The Cancer Mom Who's Empowering Parents

Hi, and welcome to how humans heal. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson, and I'm looking forward to introducing you to Laura de Kraker Langry today. She is a patient advocate. She's a professional educator for over 30 years, and she's an author of a book to empower patients who are in the process of supporting their child through cancer treatment. It's called the Cancer Parents what yout Oncologist doesn't have Time to Tell youl. Thank you so much for joining us today, Laura.

Oh, thanks for having me. I'm so excited.

It's really just so awesome that you've written this book. And you didn't just write this book out of nowhere. You wrote this book because you went through this as a parent of a child who had childhood leukemia. And that's huge to be. To have gone through that process and came out the other side and said, I want to make a book out of this, the book I needed when I was in the process. Right. I mean, tell us more. Like, what inspired you to write this book? We're so excited to have your book available now.

Oh, thank you. I think it was from a lack of knowledge and a deep, deep frustration when I was going through the process. And I think part of that, perhaps, is because I'm an educator by profession. So I'm always looking for answers and always digging into research about what's happening. But it's really profound when your child is diagnosed with cancer. I've had certainly friends and family with diagnoses of different kinds of trauma, but there's something about when your child goes through something when you're. You're the person who has to take care of them. And pretty early on in the process, I realized that there's a huge gap between the medical side of treatment and the whole rest of the story. And I think that the first thing that probably happened to us was that very early on, probably the day after she was diagnosed, which was actually 26, seven years ago today. So this is very full circle. Wow. Was that. I was standing, I know where my oncologist was, and he said to me, well, you know, it's okay. She's probably 80, 85% chance of survival, which to all I could hear was she had a 15% chance of dying. So what I impart to parents that I'm educating is that your medical team is phenomenal and they are so gifted at curing cancer. Back when we first had diagnosis, in the 50s, in the 60s, the 70s, children were dying. Mostly, mostly were dying. There was maybe a 20% chance of survival. When they figured out how to put it in the cerebral spinal fluid, that changed the statistics greatly. So there's this massive amount of work that our oncologists, nurse practitioners, researchers have done in the cancer world, but they're the medical side of it. And it was very clear to me that, oh, so she has a 15% chance of dying. That's up to me. And there was nobody there to tell me, what does that mean? What can I do? What can't I do? What can I advocate for? What can I demand? What is my job as the parent of this kid with a life threatening disease to do? And then there's the other part of the story, which I'm sure we'll get to eventually, is what about me and how do I withstand that? Because I. All of us go through different kinds of traumas in our life, be they medical or not, and sustaining that through the long haul, the marathon, that is, whatever it is you're going through as a person is key.

It really is. And again, I'm so glad that you're putting this into a handbook. I hope that all parents find out about it. And the thing that comes to my mind right away as a practitioner and a mom, myself and a grandmom is how did you as a ha. What got you to bring your daughter in even to. Because I think my fear would be missing it completely from the beginning. Like how you must have had something that, that signaled to you, hey, I need to go have her blood drawn and check to see if there's something going on. And that's what kind of started you down this path.

Right?

Because that's when they identified it. But what is it? Was there something that kind of said to you, hey, I need it? Because I think parents greatest fear is that their child might get cancer.

I think it is. And it's a hard thing to wrap your head around and then when it happens to you, it's quite shocking. So I don't like to scare parents, but there was really nothing amazing going on with her health. I just knew she wasn't right. She was pale. I knew she wasn't as spazzy as usual. She was the kind of kid who always loved to run, run, run on the playground. And she wanted to be held, she wanted to just sit down. She was in a very happy mood, nothing beyond that. But I knew something wasn't right. So I asked her, she was just three and a half. I said, where do you feel it? Where do you not feel right? And she rubbed her little torso and said, everywhere. So I still get chills to this day with that. And I. I took that to our doctor, who really just said, no, no, we don't need to do anything. I said, no, no, we are. We're going to take a blood test tomorrow.

So right then, you were advocating right from the beginning, saying, look, for. We're not going to just ignore this. We need to look into this.

And advocacy is a huge. This book. It's. My aim is to empower parents of kids in any kind of medical. Or parents of kids with any kind of medical trauma. Certainly this focuses around cancer because that was my journey. That, that advocacy piece for your child's health and that advocacy piece for yours is really fundamental. And yeah, I think some of us are wired to be advocates and some of us aren't, and I think the playing field needs to be evened. So that's what this book aims to do, is to provide you with the knowledge. So, you know, oh, okay, here's what I can do. But going back to diagnosis, it was just a gut feeling and then putting my foot down. I think we're all very reluctant to do that with Western medicine, in particular, of saying, hey, something's not right here. And the truth be told, I was blessed to work with Cecilia's former oncologist, her nurse practitioner, all sorts of medical people who were part of her world who said the same thing. We need parents, we need them to be part of the medical team to advocate for their child because we don't know them. We know the medical side, we don't know the rest. Problem is they don't have the time or the knowledge to tell you what it is you can do. Yeah.

Oftentimes they only have so much time in an appointment and they have to be focused on the treatment that they're providing if, say, there is a cancer diagnosis and oncological treatment is needed, but they are not going to be coming home with you or helping with feeding your child or helping them through the stress of it, or making sure you both get enough sleep and so on? So how did you navigate that? I mean, how did you. And also you have another daughter. So how did you navigate that whole process of, like, realizing, oh, my gosh, this is. This is real in our lives now, and we now need to figure out how to continue moving forward while helping her go through treatment?

Yeah, it's in bits and pieces. So a thing that happened to us on the first week of treatment is we decided right away to tag team because we did have a 15 month old at home. Our third child hadn't been born yet, but we needed to figure out how to care for her and how to be at the hospital. And I remember it was my shift. Arna and I decided we would take turns in the beginning and at important things, be there together, which I'd love to talk about later because I had the benefit of having a partner, which isn't always the case for everyone listening. So there are ways to build your community. So I was there by myself and this woman came up to me with a baby in the front pack and a kid in the stroller, and she said, you look like you need help. And she was my first friend, Irene, whose child Luke had the same exact leukemia. And within the kids were running on the floor, playing and goofing around. And she said, give me your email, and proceeded to send me a list of here's what you can expect the first month, here's what it feels like, here's what it looks like, here's what she should ask for, here's what this drug feels like. This whole plethora of information that was to our cancer and to our. Any experience when your child has to be in a hospital for a long, long time. Pivotal, pivotal moment of empowering me to go, oh, I have options. I didn't even, no one even told me I had options. And that was a key, key point in all of this. And I would say the second piece that happened that kicked off this advocacy and this push towards figuring out what's my job, what's my role with mental health, physical health, food, you know, all of it was in that same comment when my. I think our oncologist, who was amazing, was trying to pump me up, like, isn't that great? She has an 85% chance of survival. Which if you were. If I had a friend who said they had 85% survival of breast cancer, I might think that was okay. But I can assure you, when it's your child, it's just not enough.

Yeah, you 100%.

Yeah, 100 I want to guarantee. But he also said in the same breath, oh, and by the way, she'll never do math or science. That's just something you'll have to accept, really. And I was, I had that faith that you just gave me. I was lured because it was very early on and I suppose some might think presumptuous of me to be thinking of anything besides her survival, but I was pissed off and thought, you're telling me that this thing could Kill her. And she might not be who she is. I don't think that's right. And it just didn't sit right. And that combined with what Irene had given me as a friend and as a co parent and led me to know that I had choices and could advocate for my daughter to change the course of her treatment or at least be a helper in that course of treatment. Which is down. Which is, which is what led us down the road of figuring out what to do with those side effects. Because not just cancer, other diseases as well, they don't just help you with the problem. They have a lot of side effects. And many, many can stick with you for years, decades, for your entire life, or change the outcome of who you're supposed to be. And he wasn't wrong. When you put methotrexate, for example, in cerebral spinal fluid, it does destroy white matter. What he didn't have, the rest of the story was because it wasn't his job, was you can rewire a small child's brain.

So that was the. Probably the initial.

Feistiness in me that made me search out other people to help me figure that out, that 15% chance of survival, but not just getting through, but thriving through. And what part could I take in help making that happen?

So I know this is all in your book and I'm sure great detail and, and absolutely gonna help. I mean, because there's also a lot of time that parents are like, there's a lot of waiting, right? You're like a lot of times in the waiting room waiting and anticipating. What do the results say? What's the treatment gonna be or waiting for for it. And these are opportunities to be able to have this book you're reading and getting your information in the process so you're prepared for what's the next step.

And so I'm encouraging people to definitely get the book. But talk us through, Laura, like, because I want to get into also how we can take care of ourselves as the caretaker. But just to give us a sense first of what does that look like in terms of the. Some practical tips just so that people have a sense of, like, when they're in the. In your book, what are some of the tips that they're going to find that help them with this? Getting through the appointments and getting through the treatment process.

What I found I really needed was a guidebook that was going to take me step by step through the process. Kind of a, Kind of a what to expect when you're expecting.

Oh, yeah, exactly. When you're pregnant, but now you're going through treatment of your child. Yeah.

And you're like, wait, what happens week one and how does this work? And although each cancer is different, there are fundamental processes that are largely the same if you are incident free, meaning if your child does not relapse or pass away. So there's a lot of children who are in treatment going through the same kinds of things, different cocktail of ingredients, different, different things like that. But the stuff that we have to do at home really is the same. So what I do in the cancer parents handbook is I take you from diagnosis day all the way through the end of treatment and take you what to expect in this particular phase. What are. And the book is riddled with toolbox tips so that along the way they have concrete strategies that they can use for what it is we're speaking about in that moment. So the initial chapters are what are really about what can wait? What do you need to focus on right now and what can wait? Because the question I get all the time is, is my child was just diagnosed, how do. What do I do? How do I do this? And you think you need to do it all right now and solve all the problems or they.

How to prioritize.

Right.

How to prioritize. Because this is a marathon. Cancer treatments are months or years long. Then we go into what? How do you create your new normal in your family? What does that look like? How do you live with cancer? Cancer in children is not typically something where you take the medicine, you're cured, you say goodbye and off you go. It is long process. And plus, I think something that's underrated is what happens to us when we are done with a trauma. There is, I think that's when I first met you. There is a lot that happens to your body when you finish the trauma. I then take parents through what is it going to be like when you stay at the hospital, what to expect, what you can ask for, how do you make friends with the doctors and nurses. I craft a chapter about the hospital party which tells parents how to create some fun in your child's life, even in these dark times. I have specific chapters for both the parent and the child on body and soul with tips and tricks for how you can fortify your body and soul while the caregiver and for the child, how you can help them process the chemo out of their body while it does its job. Because you don't want it to stick around. You want to have tips of how you can use it, get rid of it and be done. We also talk about nutrition and we talk about exercise. We talk about, you know, people's lack of faith or people who have faith. How do you handle that? A big component of the book that is established early on and repeated is how do you ask for help? Very isolating diagnosis. And that concept of how do you get help and get the kind of help that you need to make this sustainable is really key.

You know, I think that's such a good point because sometimes when you get a diagnosis, first of all, it's so shocking, and then it's overwhelming because you're trying to take in all of these different decisions. Like, you know, these are. These are life and death decisions you feel like you have in your hands and you're. And at that point, sometimes the stress of it kind of paralyzes us and we. We then don't even know how to communicate with other people. And sometimes it's hard for other people to know how to communicate with someone who they know is dealing with cancer. So to be able to just address that and open that up and say, this is the opportunity. If you've never asked for help before, this is your chance to learn how to ask for help, Especially even from family and loved ones and even people you don't know. Like, you just met this woman right in the doctor's office, and already you didn't even have to ask her for help. She started just giving you help. And it just breaks that barrier, right? That help is just like, let, let the help just come in and, and, and let. Let it soak in and, and so you can start to use it versus that, you know, that stress responses to isolate ourselves. And so we have to kind of work against that.

Would you say, gosh, that's such a great point. I hadn't thought about. But when I think about your book master, your stress, that's exactly it. You become paralyzed. And even those of us who. Who think we're pretty powerful, you know, women, I'm going to say women, because I am right now, but whomever, whatever gender you are, you just are paralyzed. So it's not that you. You can't. You just can't anymore. You can't take on more. So in the book, I'm very specific about what to ask for. And I took not only my own advice and things that worked for me, and because I became that friend for myself, I became Irene who had come to help me for other people. But I collaborated in these last years writing the book with current cancer patients to See? Okay, what are your hot tips for what you have to ask for in terms of help? So the book is filled with not only how to ask for help, but what kinds of people to ask for help from and what you can ask for for. And helpful to you, because you're right, you're just completely paralyzed and you don't know what you want and you don't know how. So I gave it to you. So. Because I know where you are right now, I understand. And it's there for you. And there's a separate chapter for grandparents, friends, and family, because that's. Those are very specific loved ones that, as you said, cancer can. And other illnesses can chase people away, and you want them to be there for you. And I would say mostly people do want to help. They just don't know how.

Yeah.

And so almost giving them ideas for how to opening that conversation and how to feel more comfortable talking about it. Because of course, everybody's fear there is right there. You know, they. We fear the worst. And how do we. How can we be present with fearing the worst, but also take making decisions each day toward optimizing the. The. The. The best outcome.

Right. Yeah. Because living in that, fearing the worst is not sustainable. It just takes you down mentally and physically.

And I love how you're mentioning how to create the fun, because sometimes I think as parents, we might feel guilty, like, oh, are we just. We're just trying to, you know, make something fun when really it's. It's. It's a stressful time for the child. We almost feel like, oh, is this gonna, you know, feel like a disconnect to them? But I love that you're saying that helps the children through this process to be able to show up in a playful way in the process of treating something like cancer.

Yes. And it normalizes the process because at some point, I strongly suggest to families that they do their best to normalize it because it is a long time. So, for example, one of the things that really kicked us off on that journey was figuring out ways to give Cecilia agency and meaning that what choices can you give over to your child and what can you give them? So, for example, once we got through the scary first month, we had a little bit of a schedule for a few months, and that also included getting labs once a week, and it also included getting a shot at home of chemotherapy at the hospital. And the nurse asked Cecilia, would you rather come here or do you want to have it done at home? And we'll teach your parents, and of course, My husband and I were like, oh, no, no, no. And ce. Like, I want to do it at home, so I couldn't recommend it more. And of course, it's really daunting to take home a bag of a bag labeled biohazard and learn how to impale your child with chemotherapy that, you know, don't let the dog touch it and your other child can't get near it. And. But we created a routine and a system with her where she had fun. So on her lab days, we. I would pile the kids into the bike trailer with books and their favorite snacks, and we'd go around the neighborhood and then just end up at the labs where she decided, because she got to know the phlebotomist, what leg she wanted to sit on of me, and she wanted to hold her sister's hand, and they had to count to three, and then she would wail, breath it out. So, yes, she still had to get the lab drop, but she made all of the other choices, which, even at the age of four, made it possible for her to not cry when these things were happening because she was going out for bagels afterward. Everything was great. So pulling that fun in there amidst the negativity is really powerful because you do want your child to feel like a badass as they're going through this. I. I do believe firmly that that's a helpful, helpful thing to do, and that's partially us not. Not showing our rawness and trauma to them and creating that sense of fun that you said.

Wow, that's so amazing. And I. I can see that completely now, too, knowing Cecilia now like that, just knowing that, that. Do you think that that was partly her personality and also you just like. Just saying, hey, let's let her make the choices, you know, did you encourage her, is what I'm saying, to say, hey, what? What? How can you. Because obviously, like, I think we can do that in parenting anyway, right? Where we. We know that a child has to get their blood drawn, but we can let them have some choices to make in the process so they feel that sense of empowerment.

Yeah, that's what I see as an educator, is children love to have agency and choices, and they equally love to have boundaries. So while she. When we would do the shot at home at night, for example, that was a nasty shot that had to be forcefully impaled into her. But she watched TV during dinner. She got to pick the meal, and then she had all of the ways that she wanted to prepare for the shot while she was watching her favorite show. And then on our side, you had to show kindness. You had to use your manners. If we were in the hospital, there's no tantrums. And then she would get what she wanted afterwards. So it was a win win because we set the boundary of you can't be a little monster when you're doing this. But if these things happen in a calm way, you get to have the movie and you get to have your popsicle after dinner and everyone's happy.

Wow, amazing. And to see that, that, you know, that that helped because it makes a difference. Ult because there's the chemotherapy in this situation that's treating the cancer. But also we know now in research that cancer has way more to do. You know, yes, we need to address it with a chemo. But there's all these other aspects, right? The love, the gratitude, the empowerment, the food, the, you know, the sense of family and connection and playfulness. And he said sleep and all these other factors that help a body recover from cancer.

Oh, it cannot be underestimated. It can't. And I am careful in the book to sprinkle in both things that cost money, because there's a lot you could do that costs money and things that don't cost money that we can do at home. So, for example, having that knowledge that when you take a certain kind of drug or you're in the hospital for a stay it to go and do something your child loves, you don't need to tell them, I want you to go sweat because I want that chemotherapy to process through you faster so you won't get constipated. You just pick something or let them pick something that they know is fun. And you always do it every time that you're doing any kind of drug that's difficult for your child, that you want it to work on their body and then leave the system. Things like massage, it's a gift if you're able to afford a regular masseuse that gets to know their little body and can help with that lymphatic drainage. But there's amazing on YouTube, there's amazing tutorials for how to massage a child, which is what we did at the time. And so, you know, in the evening before bed, she loved that would have her little oils and massage it all out of her just to keep her body flushing and moving in to help optimize the chemotherapy. I think you can and you really want to work with people if you can, and that's what you want to do who are professionals. So we knew that there was more that we could be doing. I had just started myself dabbling in acupuncture and I knew the power of nutrition, but I didn't know anything like I know now. But we had, we had, we had found a few people who. What. We weren't, we weren't looking for someone to cure her cancer, and we were looking for someone to work in terms of complementary medicine, something that would elevate and lift the process and help her stay strong, just as you said. And so we worked with a naturopathic doctor in Seattle who. That was his job. He was on the cancer ward providing naturopathic therapies in conjunction with chemo. And it took a while, it took about three months for our oncologist to agree to speak with him because they wouldn't work unless they were working in tandem. And I think that was a big game changer. And I think it's important for patients to know that if you can swing it, the power of naturopathic medicine during this process is unbelievable. Please don't do it on your own because you can turn off different chemotherapies. Like for example, vitamin I might get this wrong, but for example, vitamin C can turn off the boran based, like methotrexate drugs. It can just turn it off. So you have to work with a professional, but if you do, I think the results are amazing because it strengthens their immune system, which is what chemo pushes down as it saves their life.

Having optimal cortisol and adrenaline levels is essential for health and longevity. And yet the stress in the present and in the past can affect our cortisol and adrenaline levels, causing them to be too high or too low. The thing is that we're not all affected by stress in the same way. So over the past two decades, I've been researching and discovering how to help my patients recover from stress. And I've identified the five stress types, which are the five common, common patterns of disruption in cortisol and adrenaline levels. The reason why this is so important is because the treatment is different when cortisol is too high. We use different herbs, nutrients and other modalities to bring levels back to optimal than if the levels are too low. So that's why I, through research, developed the stress type quiz, which allows you, in under two minutes to discover what likely your cortisol and adrenaline levels are. So then you can make decisions about which herbs, nutrients and other healing activities to choose to help optimize your cortisol and adrenaline again and improve your health now and into the future. Just go to stresstypequiz.com where you can take the quiz and take it from there.

Yeah.

A lot of times people assume that it's like you're having to choose between a certain standard medical or conventional medical approach in chemo or some other natural approach. And the fact is there is a way to not only use them together but you, you're right. There's, there's very specialized training in terms of naturopathic doctors and and integrative other types of practitioners who focus on how do we really look at all the research and know which nutrients and herbs we can use at different times in the treatment. Sometimes it' matter of the day of the week, you know, the day before and after treatment versus the other days. And so it's that detailed that you're going to want to have as you're saying, an expert guiding you. But then you have, you get the benefit of those additional nutrients and herbs and oftentimes there's nutrients and herbs that actually enhance the effect of the chemotherapy so or prevent nutrient deficiencies or prevent side effects. And so I see that a lot with when I work with patients who have a cancer diagnosis and I can come in as an asiapathic doctor and clinical nutritionist and say let's do these things to that are nutrients and herbal based or even homeopathy or nutrition and or mind body medicine that can help to enhance whatever treatment you're needing to go through so that you're, you don't have to choose, choose either or but you can, you can get the best of both worlds. I'm so glad that you, that you knew that and you found a way for that and that was even 27 years ago.

I know and I think that that was a big key. If you can think back to the story I told you about our oncologist saying she'll never do math or science. I know that that work with alternative medicine if you will or complementary medicine. The things that we would do from massage to sweating to eating really good food and working with the naturopath were key to her being able to rewire her brain. I in my advocacy spirit. After he told me that I stood on that for a very long time and I decided that was, that was BS and so I happened to find her the head researcher of her protocol and I called him and he was a little surprised to hear from a parent but very kind and spent about an hour with me and he said I oh well actually that's not quite true. Let me explain it to you a different way. And he ended up leaving me with tools and tricks that rewired her brain, helped to process the chemo after it had done its job so that it wouldn't sit in her and cause catastrophic or just nasty side effects for her the rest of her life. And they worked. So she didn't have neuropathy. She didn't have eye issues or ear issues. Because of the other things that 15 I talked about in the beginning that we owned, I truly believe that that's what it did. And then she ended up getting a master's degree and a bachelor's degree in math and science. So.

So you. So you're like, not only did we prevent that, we might have even enhanced it.

I don't want parents to feel like.

It'S a death sentence for how their child could have been, because it's not. You have options, and there are things that you can do. I think the trick is that we all have to think about big diagnoses like these as not something you get through and then manage it, but start to have that survivor mentality from the beginning, because that's. While you're going through treatment, is when you can start to make changes to your body, to your metabolism, to your brain, to your. And if it's a child, to your child's rewiring. So even though it's such a good point. Yeah. But it's terrifying because you think, oh, I'm. I can't think that my kid's going to survive. Why. Why do I get that benefit? But you have to, because there's. There's things that you can do right now to make it so much better.

It really. And I love that you. You took that message of the 85 and 15%, and you said, okay, my doctors handling the 85% with this treatment, I'm gonna handle the other 15%, and I'm gonna take action starting now. Like you're saying, a lot of times people think, oh, I just have to get through this cancer treatment and then. Then change my diet or then do something different. And you're right. It's way more effective to start immediately and just be like, how can. And would you say that it ended up spilling over to your whole house? Like, it's not just the child that's receiving these changes. It's your whole family and your whole household.

Right.

Yes. And I would suggest that no matter what, because it's hard on siblings, and there's. There's different ages of siblings in the house. It's. It may be slightly easier when they're little because you can manipulate sort of the meal plan and what you're doing a little bit more behind the scenes as opposed to a, you know, a more surly middle school person. But it's still doable. You and to not make it such a, such a.

Spotlight or a focus on the cancer kid, but rather, hey, this is an opportunity for us to become way more healthy. So it's not like keeping the secret stash of Oreos for the other kids and you. But clean it up. You are on a marathon. And you know how scared we all are of the word cancer. Right? So go for it. Give your body everything that it needs, all of the tools, especially with nutrition, to make a difference. And even if you're not a huge believer in the power of nutrition, I think you should read a little bit more about it. But you're in this for the long haul. So if you're. Were there days when I just wanted caffeine and lattes and dark chocolate intravenously? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And you've got to give into that once in a while. But in the long haul, you've got to set yourself up for running a race because that's what you're doing and your kid and your whole family.

And so you were, you guys were in that treatment process for a number of months and then it sounds like also. And then somewhere in that point you also became pregnant. And we're having a. Another going through another pregnancy.

Yes. I decided we wouldn't even try until the very end of treatment when we had a little more hope that everything would be okay. But yeah, that was tough. That was not easy to navigate.

So it's like. But just to know like you got through it. So if someone listening, being like, how am I going to do all this? Like, you're proof that like you can get through this. You can even be, you know, growing your family and raising your kids while going through this treatment over a three year period of time.

And what was that like when you, like how was that when you got to the point where you can enjoy. Knew you had crossed the finish line, so to speak, where you had. Where you know, they. What was that looking like? When did the doctors say, okay, she's now in remission or how did that look?

Yeah, it's a tricky one with childhood cancers because they try, they give them a ton of chemo in the first months. This in typical protocols, not everyone, you put them into remission and then they pull back a little bit to keep it. Permission for the Next two and a half, three years, or whatever the particular treatment is. We, including Irene and her little boy Luke, we had bonded with a group of six families. We had. We had. We were a little squad. Most of us had a similar, or, you know, kind of similar ish diagnosis. And you really get to know these families, and, you know, it is still a roll of the dice. Yes, the treatments are much better, but they're not amazing. And the rates of cancer are still going up. And in our little squad, we bore witness to that. When three of them died, two of them relapsed, repeated treatment, relapsed again, had successful bone marrow transplants, but just a lifetime of side effects. Really tough, tough haul. And so we never actually had that feeling, like that maybe was part of my hustle in this. I never felt like I had that relaxing moment. And when I speak to parents today, that still seems to be the case. You don't. You would love to, but you know too much about the reality of people relapsing on their last day of treatment, which is something that happened to one of our friends. So where it's the end. I happen to be Methodist, but whatever you believe in or don't believe in really can work for you. And I was spiraling about the what ifs, because we were close to the end and she was doing great. And so we went to our pastor, and I just sort of, you know, we both sort of spewed our fears. And she paused for a minute, wisely, and she said, you know, have you ever considered that she's the hope? And I had not. And that really changed everything. And I think that's a big piece of this, too, is the mental health aspect. What we choose to say to ourselves as we go through trauma and go through terrible times is so key. And it is a practice. It's not as though you get good at this and you get trained at this, and it's all better. It. It's. It's something that I learned back then, and I still practice today. And I still, when things come up and I need to change that voice in my head and that narrative or maybe give Dr. Donnie a call again. It's still a practice, but you can grow so deeply by focusing on actually right now what is happening. And in that moment with the pastor was like, she's in maintenance. She's doing great. She looks super healthy. That's it. That's the story. So I think a fundamental thing for any parent going through a trauma is to surrender to your situation, meaning and it took me a long time to understand that surrendering is not passive, it's super active. But you have to acknowledge the thing. So the thing for me, my kid had cancer. My kid has cancer. At the time, that's a fact. I can't. The more that I resist that and fight that mentally and it shows up in my body physically, the worse I'm going to be. So I accept it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. She has cancer. And I. Sir. And I. Sorry. I surrender to it. Yep, she has cancer. I accept it. Now I have space in my brain and my body to go. What's next?

So what can I do? Yeah, you can go into problem solving, you can go into action because you're not stuck in that state of fear. Like, that seems to be something we're coming back to. And I love this opportunity to shift into how you took care of yourself as the caretaker.

Right.

And it's so common, that is well established in the research that if the caretaker is not taking care of themselves, then they become susceptible to health issues and then you're not able to take care of a child. Well, so how do we, you know, again, like this is part of it, the mindset, and not not letting that fear paralyze you, but how to. And sometimes it may be reaching out to.

If it's some, you know, faith based support or other forms of counseling and therapy or practitioners or. And I love that you sounds like you. And you created a community of families to be there for each other as well. Like that wasn't something that, that was just self. Self initiated, that group of six families. Huh. Like that's. That community and connection makes a difference.

Yeah. And helping each other and being there for each other and supporting one another through all of the things. None of us had any idea that there would be so many struggles, but to be there for each other is. Is so fundamental, is a part of taking care of yourself too. And I think that's what you said is so key. And I. It took a couple of years of writing before I realized, you know, really all we want as a parent is to take care of our kid or our grandkid. We want them to survive. That's the goal. That's all we want to have happen. So let that help you shift your mindset about taking care of your body and soul. Because if you're tanked out, tapped out, stressed out, you can't take care of them like you want to. You just simply cannot do it. So I look at this in two different categories. I call it body and soul and body is. Is more obvious. But I give specific tools and techniques that have been known to help support your neurotransmitters, have been known to help calm the stressors. And again, some are, some are costly and some are not, but they include therapy. And you can get that kind of therapy for free through your social worker at your hospital or perhaps with a cancer group doing it that way or have your own therapist to walk through it. But that kind of regular check in with somebody. And if you are in a partnership, being able to hash out what's not working and what is working is super key. There is meditation, which I can't recommend enough in terms of clearing the clutter and finding that time. I'm going to start though, with, I think, the most important thing, and that is finding the way to carve out some personal time for yourself to do whatever it is that you want to do, be it the therapy or the meditation or the workout or the whatever. Figuring it out with your chosen family if you're alone or with your partner is super key because if you guys are constantly buzzing around each other, you're not going to get any time off. And it can tend to be the female or the person who's the primary caregiver at home who takes on more than they should. And this job cannot be handled by one person. It needs to be shared in many different ways. So in carving out that time, I really found that a morning meditation for me was key. And the other thing that was a game changer is a gratitude journal. And I remember somebody telling me to do that. And I thought that was such a stupid thing to say. My kid has cancer. What the hell do I have to be thankful for?

Life changing. So listeners out there have not tried that. That in the evenings before you go to bed where you really, in the beginning, kind of force yourself to look at what are the small things that really were great about this day. And it resets, I think, your whole body chemistry when you do that.

Yeah, it does.

The quiet time in the morning is what I chose to do. So finally, after a lot of figuring it out with my husband, he took the morning shift, the hair braiding and the breakfast and got them to school. And I took the afternoon, the pickup and the snack and the homework stuff. So each of us knew we'd have designated time to do with it as we will. For me, that morning meditation time was pivotal. I would find a quiet place, I'd have some kind of reading that was inspirational to me. It meant something to me, really? Maybe 10 minutes at the most. I know other people meditate in the morning. Maybe they do a yoga or a workout. Whatever it is for you, it's very personal. But I knew it was mine and I knew my kids. You know, was it tricky in the beginning where they're. Yes, there were little noses pressed against the window like mama coming back. But if you have a plan with your partner or your found family, carving out that space to then do whatever it is, the meditation, the therapy, the workout, the, you know, making an epic meal plan for the week, then you can do it because you have created the space and you've set boundaries for those people who don't have a partner in the house. Remember that people really, really want to help. And so something in the help chapters that I recommend frequently is ask those people. Come. You know, that maybe it's that neighbor who is always asking for something to do to come over between four and five every day or twice a week or once a week so that, you know, that is your carved out time to refill your tank. I think that's one of the things I didn't do as well as I could have. I did it to some extent, but I also saw at the end of treatment, which we were talking about earlier, how much you really take because it's done, but it's not done because you have to wait a year and are they going to relapse and are they not? So filling that tank up from the beginning of this process is something I'm super passionate about empowering parents to do from the get go because it isn't sustainable and we are frozen in paralysis with our stress. So I want to be that voice in these chapters saying, okay, here's the deep breath. Here's what you need to do to help take care of your body and soul so that you can be there for your child during and after. Yeah.

Because it's not. That's the thing. A lot of times people. Yeah. Get through the treatment and then. And then it's like you're. You feel lost. What is this? What is the life after cancer treatment and sort of already being able to create that and anticipate that and. And then. Yeah. Live into that. Yeah. Like to know that there is still that unknown and anticipation and how do we keep taking steps forward even though there's this little bit of unknown and possibility there? Right.

That's so smart. Because I don't think you want to be in denial about that. It really doesn't end and you suddenly feel like Tap dancing. It doesn't work like that. And I think that's true of many things like a cancer diagnosis. And to have that awareness and acceptance and surrender to it and have some practices already in place that you can maybe lean into even more because you theoretically have more time, it's pretty cool.

And then you did you end up finding in that process. I mean, it sounds like you learned so much through her treatment that you. You still implement today.

Oh, 100%. I think the main thing you can. That is possible to take away from this is a sense of resiliency and of knowing what you can advocate for for your entire life, be it something you go through with your parents afterwards or some catastrophe. We had a landslide on our house. And you. It does give you a. It can give you a joyful perspective on what really doesn't matter anymore. But there's this resiliency in knowing that you're. That you're tough. But also for me, it was the really the knowing how to ask for help because I most certainly tanked at the end and that's when I found you. So that was a huge lesson that look, oh, this isn't right. How I'm looking and how I'm feeling and I need help. And knowing that I could not just sit in my discomfort, but to research and find someone who could help me get out of that in a deeper way than I was doing.

Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad to have been able to help in that way. And yeah, to see like, oh, let's look at how this, you know, acknowledging, okay, there's been this stress exposure and you were doing all these things to help yourself through it. And yet we still need to look at how has that stress had an impact. So we can specifically help your body re. Optimize and heal from it. So it, again, it doesn't have to have a. A tale of negative impact in your life or your future.

It doesn't. And we had an experience pretty early on that made me realize that was a really easy way that could really happen quite easily. We went to a magnificent camp for kids with cancer and we were going to the parent meeting, which I was thrilled about because there were people ahead of us and I wanted to learn. People were. Had kids who were 10 years out of treatment, five, six, three months into treatment, and the. It was just the particular group of people at that day, and I'm aware of that, but they were a group filled with despair and they were still living in their cancer years and still Living in the trauma and still living in the health problems for themselves. Their child might have been cured and on their way to being healthy or healthy altogether, but they weren't. And what I left from that meeting is knowing I don't know how, but I don't want to be like that for the rest of my life. And I got to figure it out. And then I want to help others.

And that's inspired you to write this book, the Cancer Parents Handbook. I mean, I think it's, that's huge. It's true. Like, we don't want to be stuck in that state. We want to be able to, you know, have things we experience in life be an opportunity to learn and grow and expand and implement going forward. Because your children are going to need you after that too. You know, you're, you're. They're going to need you to be able to continue growing and expanding with them. And you do so many amazing things. I know in your life, always giving to others and also doing amazing things, traveling and so on.

I'm.

And I know that you also work with, you know, as an educator, children and creating productions you've probably come across and your other maybe children that had cancer or were going to treat cancer treatment. How was that? As the teacher, as their educator? I don't know if that was ever a part of your role of understanding them or being a supportive teacher to a child that was going through.

That's such a great point. Yeah. I would encourage parents so, so, so much, be it a mental health issue or a physical health issue like cancer, please tell your teachers, but you, you have just here waiting to be compassionate to your child and have an understanding and when. Too often, in my experience, parents don't tell for some whatever reason it might be, and sometimes it's. They have a shame feeling about it or maybe they don't want to burden.

The teacher or they don't know how the teacher is going to respond or. Yeah.

And I, my experience on the other side has been we are just here to help. And it's so much easier to have support and empathy and kindness when we're, we're there to be there for your child, to help them through that thing. So whatever that thing is, I always appreciate knowing. And sometimes parents don't want me to say anything to their kid, and that's easy to do, but I have the knowledge and I can reroute how a class is going or how our production is going based on what I see happening in the corner with that child and what Their need might be. So always, always speak up. And that's. That's a great. I do speak about that in the book, too, is talk to your teachers, not only for your kid, who is. Who is going through something, but the rest of the family because it impacts them as well.

So a lot of this is, like, just opening up the communication. And what I see, too, is that you and your husband Arnaby came like a team. You really got to. You got to see what the two of you could do as a team.

We did. And that takes work. I will not say in any way, shape, or form. We just came out of the gate knowing how we'd been together a really, really long time, but that didn't mean we knew how to navigate this thing called cancer. And that. That childhood cancer support group, Jacob's Heart, which is what we belong to, was pivotal because our kids could go and do art therapy, and we talked to a counselor who understood cancer and could let us, you know, be angry, grieve, be pissed, think about things, be collaborative, lift each other up, and find a new way of working together as a team to get us through this. Not get us through this, but to thrive through this.

Amazing.

It's shown up in everything that we've done since. Every sort of thing that has come up in our lives, be it. You know, does it take us a minute sometimes to go, oh, hey, we want to do this a different way, because we can. Absolutely. But what cancer gave us was that resiliency and also the knowledge that this. And I hope this is how I would love parents to think about things after they read the book. This can be a chapter of your life and not the whole life story.

So it's not like it disappeared in your awareness. You still. Here you are writing and talking about it, so it's in you. It became part of your family story and your life story. And so it's not like it disappeared forever, but it's like, how. What can you. What gift can it bring you that then can, you know, you can share with others?

What gift can it bring you? And what gifts do you have that you could bring either back to the cancer community or something else? I mean, when you feel twitchy about people helping you and giving you or providing some money or bringing groceries, just. Just put it in the back of your mind, like, I'm going to help somebody else someday.

That's the thing, ultimately, right? We're. We're all humans getting through this. And how can, you know, like, instead of, you know, putting up these Invisible barriers. We can just break that down and say, how can we, you know. Yeah. Identify what we need, go to the expert who can help us, and then also help each other out in the process that we just. We just know we're all just getting through each day to. To help our families and help ourselves to live. Your purpose. And I'm so excited for you to be leaning into this, you know, your purpose as an educator, as a. As a parent and teaching other parents how, based on your experience, how they too, can. Can experience cancer treatment in this way. It doesn't. It doesn't have to look that other way. It can actually look this way in. In which it. You. And even if. I mean, what would you say to parents who might go through a loss of a child in the process?

Yeah, that's Irene lost Luke. And I have an entire chapter. It had to be devoted to bereavement and living with loss. And she was the perfect person, my first friend, who taught me so much to share her experience with losing Luke and how they made choices in his passing and how they wanted to go through that as a family, grieve as a family and honor him.

So that is what it's there for them. The book is not about the journey of relapse and bereavement, but it has to be there because we all think about it and it's. It's so important to talk about.

Oh, and I'm so glad to be able to also honor his. His part of this story in the book, as well as Cecilia's and. And your parents to see it as. These are the realities of it. Right. So it's not like just painting everything rosy. It's like, no, this is a real. This is a real situation. And how do we navigate these very, very difficult situations? As parents said, it's not like we, you know, you're like, hey, I didn't ask for this, but I'm now in it. And like you said, you had to accept that reality in order to then figure out how you were going to navigate even not knowing when the outcome was going to be.

Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you again so much for joining me today, Laura. And thank you again so much for writing this book, the Cancer Parents Handbook. What yout Own Oncologist doesn't have Time To Tell you so that everyone can go get it and use it as your handbook and use the resources in there. And also I'll make sure that there's contact information so people can be in more in touch with you and all the resources that you have to share. Is there anything else you'd like to mention?

I'm just so excited to be here with you and just. I just want to give parents the feeling that they will get through this in a way that will make their families stronger than ever. It is. Is possible.

I think so many people need to hear that. Right. That's probably what you needed to hear. And now you're, you're sending it forward. It's possible and we're here for you and you're not on your own and there's ways to navigate and, and, and find your way. No matter what's going to happen. You've got, you've got support.

Yep. I've got you.

Oh, my gosh. Amazing. Thank you again so much for joining me. And thanks everyone for listening in today to how humans heal. Please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. I'll see you all very soon. Thanks again, Laura.

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