Cancer sucks!

I had written this a long time ago but never posted it. 

I had watched My Sisters Keeper I couldn’t help but get reflective as memories of the past came flooding back.

My Sisters Keeper is a film about a 15 year old girl Kate who has a form of leukaemia. Her little sister Anna was created to be the perfect donor for Kate and all her life was willing to help her sister until she has to donate a kidney as her sister goes into renal failure. Missing a kidney she will have to be careful for the rest of her life, she can’t play football, can’t do cheer-leading or be a mother and she’s not willing to do it. She takes her parents to court to file for medical emancipation. Through-out the movie we also get an insight into how the cancer has affected the rest of the family. Kate’s mother Sara, is extremely over-protective and willing to do just about anything to save her daughters life. We also see how because the families focus was largely on Kate, her brother Jessie was largely ignored for most of his life, he got poor grades in school and as a teen took to arson. Kate’s father Brian works as a fire fighter and is the first to realise what all the kids are going through as Sara is blinded by trying to keep Kate alive. When Kate has one final wish of going to the beach Brian is the one that makes it happen, Brian is the one that supports Anna’s decision. In the movie and the book both end a little different but both show the affect that the horrible disease that is cancer can have on a family. How parents can be so focused on the one child that is ill they forget the others or they try to protect them not telling them what is going on and try their best to do what they feel is right even though what they might think is right isn’t always the case.

When I was 13 I lost a brother through cancer. So this movie and book bring up tonnes of memories of that time. For example I don't remember much from my childhood but 14 years later I can still clearly picture that hospital and it's waiting room with cream and green chairs that my family sat around waiting for something to happen or New Years Eve as a distance church bell rang out midnight, a new year, a fresh start, my whole family was standing around a hospital bed just watching, waiting. The story in my Sisters Keeper certainly drives home the idea of life being so short and unpredictable and the importance of making every moment count.