I Drank and Slept My Way Through My Child's Cancer Treatment

My eight-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer two months into the pandemic. I'd always been a heavy drinker, but managing cancer as a single parent of two in a country where our healthcare is dependent on my employment pushed me into nightly blackouts and days spent struggling through cold sweats.

We spent more weeks in the hospital than out. I held it together, showed up for work, dropped my son at my mother’s house and lugged my laptop back and forth to take Zoom meetings from my daughter's hospital room. When we were home I juggled keeping her central lines clear, doling out meds, and cleaning up messes in the middle of the night when her feeding tube leaked sticky formula all over my bed. I supervised my son’s e-schooling and signed consent forms for every stage and medication of my daughter's treatment. I spent so many nights curled around her in her hospital bed, holding her in the bend of my elbow and kissing her bald head until she fell asleep.

But on nights when I was home, I drank. I waited until my kids were asleep. Then I sat on our front steps and sipped wine out of a mug and chain-smoked American Spirits and nodded to people who passed on the sidewalk, some of whom I'd known in our pre-cancer years—now phantoms from a former life. At first, I put away a glass or two a night, just enough to settle my nerves and quiet the voice in my mind that told me my daughter was going to die. After a few weeks those glasses became whole bottles, then two, and then I was buying boxes because carrying and opening three bottles of wine a night became a hassle.

Most mornings I woke up to a bathroom sink full of purple flecks—remnants of the wine I had drunk and then thrown up the night before. I scrubbed the porcelain clean before my kids woke up, wiped surfaces down with lemon oil, and drank coffee until my eyes opened and the pounding in my head eased.

I spent hours scrolling Instagram, looking at photos shared by other cancer moms of charity walks, lemonade stands, Disney World wish trips, and Zoom meetings with celebrities like The Rock. They wore gold ribbon leggings and posted stats every day in September to raise awareness for the struggle their kids were facing. I reached for that level of advocacy and fell on my face. I was so tired. The alarm bells in my brain were ringing all day, every day, screaming out that at any moment my daughter could take a turn, the treatment could stop working, her next bone marrow biopsy would show relapse, and then she'd die and I'd have to spend the rest of my life without her.

When I saw photos of other moms doing the “right” things, I felt like I was failing a fundamental test of my maternity.

When an ex-situationship, J., turned up on my doorstep a few months into my daughter's treatment, I was halfway through my nightly wine box and let him in without speaking. It felt good to see someone other than doctors, nurses, and my family. It felt good to do something that wasn't work, parenting, or cancer.

I took a big swallow of wine and felt it coat my teeth. He put his hand over the mug and pushed it down toward the coffee table. He said my name, just once, and I fell on him then, pulling him to my bedroom.

At the hospital I was always Mom: How's it going, Mom? Mouth sores feeling better, Mom? I hadn't realized how much I missed being called by my first name. I had disappeared into cancer, into caretaking, becoming a vessel for my children's needs. But I'm not a vessel and I'm not a fighter. I'm a human being. I needed someone to see me.

I started planning nights when I'd send my kids to my mother's house up the street. J. would stay over and we'd wrap ourselves around each other, hovering somewhere just shy of making whatever first move would eventually lead to sex. One night when we were alone in my home, J. pulled a baggie out of his pants pocket and dumped white powder onto my coffee table. 

Want some? he asked, casually cutting a line. It's meth. It'll make you feel like you're flying.

I stared at the neat lines cut next to the #1 Dad coaster on my coffee table, an inside joke with my kids. How could I get as far away from this place as possible? Flying would get me there. I considered it, then yanked myself back.

No. I should sleep. I have to be back at the hospital in the morning.

Later that night we lay in my bed, our limbs tangled, his sour breath coating my cheek. I could feel his heart hammering from the drugs. I tried to fall asleep, but the usual fear was gripping me. The doom scroll of posts from parents who had lost their kids flicked through my mind. I imagined typing my own post, announcing to the faceless internet that my child had “lost her battle with leukemia.”

In the morning, I got up to rinse out my mouth in the kitchen sink. I felt something stick to the bottom of my foot: a baggie from the night before. I dipped my finger in and swiped at the bag's insides, then placed my finger on the tip of my tongue. It tasted like chemicals, like bad eggs or paint thinner. I stuffed it in the trash can, tied the bag closed, and left it outside the back door. 

As my daughter's treatment eased, so did my drinking. The boxes of wine became an occasional bottle at the bottom of the recycling bin, and I never had another line of meth cut on my coffee table. I cut ties with J., and none of the other people I slept with are still contacts in my phone.

My daughter went into maintenance, and then off treatment. She went back to school, reconnected with her friends, and tried out for the school play. My drinking went down to a cocktail with dinner out, then mocktails, then water. I spent nights snuggled next to my kids on our couch watching movies and eating noodles. I went to bed sober and early. We got a dog. We got well.

I once asked my son, now 13, what he remembers of those days. Nothing, he says. Well, one time you slept late, and I tried to wake you, and all you said was “hnnnmmmmfff.” And you smelled bad, like really bad.

I let the shame wash over me. I'm so sorry, buddy. And I am.

I have a lot of regrets around the self-destructive ways I coped when my daughter was at her sickest. When I saw photos of other moms doing the “right” things, suffering in the right ways, I felt like I was failing a fundamental test of my maternity. I was at my worst when my daughter needed me to be at my best, when every other mother seemed to be at their best, and the isolation crushed me.

In all the conversations I've had with people who have faced similar challenges to mine, the universal thread that runs through them is the moments when we felt we'd failed. If that undeserved feeling of failure is what unites us, then maybe we can love each other through it. Eventually, maybe I can love myself through it, too.