No Match For Her

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Synopsis

What would you do if your child were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness? When his 12-year-old daughter Lilli was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia two weeks before Christmas, Travis Hicks was in the worst shape of his life. Overweight and overworked, Hicks watched his daughter Lilli fight for her life against an aggressive blood cancer.  Inspired by his daughter’s strength, Travis took up yoga and walking while giving up sweet tea, a blasphemous adjustment for this Southerner. After wondering, “What’s the worst that could happen if I were to start running?” Hicks ultimately became a long distance runner, shed over 40 pounds, and restored his health in time to help his daughter through the fight of her life. Read this father’s story of life, health, family, and faith to understand the impact of pediatric cancer on a family and their community.

Excerpt: The Pillow Talks

I never would have dreamed that it would be a pillow to break the news that my child had cancer, but that’s how it happened. A pillow was the first thing, animate or otherwise, to deliver that blow…not a doctor or a nurse, and not in a consultation room or cancer clinic. It was in a dimly-lit children’s hospital patient room in the dark wee hours of the morning where I found that pillow. 

“Supporting families of childhood cancer patients,” the pillow told me.

What a lovely pillow it was. It was a plush seafoam green pillow with a wishbone shape that would cradle a person’s neck, made in a fleecy fabric, hand sewn with love, by volunteers (I pictured a quilting bee of little old ladies) from a church a stone’s throw from Lilli’s middle school. As if someone were reading Lilli’s mind, there were silver dollar-sized owls inscribed in green circles. A hand-made tag on that pillow delivered the devastating message that my Lilli-Bug had cancer.

Without letting Lilli see me remove the tag, inscribed also with the donating church’s name and attached with a small safety pin, I put the evidence of her cancer in my pocket and tried to keep a straight and strong face. I couldn’t let her see my true emotions, but I was scared.

I guess she really does have cancer. They probably won’t tell me for certain, yet, because the doctor’s not in.  

If we were going to hear that news from the doctor, whoever he or she was, then I wasn’t going to let Lilli see the same tag that broke the news to me. I would prefer she hear it from a doctor with experience talking to kids about these things.

Stay strong, Travis. Don’t let her see you break down right now.

But I could tell that all the signs were there, including the tag on this pillow. The patient bed was adorned with this pillow, a Christmas-themed quilt, and a pillow case that all looked hand-made, not the kinds of things you’d expect in a run-of-the-mill hospital room where they only want to get you in and out of there as quickly as possible. Nope. There were also all kinds of life-saving valves, nozzles, gauges, monitors, and hoses mounted to the wall around the head of the bed, more than I had ever seen. And I had seen three different labor and delivery rooms over the years.

Yet there I was with my twelve-year old daughter Lilli. I had just become a cancer parent, and she was a patient suffering from some kind of cancer that I would learn about later, once the doctor was in. We were both worn out from a sleepless night spent in the emergency department, having one test after another performed on Lilli before her being transferred to this patient room in the middle of the night. Even though we were worn out, Lilli couldn’t find enough peace to fall asleep. She tossed and turned, coughed and wheezed, suffering from some kind of cancer. The nurses kept coming in and out of the room going through their checklists of things to do to get Lilli settled into her room.

I texted LouAnne to let her know the news, that it was some kind of cancer. Exactly what kind of cancer Lilli had was still unknown to us, and it would be hours later before we knew much more than what was on the pillow. Neither I nor LouAnne had slept, and we had been texting each other all night. We were both now cancer parents. The pillow told us as much.