More on Isaac and dealing
I posted the other day that I had decided to contact Isaac's teacher and guidance counselor for help dealing with Isaac's feelings about grandma having cancer. I don't know whether I adequately expressed in my previous post how much I have been worrying about Isaac. He is not a kid who talks much, or willingly, about how he feels; any effort to draw him out just shuts him down further; so it's hard to get a measure of what's going on with him.
A couple of weeks ago Isaac had a bit of an altercation with his friend Seth, whose mom has been kindly taking Isaac to her house on the Wednesdays when grandma can't do it because of chemo. Seth is a great kid, his mom is awesome, and Isaac adores him. They usually have a great time, but on this one occasion, well I won't go into the details but it went sour. Later, I decided to have Isaac write a letter to Seth, not exactly apologizing, but focusing on friendship and why it's important and so forth.
I sat Isaac down and told him to write "Dear Seth, you are a good friend because." Isaac looked at me and said, "because what?" I told him that I wanted him to finish the sentence. This resulted in tears, a bit of yelling, pouting, a declaration that he was never going to play Wii again (because I had told him he couldn't play it until the letter was finished), and so forth. Finally he calmed down and we talked about friendship and he eventually finished the sentence, "you play with me at recess." And then "You pick me up when grandma is sick." Then I told him to write "When I come to your house I feel" and finish that sentence. By that point he had gotten the idea, so it was easier. He readily wrote "When I come to your house I feel happy and nervis." Then he turned to me and said, "Do you know why I said I feel nervous?" Me: "Why?" Isaac: "Because I'm worried about grandma being sick."
I thought that was a big, important step; the first time he actually acknowledged feeling that way. And that was what opened my eyes to the fact that Isaac was more anxious about it than I had realized.
I talked to Seth's mom about this the next day and she said that she had noticed Isaac seeming anxious when he came to her house on the Wednesdays. She said that she has repeatedly told him that he can call his grandma, or me, to check in if he wants to; but he always refuses.
That also helped me to realize that I hadn't talked very much about how *I* feel about grandma being sick. So, a few days later I had that talk with Isaac too. I said that I feel nervous and scared and sad, and that I don't want my mom to die when I'm only 35, even though I know she has to die someday. I pointed out that she was 65 when her mom died, so I want to be at least 65 before mine dies! I also told him more about what cancer is. I explained what cells are and how sometimes they grow out of control where they aren't supposed to. I explained about surgery and that chemotherapy is strong medicine whose purpose is to kill any new cancer cells that might be trying to grow. And I said that once the chemo is done, grandma's hair will grow back and she'll feel okay again, and then she'll have to go back a few months later to see if there's any new cancer, but if there isn't, then we'll know pretty well that she's okay.
I don't know where any of that went, but I hope it helped at least somewhat. I didn't want to be unintentionally sending the message that we shouldn't/can't talk about this stuff.
Anyway, so after all that happened, I emailed Isaac's teacher and the guidance counselor at his school. The guidance counselor wrote back saying that she would talk to the teacher and they would work with Isaac in the classroom. I almost burst into tears when I read her note, which was how I knew that I had been more worried than I realized too!
My mom also put me in touch with a woman she used to work with, who now works at a different hospital, whose specialty is helping kids cope with having a family member with cancer. I had a phone conversation with her the other night and it was very helpful. She gave me some perspective on how Isaac is doing and how I'm doing handling it with him, that made me feel a lot better about it all. She also gave me a book recommendation, which I'll check out, although I'm not really the "advice book" type. It can't hurt though, I guess.
Yesterday I also finally heard back from Isaac's teacher (note to self: email is not the best way to get her attention ;) ). She left a longish message on my answering machine and also sent me an email. The gist of it was that she has noticed some changes in Isaac's behavior and will talk to him. She has just gone through some similar stuff with her husband; he had some kind of cancer and I believe he had chemo as well, so she said she would talk to Isaac about how she felt and how their teenage daughter felt about it too.
She also said that a girl in the class had her grandmother die last week (which I knew about) and that it seemed to have brought up a lot of sad feelings for a lot of the kids in the class. And apparently another kid in the class has a little sister in the hospital. I asked Isaac about this and he was aware of it and said that the kid is "sad pretty much every day," but as for what's wrong with the little sister or how long she has been in the hospital or any of that, he didn't know.
So, this teacher certainly has her hands full! I hope she can handle it all.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I'm feeling better about it all now.
I also try to keep reminding Isaac that he can ask me anything, and talk about how he feels at any time. So last night, out of the blue, he asked me, "Does someone die every second?" I said that I don't know about every second, but people are dying all the time. "So someone is dying right now?" I said yes, somewhere, someone is dying right now. Probably not anyone we know. Somehow this led into a discussion about people who live a really long time, and I mentioned that the oldest person in America recently died, and he wanted to know more about that, so we googled it. Isaac was pretty fascinated reading about the life of that woman. He particularly found it amazing to think that she lived through part of the 1800s, ALL of the 1900s, and part of the 2000s. Wow. I find that pretty amazing myself!
A couple of weeks ago Isaac had a bit of an altercation with his friend Seth, whose mom has been kindly taking Isaac to her house on the Wednesdays when grandma can't do it because of chemo. Seth is a great kid, his mom is awesome, and Isaac adores him. They usually have a great time, but on this one occasion, well I won't go into the details but it went sour. Later, I decided to have Isaac write a letter to Seth, not exactly apologizing, but focusing on friendship and why it's important and so forth.
I sat Isaac down and told him to write "Dear Seth, you are a good friend because." Isaac looked at me and said, "because what?" I told him that I wanted him to finish the sentence. This resulted in tears, a bit of yelling, pouting, a declaration that he was never going to play Wii again (because I had told him he couldn't play it until the letter was finished), and so forth. Finally he calmed down and we talked about friendship and he eventually finished the sentence, "you play with me at recess." And then "You pick me up when grandma is sick." Then I told him to write "When I come to your house I feel" and finish that sentence. By that point he had gotten the idea, so it was easier. He readily wrote "When I come to your house I feel happy and nervis." Then he turned to me and said, "Do you know why I said I feel nervous?" Me: "Why?" Isaac: "Because I'm worried about grandma being sick."
I thought that was a big, important step; the first time he actually acknowledged feeling that way. And that was what opened my eyes to the fact that Isaac was more anxious about it than I had realized.
I talked to Seth's mom about this the next day and she said that she had noticed Isaac seeming anxious when he came to her house on the Wednesdays. She said that she has repeatedly told him that he can call his grandma, or me, to check in if he wants to; but he always refuses.
That also helped me to realize that I hadn't talked very much about how *I* feel about grandma being sick. So, a few days later I had that talk with Isaac too. I said that I feel nervous and scared and sad, and that I don't want my mom to die when I'm only 35, even though I know she has to die someday. I pointed out that she was 65 when her mom died, so I want to be at least 65 before mine dies! I also told him more about what cancer is. I explained what cells are and how sometimes they grow out of control where they aren't supposed to. I explained about surgery and that chemotherapy is strong medicine whose purpose is to kill any new cancer cells that might be trying to grow. And I said that once the chemo is done, grandma's hair will grow back and she'll feel okay again, and then she'll have to go back a few months later to see if there's any new cancer, but if there isn't, then we'll know pretty well that she's okay.
I don't know where any of that went, but I hope it helped at least somewhat. I didn't want to be unintentionally sending the message that we shouldn't/can't talk about this stuff.
Anyway, so after all that happened, I emailed Isaac's teacher and the guidance counselor at his school. The guidance counselor wrote back saying that she would talk to the teacher and they would work with Isaac in the classroom. I almost burst into tears when I read her note, which was how I knew that I had been more worried than I realized too!
My mom also put me in touch with a woman she used to work with, who now works at a different hospital, whose specialty is helping kids cope with having a family member with cancer. I had a phone conversation with her the other night and it was very helpful. She gave me some perspective on how Isaac is doing and how I'm doing handling it with him, that made me feel a lot better about it all. She also gave me a book recommendation, which I'll check out, although I'm not really the "advice book" type. It can't hurt though, I guess.
Yesterday I also finally heard back from Isaac's teacher (note to self: email is not the best way to get her attention ;) ). She left a longish message on my answering machine and also sent me an email. The gist of it was that she has noticed some changes in Isaac's behavior and will talk to him. She has just gone through some similar stuff with her husband; he had some kind of cancer and I believe he had chemo as well, so she said she would talk to Isaac about how she felt and how their teenage daughter felt about it too.
She also said that a girl in the class had her grandmother die last week (which I knew about) and that it seemed to have brought up a lot of sad feelings for a lot of the kids in the class. And apparently another kid in the class has a little sister in the hospital. I asked Isaac about this and he was aware of it and said that the kid is "sad pretty much every day," but as for what's wrong with the little sister or how long she has been in the hospital or any of that, he didn't know.
So, this teacher certainly has her hands full! I hope she can handle it all.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I'm feeling better about it all now.
I also try to keep reminding Isaac that he can ask me anything, and talk about how he feels at any time. So last night, out of the blue, he asked me, "Does someone die every second?" I said that I don't know about every second, but people are dying all the time. "So someone is dying right now?" I said yes, somewhere, someone is dying right now. Probably not anyone we know. Somehow this led into a discussion about people who live a really long time, and I mentioned that the oldest person in America recently died, and he wanted to know more about that, so we googled it. Isaac was pretty fascinated reading about the life of that woman. He particularly found it amazing to think that she lived through part of the 1800s, ALL of the 1900s, and part of the 2000s. Wow. I find that pretty amazing myself!