Parallel Paths: From Cancer Sibling to Cancer Mom
By Tristan Codner
For my sister Justine, I was the older sister, by 5 years. The “mother-hen” if you will. I took my big sis job seriously. I did my best to look after her but as she grew up, she was her own, very determined, very stubborn self. Justine (J) always had a heart for kids with disabilities, volunteering her study hall time at school to help in the special needs class. She served as a seeing runner for a sweet girl in our town who was blind and wanted to run on the track team.
In 2004, J was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma after finding a large bulge in her hip, about the size of a softball.
Our family had never heard of Ewing sarcoma or had any pediatric cancer knowledge but trusted the doctors and staff at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland. J began her first year of treatment as I started my first year of college. Being away during this time was hard and I never really saw and understood everything my sister was feeling and going through. She put on a very brave face during that year.
While she endured chemo, radiation, and extensive surgery, I was a few hours away writing papers on weekends and going to football games.
Fast forward a few years and J would graduate high school and go on to work assisting patients at local nursing homes and hospitals. She was always looking to help where she could.
She tried to move away, and then as she was starting a new job in a new place, J’s cancer returned — 10 years later, near the bone in her ear.
This new occurrence was surprising to her team of doctors since she had been “cancer-free” for 10 years. She was living life, doing all the things a young adult should be doing. Everything stopped and J moved back to begin treatment again.
I remember driving her the hour and a half up to Cleveland for treatment where she would talk her doctors’ ears off with stories. They were her people, part of the family. She clicked with one of her doctors instantly. Her physician and her husband were there for my sister in so many ways. J would even text her to tell her about her latest Target run! It is amazing how care providers become family.
Treatment this time was different, J was an adult and could make her own decisions about her care. She navigated this time with her future husband, Corey, and our family, driving back and forth again for treatment.
Scans showed that the chemo was working, shrinking the tumor near her ear bone, causing hearing loss but working. She finished treatment, found work as an aide in a nursing home, had a beautiful wedding, married Corey in 2017, adopted her fur-baby, Tilly, and tried to live as best as she could.
After tragically losing our stepfather, she started experiencing symptoms like shortness of breath and pain.
Our worst nightmare came true.
Her cancer was back and this time it had spread. She fought as hard as she could, finding her beloved oncologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, enduring familiar chemo and new immunotherapy trials.
My beautiful, brave sister passed away in December 2019. She was 29 years old and one of the strongest people I have ever known.
Losing “Aunt Tine” was excruciating for all of us. We were trying to hollowly navigate the world around us when the COVID pandemic began, isolating everyone. My husband Kolt and I were trying to make the best of it for our 4-year-old son Andrew. We played outside and found him a swing set for the back yard.
In May of 2020, Andrew was having some swelling around his eyes, his legs hurt, and he was tired. Then I saw the petechiae.
I prayed it was mono. We took him in for bloodwork and were called immediately to take him to Akron Children’s Hospital because they suspected leukemia.
I lost it. Rightfully so. Sobbing on the bathroom floor until picking myself up to face what was next and get Andrew the urgent care he needed.
I never thought that 5 months after losing my sister, that we would be facing the cancer diagnosis for my 4-year-old beautiful little boy.
We were thrown into intense treatment with frequent bloodwork, hospital stays, spinal chemo, and infusions all during a global lockdown.
Our family and friends, in disbelief, rallied around us and supported us in ways that I will never be able to repay. Andrew, much like his Aunt Tine, made fast friends with all the adults at the hospital, telling jokes, enjoying his anesthesia “sleep”!
There were and still are so many times that I needed J here to help figure all this out because she was the only person who truly understood what Andrew was going through. The days when we would come home from a full day of chemo and be beyond exhausted, the isolation of staying safe with our immunocompromised child during the unknowns of a pandemic, the feelings of “what if this doesn’t work.”
I am forever grateful to my mom, who unfortunately did know what it was like to be a “cancer mom.” She lost her daughter (my sister) because she ran out of options.
Cancer families are the most substantial group of people you don’t want to know, but we support each other in countless ways because of our connection. It makes the good days sweeter and the losses so much more complicated.
We have lost sweet friends who ran out of options — Philip, who had liver cancer and was 6; Nora, who had neuroblastoma and was 9.
We continue to fight for J, Andrew, and all the other kids who have battled cancer. We participated in our first St. Baldrick’s shave event this past March where Andrew got to be a guest barber and loved it! We are thankful to organizations like St. Baldrick’s who fund the essential research needed so that these kids can grow up without fear of complications, their primary cancer returning, or secondary cancers emerging. We remember J and are thankful every day that Andrew is thriving. We will keep fighting for them.
