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(CNN) - Childhood cancer is exhausting, scary and painful. A mother in Texas shared an unfiltered look at how the disease impacted her family.
Kaitlyn Burge posted moving photos of her 4-year-old son, Beckett, leaning over a toilet, with her 5-year-old sister Aubrey on duty. Beckett was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia more than a year ago.
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“Vomiting between game sessions. Waking up to vomit. Being next to his brother and rubbing his back while he vomits, ”he wrote. “This is childhood cancer. Take it or leave it. ”
Burge said he took the photos in January, but that they represent a "typical day in life" for his son. Beckett takes a chemotherapy pill every night, in addition to monthly trips to a clinic where he receives chemotherapy through a port, and with chemotherapy comes nausea.
His children make sacrifices for his brother
The photos, he said, show the reality of childhood cancer and its implications in families.
"Our family has separated," he said about sending his children to stay with his grandmother or brother while Beckett is in the hospital. “We are all tired. Your relationships are tested. You lose a lot of friends. You can't go out and live the life you've been living before this. ”
And focusing on Beckett's health has meant that he has less time to devote to Aubrey and his 6-month-old daughter.
“The brothers forget most of the time. They make many sacrifices that people don't realize, ”he said.
Aubrey has stayed by his side in the hospital and at home. At first, he did not understand why his younger brother, previously playful, slept all the time, could not walk alone or missed school, Burge wrote.
"I was so used to being the older sister," she told CNN. "His world turned around."
Families have sympathized with their message
Beckett should complete the treatment in August 2021 after more than three years. It feels like an eternity to his family, Burge said.
The process has become increasingly expensive, so a friend made a GoFundMe for Beckett's medical expenses.
When Beckett was diagnosed, she felt she was alone. But the parents of children with cancer have received their publication very well and revealed a community that she did not always know was there, she said.
"Finding something positive, I think, in the ugly, is a good perspective on life."
Child cancer