“Take care of my grandchildren”

It was a decision no parent expects to have to make, and no child ever expects to even have to discuss.

Everything was happening so fast, but there definitely wasn’t time to slow down. There was too much that had to be done. Too many decisions that had to be made. Just two days ago, Alec was gearing up for his sophomore year of high school and football practice. Now, here we were, grappling with the reality of his leukemia diagnosis and the whirlwind of emotions and reality that followed.

Yet, amid all this chaos, a question lingered about Alec’s future thanks to my family bringing something to my attention that the doctors had not.

“Will cancer, or the chemotherapy, affect Alec’s ability to have children in the future?”

I knew chemotherapy would kill the cancer, but I immediately feared that it would also potentially kill any dreams Alec might have to have kids of his own one day.

As a mother, how do you face that? How do you ask a 15-year-old to face that when it’s likely the last thing on their mind, and they just want to live through this moment?

There wasn’t much time to wonder how to about talk to Alec about it. We had to act. All of us.

You would think that with so many difficult conversations, difficult decisions, and different choices take place around your teen having cancer, that the details would blend together or become foggy. But they don’t. You remember ever detail. Because every detail can mean life and death.  

And, with Alec set to begin chemo in less than two days. His father and I had to have one of those difficult conversations with our son. There was no way to soften the blow, or make the conversation less awkward for a child to have to have with his parents.

“Son, the chemo is going to attack everything—good cells and bad. There’s a chance…a chance you might not be able to have kids one day.”

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“We need to preserve your sperm.”

It was hard to be that blunt about it, but there wasn’t time to be anything but blunt. The conversation had to be had, and a decision had to be made. 

His face said it all. Disbelief. Anger. Embarrassment.

“Maybe it’s God’s will. If I’m not supposed to have kids, then that’s how it will be,” Alec replied.

Alec has always been strong-willed, but there was no arguing with biology. His father and I pushed on, trying to explain the options. We told him it wasn’t about going against God’s will; it was about giving him a choice, about giving him something to hold onto for the future when all of this—was behind us.

I hated having to push. I could see how much this decision weighed on him. He didn’t want to think about the future. He didn’t want to think about not having one. But as his mother, I had to think about it. I had to push for him. 

Our Catholic faith was not forgotten in this decision-making process. Catholicism teaches that procedures like fertility preservation aren’t accepted, and I initially felt a lot of guilt around even considering going this route. 

I spoke to our local pastor, Father Nick, about it, and while he reminded me that it’s not part of our faith, he also told me that God forgives. I wrestled with that guilt for a long time, knowing that this decision wasn’t something the Church would support, but in the end, I knew I had to give Alec this opportunity. I couldn’t just stand by and let the cancer take away his future, even if it meant going against something so deeply rooted in our faith. As a mother, I had to make peace with that and trust that God would understand our choice.

And, Alec understood, as well.

We went to a fertility clinic in Pasadena the next day. I was carrying Alec’s sperm, in a container wrapped in a warm blanket. It was surreal. How could this be our reality?

The day was emotional, to say the least. I remember carrying the sample, my hands shaking, hoping that everything would go as planned. When we arrived, I handed it over to the clinic staff and said, half-jokingly but with complete sincerity, “Take care of my grandchildren.” It was a strange moment—humorous, bizarre, but also heavy on my heart. I couldn’t help but feel the weight of what we were doing, preserving a part of Alec’s future that we prayed he would one day get to experience.

The clinic staff tested the sample, and when they told me, “It’s good,” I felt a wave of relief, but also sadness for Alec. Sadness that he had to think about, worry about, or go through this or anything else a 15-year-old boy should not have to ever go through.

And, so, his sperm is now safely stored. Insurance doesn’t cover this sort of thing, but this was like providing our own insurance for Alec. As his mother, I needed to give him this. I needed to preserve a piece of him for the future, just in case. Even if he couldn’t see it right now, one day he might want the option to have children, and I wanted to make sure that door stayed open.

I don’t know what the future holds. Chemo is a long and brutal process, and it could be years before we know whether Alec’s fertility will return. But at least we’ve given him a chance that cancer and chemo might’ve otherwise taken away. That’s all any parent can do when faced with the unthinkable—make the hard choices so that someday, when this is all over, your child has something of theirs and only theirs. Something to create something wonderful with later in life.

As parents, we’re always trying to protect our children, even when it means stepping into uncomfortable territory. It’s never easy. But as I look at Alec now, a year after his diagnosis, I’m reminded that giving him this chance—this future—was the right decision, no matter how hard it was at the time.

A mother’s love means fighting for the future, especially when the present is overwhelming.

Something’s not right.

He had pale lips. That was it.

No fever. No bruising or bleeding. No bone or joint pain. No lethargy, nor any of the other symptoms you can find online that should cause concern as a parent.

It was just…pale…lips. And, that was enough.

________

Over the course of the two weeks leading up to my son’s 15th birthday party that his father and I were throwing for him, I would say, “Alec, you look sick.” And, my son, like every other nearly fifteen-year-old boy who’d grown tired of constantly hearing this from his mother, would roll his eyes, sigh, and say, “Mom, I’m fine.”

And, like every great mother who knows what she knows, I’d reply, “Well, you don’t look good. Maybe I should make you a doctor’s appointment. Something’s not right.”

It wouldn’t take long for that to prove to be very true.

________

No matter how much he denied it, nor how much he—other than those damn pale lips—otherwise looked like a perfectly healthy teenager, I knew he wasn’t a perfectly healthy teenager.

I wonder sometimes if he actually felt fine back then and just wanted me to get off of his back, or, even if he didn’t, if he just didn’t want to have to go to the doctor with his birthday party and the start of his sophomore year of football to look forward to.

I remember standing next to the pool that Saturday at his party. I watched him jump and thrash around in the water with his friends. At one point he became completely enraged at a friend who’d pushed him and had nearly caused him to hit his head on the pool deck. Alec had every ounce of his strength that day, which he thankfully chose not to use against this poor kid who’d made him so angry. And so, I did my best to let him enjoy the party and I made sure that I enjoyed that special day, too. Plus, I could always ask him after it was over if he was positive that he felt okay.

After the party, while Alec’s father and I were out celebrating our anniversary, my mom called and said, “Alec doesn’t want to get up.”

“Does he look pale?”

“He does.”

________

On Sunday, the day after his party, he didn’t want to get up again.

Now, every parent of a teenager deals with a kid who won’t get out of bed, and who likely stayed up entirely too late the night before. I called him and said, “Hey, you need to get up. Rules are rules.” “But, mom. I’m so tired.”

There wasn’t time to be tired. It was the day before “Hell Week.”

“Hell Week,” for those who don’t know, is the first week of high school football, where the kids are put through, well, hell, to get them into both mental and physical shape ahead of the upcoming season. Whether it’s long two-a-day practices in the summer heat, or the painful conditioning drills, or maintaining your mental toughness while being screamed at by your coaches, Hell Week is not easy. But there’s a lot of excitement around the start of a new season, and Alec was ready for it to begin.

He lasted one practice. One.

“I think you’re right,” he told me over the phone after that very first day.

“I couldn’t run, I was lightheaded, and I felt like my heart was going to pop out of my chest.”

We immediately went to the ER, and they had an answer that was supposed to explain everything, even the pale lips. The diagnosis was that Alec was, “severely anemic,” and he just needed iron.

So I gave him iron. You might think that your child getting a diagnosis of something so easily treatable would be a relief for a parent.

And, it would’ve been, if I’d believed for a second that that’s all that was wrong with my son.

_______

I looked at Alec in the pediatrician’s office the following day, and now it wasn’t just me; anyone could look at this child and know that something just wasn’t right. The tests came back, and the pediatrician said, “There are two things that don’t look good, but, he does have good white blood cells, so it’s possible we’re dealing with some type of bleeding in the intestines. We need to run more tests, though.”

“Alright, then run more tests. What are we waiting for?”

The tests were run, and “something’s not right” didn’t even begin to cover the results that came back.

His pediatrician called while our family was out to dinner.

“He has all the symptoms of leukemia. You need to take him to Children’s Hospital in Orange County.”

There was no point in trying to hide who was on the other end or the heartbreaking news I’d just been given.

“Mom? It’s cancer, right?” Alec said. I didn’t say anything back. I couldn’t.

I walked outside, screamed, cried, called my mother.

“Alec might have cancer,” I told her. “If he dies I will, too.”

_______

We took him to Orange County right away, and they immediately ran his blood.

“He has blasts,” I remember them telling me. “Blasts? Please excuse my ignorance, but what are blasts?” I replied. “Cancer cells. All over his body.”

We’d spend the next three days at that hospital. We weren’t allowed to leave.