"Cancer is a Family Affair"

That's one of those things that experts start telling you as soon as the biopsy stick turns pink*. 

And it's true.  And sometimes you won't know how much.  Until your 7 year old, who was 3 at the initial diagnosis and 5 at the relapse, comes home from school and in her backpack amongst her other assignments, is her penny assignment.

In the penny assignment, they tape a penny with the right year on it next to every year they've been alive and write something significant about that year.

And your 7 year old has:

2002:  I was born.
2003: I turned one year old and learned to crawl.
2004: I learned to crawl out of my crib.
2005: My little sister had cancer for the first time.
2006: I was home schooled.
2007: I went to school for the first time.
2008: "LW" had cancer again.
2009: I went to Disneyworld.

And it's so ordinary.  So mundane.  Nothing traumatic.  A year in the life.

And you look around for something to kick.




*that's a joke. There is no biopsy stick.  Unless you count the surgeon's scalpel.