Ground Zero: Discovering Cancer

Our family was out of town when we found a lump on our youngest daughter’s back. Miranda was 3 years old. Her daddy picked her up, and she started crying inconsolably. She said it hurt to breathe and her back hurt. So we lifted her shirt and just under her right shoulder blade was a lump; it looked like someone had slid their little finger under her skin.

We could only look at each other.

A trip to the ER led to a baffled doctor who instructed us to follow up with our pediatrician when we returned home. When we left the ER, Miranda was feeling better, calmer, and the ER doctor didn’t think it was anything serious. Our pediatrician, however, scheduled Miranda for an ultrasound of the lump, which led to a chest X-ray and CAT scan. These tests showed that something was in Miranda’s body that shouldn’t be, so a biopsy was scheduled. Before the day of the biopsy, Miranda got a fever over 104 and started vomiting. The pediatrician decided that with the unknown of the lump and now a high fever and vomiting, Miranda should be hospitalized.

Never in my life did I think I would have a child battling cancer. That kind of thing happened to other people.

I had about a week to start getting used to the idea as the tests were run and the words “mass” and “tumor” were used. I didn’t know how to react. Should I be angry, bitter, depressed and hopeless, or determined, strong, encouraging and hopeful? The day before the official diagnosis, the doctors stopped by to update us on the tests. By this point — even though no one had said the word “cancer” — we knew Miranda had it. We were told that based on the location and how the tumor was presenting that it was either Rhabdomyosarcoma or Ewing’s sarcoma. I had never heard of either one.

The next day, I was alone in Miranda’s hospital room as she slept. I remember it like it was yesterday; it was a Thursday, mid afternoon, partly cloudy. I hadn’t left the hospital room in almost a week ... and the oncologist walked in. I braced myself. Miranda had Ewing’s sarcoma of the soft tissue of the chest wall. Put simply, she had a type of cancer that only children get, and it was located just under her rib cage. During the next few days, I learned that Ewing’s sarcoma is typically found in the bones. The year before Miranda’s diagnosis, there were 226 cases in the United States — it is a rare childhood cancer caused when parts of the 11 and 22 chromosomes break off and basically swap places with each other.

It is not known why this happens, and it is not inherited. I also learned that cancer in children is very different than cancer in adults. While children can get the types of cancers that adults get, it is very rare. There are about a dozen different types of cancers that only children get that are lumped together and called childhood cancers. The most common childhood cancer is leukemia. Cancers of the central nervous system and neuroblastoma are the next most common.

My daughter has cancer.

For the first month of Miranda’s treatment she was in the hospital. The view from her room was the side of the Ingram Cancer Center building, more specifically, the word “Cancer.” Day after day, I saw that word staring at me like an ugly monster, which is exactly what I think cancer is. Sometimes, when Miranda was sleeping and the room was quiet, my mind would wander, and I would imagine the worst. When that happened, I couldn’t keep all my emotions in check and the tears didn’t want to stop. I went through denial: this couldn’t be happening to my child. Then the reality sank in. I cried until there was nothing left.
I became determined to do everything I could to help my daughter survive cancer.