Pictures Of 5-Year-Old Sister Comforting Her Brother After Chemotherapy Show Reality Of Childhood Cancer

Sep 13, 2019 by apost team

Seeing a child struggle with cancer is one of the most heartbreaking sights imaginable. While people may talk about the financial and medical realities of cancer, people too often forget how cancer affects families. A mom in Texas recently showed a photo of how her son’s battle with cancer has changed the lives of her family in a Facebook post that has since gone viral.

Kaitlin Burge is the mother of four-year-old Beckett, a little boy with an aggressive form of cancer called very high risk pre-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Beckett’s diagnosis is complicated by pneumonia in his left lung and acute respiratory failure. During the early stages of his treatment, Beckett was isolated for 33 days in intensive care unit of the local children’s hospital. The sweet little boy became so sick that he lost both his hair and his ability to walk.

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While pained to see her little boy suffering from such an awful disease, Kaitlin was also concerned about how Beckett’s condition was affecting Beckett’s older sister, five-year-old Aubrey.

"The siblings are forgotten about a lot of the time. They make a lot of sacrifices that people don't realize," she said in CNN.

Upon Beckett’s cancer diagnosis, Kaitlin had difficulty explaining to Aubrey why her little brother could no longer play with her at home and had to spend all day in a chilly hospital.

In a post on Beckett Strong, a Facebook group geared toward supporting the Burges in Beckett’s fight with leukemia, Kaitlin said that from the start, Aubrey knew that her brother was ill. Despite not being able to fully grasp what a cancer diagnosis meant, Aubrey nevertheless knew that she had to be there for her brother. To show the world how Aubrey has rallied behind her little brother, Kaitlin posted a photo to Facebook of Aubrey comforting Beckett as he stands over a toilet. While the photo is heartbreaking, it is also a great testament to the strength of the sibling bond between the two.

"All she knew was that something was wrong with her brother, her best friend. She stuck by him. She supported him and she took care of him," she captioned the photo.

Looking to the future, Kaitlin and her family say that they are cautiously optimistic about Beckett’s treatment. In another post to Facebook, Kaitlin says that her son is doing amazingly well. Not only is Beckett able to walk again, he has also regrown his hair. Nevertheless, new problems have arose in Beckett’s treatment. Due to his chemotherapy and anti-fungal medication, Beckett’s skin turns a bright red because of photosensitivity.

In the end, Kaitlin hopes that Beckett’s story will inspire others to help in the fight against childhood cancer and understand that a cancer diagnosis changes an entire family.

What do you think of how Aubrey comforted Beckett during his cancer treatment?