I hope you never have to see your child’s skin fall off due to treatment designed to save their life.

I hope you never have to take your child home (grateful but so afraid) because the chemo and radiation has damaged their muscles, lighter, pale, bald, and scarred; with tubes hanging out of their chest. And they look at you with faith in their eyes and say, "I love you."

I hope you never have to face the few friends that have stuck beside you and hear them say, "How long has he got left.”

I hope you never have to say “he’s fine” when he’s really very ill but you don’t want to upset your few remaining friends.

Your life becomes a whirl of doctors, blood tests and MRI's and you try to get your life back to "normal". I hope you never forget what normal is…. Or was

I hope you never forget what a normal conversation is that doesn’t include cancer in the sentence.

While living in mind-numbing fear that any one of those tests could result in hearing the dreaded words...
"The cancer has returned."
And watch as your friends become even fewer and fewer.

I hope you never have to experience any of these things...Because...only then...

Will you understand.