Mum's Breast Cancer
By James Swinburne, aged 10
When I was six in grade one, my mum found out that she had breast cancer. I can't remember when she told me about the cancer but I can remember my dad taking my sister Eliza and I each day to visit Mum in the Freemasons Hospital.
I can also remember Mum's room. There were lots and lots of bunches of flowers. Someone gave my mum a soft toy gorilla with boxing gloves and we named it Arthur. I used to play with it when I went to visit Mum. Sometimes the nurses let us go for a walk with Mum in the park across the road from the hospital.
One day Mum took us to have a look at where she got the chemo. There was a ring of blue chairs and a TV with a big screen. Later on Mum had to have radiotherapy every day while Eliza and I were at school.
One day in the holidays Mum took us with her to radiotherapy, Eliza and I both took a friend, and then we went on to a movie in the city. The radiotherapy was bizarre. It had laser beams shooting all over the room. There was a bed in the middle of the room. And we were allowed to move the bed up and down with a remote-control. When it was time for the therapy to start we all had to go out of the room except Mum who was lying on the bed under a big machine. The red light went on for about a minute. We could see her on a TV screen. When the red light went off Mum waved to us and we all laughed.
Sometimes when Eliza and I got back from school Mum was in bed because she was sick from the chemo. Sometimes Nan would come and look after us. Dad had to do more things for us because of Mum's sickness.
I can't remember a lot of things that happened in 1993 because I was too young. I wasn't scared because I didn't know much about cancer affecting you. Now mum spends a lot of time helping other ladies with breast cancer. We have lots of meetings at our house and the phone is always ringing but it doesn't worry me.
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James Swinburne 
