My sister had cancer when she was sixteen months old (or really between the time she was sixteen months old and when she was 2 years old). Like other times, during this tiime I lived with my grandparents. She continued to go into the hospital every six months, to do tests that would detect the cancer in her if it had recurred. She enjoyed the attention. Also because of the cancer, she grew much faster than a nomral child and so was very tall (and consequently good at basketball) until the other girls caught up. Now she’s of an average height.
Once, when my mother took her in to be checked for cancer, the doctor said something to the effect of how rare my sister’s cancer was, and how theyd only treated ten other children with that type of cancer (adrenal-luko carcinoma) at OHSU in all their history as a hospital. My mother, who, like me, is chatty, asked how the other children who had had the cancer were doing. The doctor responded gravely that my sister was “the lucky one,” implying that all the other children who had had the cancer had died. My mother told my sister this story (because she was very young at the time, and wouldn’t have remembered on her own), and since then she’s used her claim at being “the lucky one” whenever she’s not getting her way. “Mom, can I have xyz” “no” “but I’m the lucky one…”. It works, too.
And that’s just how things are, in Oregon.
