The Ugly Truth

I was struck this morning by something. 

I was watching a piece on CBS Sunday Morning about Auschwitz, concentration camps, Nazi youth, and how we are still uncovering horrible truths about this European atrocity.  

It brought shivers to my body and tears to my eyes. 

We need to keep seeing it so it doesn't happen ever again. 

The Holocaust was a horrific event in the world's history. 

And this is why I write about childhood cancer.

Now, I'm not going to compare the Holocaust to childhood cancer by any means. 

It doesn't seem right. 

But I have the same feeling about showing the world the ghastliness of cancer when it hits a family. 

It's not pretty. 

It's not nice. 

It's not fair. 

Cancer is none of those things. 

But I share how it hit our family. 

And I'm not going to be quiet. 

People need to know. 

About the lack of federal funding. 

About the crappy lack of funding and overall neglect from the big whigs at the American cancer Society. 

About how many kids die everyday. 

About the horrific treatments that these kids have to endure. 

It's hard to fathom the great minds that are lost to the horrors of pediatric cancer and the great minds that were lost to the Holocaust. 

When a child dies from cancer, 60+ productive adult years from that human being are lost forever. 

Unlike breast, prostate, or lung cancer when the patient has (usually) already lived 40+ years. 

I can't imagine why more people aren't outraged by it!

I never really thought about childhood cancer until my kid got it. 

I'm sure you didn't really think much about it until my kid got it, either. 

It just doesn't happen to families like ours. 

But, of course, it does. 

Every single day. 

And people need to know. 

To keep hearing the ugly truths. 

The truths that hurt your heart and make you say "I don't know what I would do in that situation?"  

Truths like this..."I wake up every single day fearful that the leukemia will come back."

And my daughter's oncologist says this is normal. 

Truths that bring tears to your eyes. 

Like you feel when you hear the horrible truths about the Holocaust 70 years later. 

The truths keep being told so we never forget. 

Childhood cancer needs to be at the forefront of the news because of its ugliness and unjustness.

We can't forget. 

We just can't.  

We can't forget the kids who have died. 

We can't forget the traumas these young lives endure during treatments. 

And we need to do more. 

So these kids can grow up to see their own futures.