You Know You're the Parent of a Child with Cancer When...

(50 selected from www.squirreltales.com. Some are modified or added because of experiences with Shawn)

1. Kids with hair look kind of strange to you.
2. You can sleep anywhere, and anything that reclines more than 15 degrees looks "comfy".
3. You don't realize the sharps container is on the kitchen table until half way through dinner.
4. You enjoy the drive at 3:00am to emergency (or from the hospital) because there aren't any other cars on the freeway.
5. You can diagnose the patients on ER before the Docs do.
6. You hear a truck backing up and you think the IV is beeping.
7. The nurses stop responding to the IV alarm, knowing you'll fix it anyway.
8. You keep a bag packed at all times like your 9 1/2 months pregnant.
9. You can eat with one hand while you hold the barf bucket with the other.
10. Your child's bedroom looks like a Toys R Us® store.
11. You can read the doctors prescription word for word, and are asked to decipher it by the pharmacist.
12. You know medical terminology better than your family practitioner.
13. The pharmacy sends your family Christmas presents.
14. You can read your son's chart better than his nurse.
15. None of the security guards ask for your to sign in and you're on first-name basis with the hospital staff.
16. Medical students ask to borrow your notes.
17. Your son won't touch public doorknobs and handrails because they're too germy.
18. Your child is going on a field trip and wants to know if you have signed his "remission" slip.
19. You have been asked by more than 25 friends and family members, "So, when is his next treatment?"
20. When the siblings want to know what the child's counts are to see if they can go inside and eat at McDonald's.
21. Your kid takes more pills than you.
22. Your kid has received enough get-well cards to fuel a small bon-fire.
23. The pharmacist calls you because they have an extra prescription (a $2,800 shot) and wants to know if you'll be able to use it or if they should send it back!
24. Your child has his/her own website to keep family and friends updated on his/her progress because calling everyone gets to be too expensive and repeating the report over and over is tiring and time consuming.
25. Your child has only thrown up twice and you smile with satisfaction at what a good day she had.
26. A year after treatments stop you find the emergency overnight bag in the back of the car.
27. Your parking & toll receipts for doctor & hospital visits are fully deductible on the 1040 itemized long form.
28. You learn to read x-rays as good as the radiologist and can recall lab values for the past two months.
29. The old phrase, "bald is beautiful," takes on a whole new meaning...
30. You show those pictures to friends and family without blinking an eye, while they all get queasy.
31. Your child's photo album includes pictures of before, during, and after surgery.
32. Your son brings in his Broviac (that was recently removed) in a urine specimen container to school for show and tell.
33. You can joke about the fact that your child has cancer.
34. Your compassion is little to non-existent to people whose children have had, say, a hernia repair.
35. Your child is reaching celebrity status from all of the newspaper and television appearances.
36. The twenty minutes it takes to go to the hospital cafeteria for a coke is your escape for the day.
37. Your child asks if the oncology nurse knows what she is doing when accessing the port.
38. Your child 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."
39. Everyone rubs your child's head, because the new hair is SO soft!
40. The parking attendant tells you she has missed you when you went home between treatments.
41. When you have more pictures of your child bald than with hair.
42. When you buy a new laptop because your child is going into isolation.
43. You schedule a blood or platelet transfusion before you go on vacation "just to be on the safe side."
44. The pharmacist knows you by your child's name.
45. You know the hospital's phone number by heart or have it on speed dial.
46. You live out of a suit case.
47. When your son's science project is "How Chemotherapy Affects the Bone Marrow" and his English book report is on Lance Armstrong's autobiography.
48. You park on the top floor of the parking garage, outside, so if it rains while he is admitted your car will get clean.
49. You're actually excited that your teenager is "pushing boundaries" because you know that means he's feeling better; e.g., his "counts" are up!
50. Your child uses the excuse "because I have cancer" to get what he wants and you answer back with "You'll have to do better than that!"

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