Carmen Monge-Montero, Researcher and Global Cancer Advocate, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Is the experience of childhood cancer the same as adult cancer?
A few days after International Childhood Cancer Day, a patient advocate once shared with me that talking to a child with cancer might be similar to talking to a child who is grieving.
For me, this perception shows how adults see cancer, not how children or young people actually experience it at that moment, maybe later there will be some grief, but during that moment, no.
Many childhood cancer survivors I interviewed for MANO told me that when they were diagnosed, they didn’t fully understand what was happening or what it meant to be sick. Their understanding was influenced by the adults around them.
Children learn what cancer “is” from what is shown to them
If we present it only as tragedy, grief and fear, they absorb that. But if we show them that it is a difficult challenge, something they can go through with support, they build a different narrative about themselves.
That’s one of the reasons why I wrote Can-Can and the Adventure on Mìng Island. It is the first children’s book in a trilogy in which I talk about diagnosis, the end of treatment, and life after cancer. The second one is finished and I am working on the third.
Can-Can tells a different story. I wrote it after listening to many young cancer survivors, reading many books/articles and realising that experiencing cancer at a young age can be very different from the dramatic, adult-centred stories we often see in movies and books.
Because the way we frame illness in childhood can shape identity for many years, and the way that we deal with future challenges.
I recently wrote more about “Having cancer at different ages“, based on 95 MANO interviews. Here is the link.
Pura vida!”
Other articles featuring Carmen Monge-Montero on OncoDaily.