He told me that Matthew had cancer and that he was very sick. I remember thinking that there had to have been a mistake. My initial reaction was that it was physically impossible for one of my children to have cancer. Cancer is a disease of the elderly. Guilt Guilt is a common and normal reaction to childhood cancer.
Parents feel that they have failed to protect their child, and blame themselves.
It is especially difficult because the cause of their child's cancer, in most instances, cannot be explained. Maybe I shouldn't have let him drink the well water. It may be difficult to accept, but parents need to remember that nothing they consciously did caused their child's illness. I wondered about the toxic glue used in my advertising work or the silk screen ink used in my artwork. Bob questioned the fumes from some wood preservatives used in a project.