Working with cancer patients makes me more determined to experience all that life has to offer, but sometimes the pain is more than I can bear
We all have an idea of how life is going to be, but mine has changed radically in the past seven years. I work on a project for children whose parents have cancer, helping them understand the illness and supporting them when their parent dies. I also support parents to communicate with children and, when the prognosis is not looking positive, I help them write books and letters for the family they are leaving behind.
I spend months, sometimes years, getting to know a family and then one day while going about my daily life I will receive a text, often early in the morning saying “he slipped away at 4am” or “Rachel, he’s gone”. Over the past seven years I have experienced so many losses in my work. I try to remain emotionally separate, but I am human, a compassionate human, and it hurts every time. Often I check my work phone just before doing the school run. I drive my two young children to school and then cry as I go on to work. It is not the same gut-wrenching loss as that of a personal loved one, but silent tears in the knowledge that a family’s world has shattered.
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