Written by Ben Cox – When a simple trip to the pediatricians office reveals something more serious than a simple infection or 24-hour bug, what do you do?
September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and Brownwood has many families who have been touched by this terrible disease. Some have tales of triumph and overcoming the diagnosis, while others stories of those of remembrance and mourning.
Lindsey Mendoza appears to be your average high school junior, happy, funny, and talkative. But what isn’t readily known is her fight with Ewing’s Sarcoma that began about six years ago.
Her battle with the cancer, that started in her leg, was a brief but successful one. “It was a little over a year” says her mom, Lisa.
Treatment was at Cooks in Fort Worth, and the traveling that was incurred during the fight was immense. “We would go every two weeks and stay there, one session would be for three days and another for five days. Every two weeks we were in Fort Worth.”
Having dealt with cysts before with Lindsey, her parents didn’t think much of a lump that appeared on her leg until it began to give her trouble.“She got hurt and it was hurting her and hurting her. So we took her to the doctor and then we found out.”
Old enough at age 10 to truly grasp the situation, Lindsey says “I was pretty scared. I was like ‘What is this? Am I gonna die?’ I was really scared.”
Lindsey during treatment (left) and today (right)
Her mother says she was also thinking the worst, but credits her faith in God and the people at the hospital for seeing them through the ordeal. “Prayers. That really saw us though. That and the staff at Cook’s is just so friendly, they just make you feel at home. That helped us a lot.”
A disease of the body, cancer is also a disruption of everyday life, forcing parents to make choices they would not make pother wise. “Our life changed completely. I have a son as well and we had to leave him here with my mom when we went to Ft Worth, and we were there every two weeks for a whole year.”
Confined to her home while in treatment, Lindsey did her fifth grade year of school via homeschooling, and wished she could have homework or go out and play like the kids who weren’t sick. “I was really too weak to go outside to do anything. I’d lie there and wonder when I was gonna be able to go out and play with the other kids!”
Her mom Lisa echoes those sentiments. “It was pretty hard, because we’d look out the window and see everyone outside living their normal lives. We said ‘One day, we’ll be back out there’ and get back to our normal life.”
Lisa offers some words of encouragement to parents whose children are currently in a similar situation as Lindsey’s was. “Don’t lose your faith. Have lots of faith and lots of prayers. It’s the worst thing anybody can go through, but our faith and prayers, that’s what helped us through.”
Lindsey herself says that kids fighting cancer should “be strong, think positive all the time. Don’t let anything wear you down, and pray to God that you will be ok.”
