The Worrier

My daughter is 19 months older than her brother.  At 19 months, her life, as she knew it, changed when we brought Josh home.  19 months later we brought him home from the hospital, for the second time, and her life changed all over again.  She now became a Super Sib, big sister to a pediatric cancer patient, at the ripe old age of 3 years and 2 months old. 

Penny has always been a worrier.  Our disappearance for a week as we fought for her brother, it broke a little part inside of her.  The part where she never worried she would be left all alone.  The nightmares came-  Josh would run off into the woods, we would chase after him, no one would come back for her.  We got her a counseling session with our hem/onc team therapist (she had an accident on her office floor, from worrying). We became a family of small and large routines, all to try and comfort her, to make her feel safe.  But fever admissions would come, and plans would get canceled and upheaval would set her back. 

I wish we knew Wemberly back then.  I got this book for Penny this past summer.  She was worrying again.  Well more than lately normal.  She worries a lot.  She worries about her little brother, she is 5 now, it's been her job for 2 years now.  Coming off of back to back treatments has been a lot harder on all of us than we could have anticipated.  And once you relapse, well, not only do your survival rates go down, your recurrence rates go up.  I can't tell her it is all going to be ok, we can only hope.  So she worries.  Penny worries about people who don't recycle.  Like in a major way.  She worries about a lot of things.  So does Wemberly.

I love this book.  It made my daughter feel normal.  I would hug the author if I had the chance, it is wonderfully and playfully written but also provides such a great little lesson.  It made Penny able to laugh at herself.  And Wemberly worries way more than Penny does.  And Wemberly has a worry fest about going to school.  And you know she doesn't stop worrying, but she learns, well, you can't be paralyzed by that worry.  And sometimes things are better than you worried about, and you find yourself forgetting to worry.  Wemberly also meets a friend, someone who worries as much as she does.  Penny loved that idea, that she wasn't alone in worrier-ville, that out there her Petal was waiting to be her friend and worry with her.

This book would be a great one to add to your library reserve list.  It would be great gift for a young patient, to open a dialogue or just ensure them, it's ok to worry.  I think it is really wonderful for siblings or little friends who have lost a little innocence and now find themselves overly worried, or even just more worried than they used to be. We had a great discussion about things I used to worry about, things I still worry about. 

Wemberly is easy to relate to and lovable.  Josh loves this book too.  They love to read Wemberly's little worries in their little theatrical worried voices. And the illustrations are very sweet and age appropriate.

Normalizing things that are scary takes some of their power away, and that is the message of the book.  It's not that you are going to stop worrying overnight, but if you can teach a child, that it's ok to worry, that it's what people do, then it's power, it's scary-ness vanishes.  Like port accessing, or getting vitals taken.  Super scary the first few times, but once you see chemo duck do it, or the other kids in clinic, it's not as scary.  The same goes for emotions.  It is important that we share with our children and their super sibs that we are worried and scared, that we are angry at cancer, that we want it all to go away.  Be strong for your children, but be imperfect too.  It's ok to let them see you cry, or worry. 

Just maybe don't admit out loud that you are worried there is a snake in the radiator.