Mom shares heartbreaking picture of daughter comforting leukamia-afflicted younger brother: 'This is childhood cancer'
A mom has shared a heartbreaking photo that captured all the turmoils of childhood cancer and the emotional impact it has on the family. In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness month, Kaitlyn Burge, 28, of Princeton, Texas, uploaded a picture of her four-year-old son Beckett, who was diagnosed with cancer a year ago, being comforted by his five-year-old elder sister Aubrey as he threw up.
In the photo, Aubrey is rubbing her brother's back as he leans over the toilet, reassuring him that everything would be okay. April 25, 2018, was the day that it all changed for the family. It was the day Beckett was diagnosed with Very High-Risk Pre-B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, as well as Pneumonia in the left lung, and acute respiratory failure.
Beckett spent the next 10 days in the ICU during the induction phase and was an in-patient for 35 days, according to a GoFundMe page, and will require extensive hospital for at least the next three years. He came back home on Aubrey's fifth birthday, and in an emotional post, Kaitlyn explained how his illness had not just impacted her, but also her young daughter.
"My two kids, 15 months apart, went from playing in school and at home together to sitting in a cold hospital room together," she wrote. "My then 4 year-year-old watched her brother go from an ambulance to the ICU. She watched a dozen doctors throw a mask over his face, poke and prod him with needles, pump a dozen medications through his body, all while he laid there helplessly. She wasn’t sure what was happening. All she knew was that something was wrong with her brother, her best friend."
"A little over a month after he was released from the hospital, she watched him struggle to walk and struggle to play," she continued. "The lively, energetic, and outgoing little brother she once knew was now a quiet, sick, and very sleepy little boy. He never wanted to play."
"She didn’t understand the different therapies he had to attend to gain his strength back. To her, it was something special he got to do that she didn’t. Why couldn’t they go to their favorite trampoline park anymore? Why couldn’t they go to the splash pads they previously went to? Why didn’t he have to go back to school, but she did?"
But despite this, Kaitlyn said her daughter always stuck by her brother's side, shunning her other friends so she could hang out with him and that she even gave up gymnastics even though she loved it because it put a financial strain on the family.
"They're very close - they always played together," she told the Daily Mail. "He'd play dolls with her and she'd play superheroes with him." "When I see them together, it makes me happy but at the same time it makes me sad," she added.
Speaking about the now-viral pic of her children in the bathroom, she said, "She didn't know what was happening, but she knew from experience that when she was sick, we would rub her back and help her through it." "She just picked up from experience and took over. She'd rub his back and tell him it was going to be okay, clean his face up and wash his hands for him," she continued. "Right after that happened, she also carried him back to the living room and put him on the couch. She asked me she could clean up the bathroom too, but I told her to go and sit down because that wasn't her job."
Kaitlyn said her son will receive treatment for his leukemia until at least August 8, 2021.
His GoFundMe page has already raised more than $80,000 of a possible $100,000 goal.