A brave mother has used Facebook to share the harrowing reality of her 10-year-old son’s battle with cancer.
The image, which was picked up by Facebook page Love What Matters, features young Drake, frail and visibly in pain, wearing a pull-up nappy and supporting his weight on the bathroom vanity. It was taken shortly after his mother had carried him to the bathroom.
Defending her decision to share the confronting image, Drake’s mother dedicates the post to “anyone battling cancer or enduring chemotherapy or anyone going through this horrible disease.”
“The picture I’m posting is from this morning, and before you scream and cry ‘why would she post a picture of him in a pull up, the indecency’… life is not always politically correct and pretty, it is real,” she writes.
“Life isn’t pretty, and cancer destroys a person.”
The women then describes, in detail, the harsh reality of watching her son fight a disease that takes so much.
“Yes, he is in a pull up [nappy] because 75% of the time he can’t control his bathroom habits. This is skin and bones, because I have to beg him to eat ONE green bean for supper, or drink a cup of water throughout the day,” the woman writes.
“This is having your son sleep with you at night because he is afraid of something happening and being alone, and by something I mean dying. This is having middle of the night conversations with a ten year old, asking if he dies will he go to heaven and will he see his dad there and be able to talk and play with him.
“This is him, throwing up every medication I give him and him dry heaving because his stomach is empty, except for the spoonful of yogurt I just gave him with his pills. This is having to take 44 chemo pills last week in a matter of 24 hours.”
Going into further detail on the emotional toll Drake’s cancer has his mental health and the health of his loved ones, she continues:
“This is him telling me, ‘Mommy, I’m not going to make it.’ This is him not wanting to be touched, because it hurts too much, and using morphine to get through his day.”
“This is him telling me he is scared and thinks he won’t see his 11th birthday. This is him and me, telling him that I will continue to fight for him when he can’t. This is him and me, and our world.”
At the time of writing, the post has been ‘liked’ over 200,000 times, and a mailbox for love letters of support is being established.
Top Comments
I can't believe someone has written that.
Cared for and then lost my husband to cancer. Anonymous I hope you don't ever get touched by cancer. Very very insensitive and unbelievably wrong attitude.
Seriously, do we need to see every cancer story and every cancer victim? I have had enough of this! I'm very sorry for people going through it and in real life, support them in whatever way I can but it is getting out of hand that we are constantly forced to see confronting images of people suffering cancer within the conventional medical industry.
The constant imagery also perpetuates the pharma industry's deliberate and ongoing fear campaign about cancer to keep us afraid and running to their medications when in reality, their medications are overall very ineffective. We should be exploring other options outside of conventional medicine and being afraid all the time prevents us doing this.
Until we get cancer ourselves, why do we need to be thinking/worrying/fearing it all the time? There needs to be a dedicated space on social media where cancer sufferers and their families can go to access peer support, along with other illnesses, without the rest of the community being affected by the trauma of it. I'm sure they wanted the same before they were affected by the awfulness of cancer. Those of us who have lost someone to cancer are affected badly by the imagery also. It serves humanity no good to be living in a perpetual state of pre-cancer.
then don't read it
Maybe if we hide it away it won't exist anymore? Or we can just let people such as yourself be completely ignorant to other peoples suffering so you don't have to be uncomfortable & 'put out' in your daily life. Bringing awareness to any disease/ condition etc. is relied on by charity and funding - would you prefer not to know about that as well?!
So people dealing with cancer should stay away so as not to upset others??
There also needs to be a space for attention-seeking conspiracy theorists who are against science and medicine.