Children and Cancer

Carmen Monge’s picture book, Can-Can & the Adventure of Ming Island shows adults how to explain what is going on to a young child who gets cancer. It shares ideas with families for helping their children navigate through treatments, and it nurtures empathy and hope.

We know that children get cancer. It’s in the news often enough. Every time we hear of another child with cancer, it troubles our hearts and makes us question the goodness of the universe. I know, goodness isn’t a concern of the universe; nor is fairness, but it’s still how I react. When I was undergoing radiation, the therapists put cutouts of different animals on the cherry tree painted on the ceiling to give kids something to discover as they go through treatments.

The Emotions of Medical Folk

Where It Hurts: Dispatches from the Emotional Frontlines of Medicine, 2026, ed. by Donna Bulseco, Intima Journal.

What I love about this book, among many reasons, is that it shares the emotions of the people who cope with stress, fatigue, and burnout as they care for people, day after day, who are seriously ill. The accounts cover the gamut of care by doctors, nurses, EMTs, and therapists who speak of the emotional toll on them, especially when they have to deliver bad news. This is a side of our doctors and nurses that we seldom see.