SUPER MOM: CATHY SHIN
By: Binh Wilson The walls of the doctors office were a tribute to irony, considering the current situation. Posters of happy children and smiling faces covered every inch of the walls, yet the faces of Cathy and Shige Shin was anything but. With the tension of the room palpable, sounds of little Noah playing Cut the Rope on the iPad was barely enough to cover the blanket of silence. The sound of the door opening was a relief in and of itself, but that relief was short lived as it was replaced with a flood of confusion as almost 6 people, all wearing lab coats, entered straight faced. Not a single smile among them. “Mr. and Mrs Shin, the test results are back and there seems to be a rather troubling
issue we found with your sons blood” said their doctor bluntly. And it was with that sentence alone that Cathy knew to expect the worst. As if all the TV dramas and sitcoms she has watched were becoming true right before her eyes. In short order she was explained the whole situation and was unable to feel anything beyond shock. Noah, her 3 year old son, had cancer. Cathy Shin is the model modern age mom. Juggling work and family like an old pro, you would never guess that she’s only been a parent for an odd 6 years. Going from a day at the office, to picking up her oldest from preschool, all to come home and cook for
her husband and youngest son Noah. She’s done a good job in the corporate world as it is too. Holding a junior marketing position in a fairly young biotech company called Intellicyt. Cathy’s a working mother who was plenty prepared when she had her first son Makoto. The tolls of a first child barely phased her and she made it through the toughest years of infant motherhood without a scratch. And since younger children are always the easier of the two, the decision for another child was a no
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brainer. Yet in her case, an exception to the rule was made. On her 45 minute commute to work, Cathy is the type of person who would turn on the radio to overcome the silence. It is here where she may have heard of ads on Cancer funds and other illness related help programs. This, added on to the fact that she works in the biotech world may have been the reason she was quick to take Noah to the doctors office when he started to have had high fevers, or limped when he had no visible injury. While troublesome on its own this worry was increased tenfold due to the oldest, Makoto, just starting preschool. This meant that they were even less prepared for the news than they should have been considering the symptoms they had noticed. “Since then things have been going quickly.” explains Cathy as we sat to talk about her experiences so far. I had just walked in to the office, not really sure what expect. With the Stem Cell treatment in a few days, however, I was almost certain that I would be met with a tired, 2
soft-spoken woman who has had a tough six months. Yet as the door opened I was immediately met with a large white smile and a bagel that she just happened to have gotten in preparation with me coming. “You made it!” she exclaimed as I made my way through to her office. Without me even noticing she had taken some of my overflowing equipment and had taken it with her. Cathy kept up a constant stream of conversation, if a little one sided. In the 10 or so minutes it took me to set up we had managed to touch upon topics ranging from the weather to the “Absolutely Massive” amounts of dust in New Mexico where the headquarters is located. It
was strangely comforting. I felt like she was the type of person who could handle nearly anything and still go out with a smile on her face. “It hasn’t been as difficult as it sounds really. Sure it’s hard but so much has happened that I barely have time to think about it” assures Cathy. According to her, it all started about a year after Noah was born. Cathy and Shige were curious as to why Noah would have short yet severe bouts of fever as well as a limp when he had no visible injury. For infants such things are not easily ignored, so a worried Cathy took him to a doctors office several times, and each time the doctors could only make guesses as to why this was happening. “We kept thinking, because it coincided with my older sons first day of school,
that, you know, that your kids are germ factories and they’re gonna bring home all kinds of stuff ” (Cathy) Which makes sense because the amount of harmful bacteria increases tenfold outside of the household and it was safe to assume that Noah was getting sick because of germs brought back by Makoto. The decision to get a blood test, however, turned out to be a lifesaver, literally. Neuroblastoma, according to Mayo Clinic “...is a cancer that develops from immature nerve cells found in several areas of the body… and most commonly affects children age 5 or younger.” After the results of the blood test came back in, they were diagnosed by the team of doctors who specialized in this type of illness. Immediately they were admitted into Lucille Packard
affected. The surgery however wasn’t all that was needed, despite how it sounds, and Noah was soon diagnosed with stage four metastasized neuroblastoma. At this point of the cancer, chemotherapy is necessary and despite his young age, Noah underwent several treatments. As for today, he is doing well and recuperating from some major chemo as well as taking a long needed break from the hospital scene. hospital over at Stanford Univer- It was about a week after our first visit that Cathy invited me sity. Cathy remembers the first to the hospital where they were week at the hospital “He imcurrently undergoing stem cell mediately had a battery of tests. therapy. This was a big deal beThere were blood test and kidcause after doing some research ney tests and hearing tests. You know, MRI, Ultrasounds, EKG’s. on the therapy I learned that this It was just a mess.” The ultimate is when Noah was most vulnerable to outside bacteria. During result of this intense period of testing was that there was a fair- the transplant of stem cells into his body, he loses all his white ly large tumor the size of a golf ball above Noah’s adrenal gland. blood cells. This means that he must be kept in a state of quarThis was very serious due to the antine for as long as it takes. As fact that he was barely much I arrived with a camera in hand I more than a couple of feet tall. noticed her outside waiting. She So in December of 2013, Noah Shin underwent his first surgery. was a lot different than Thankfully he was able to get the the last tumor removed without any lymph nodes being
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time we met. Hair pulled back hastily, clothes a little disheveled, and I could see some evidence that she had a lack of sleep. Yet what really surprised me was that as I walked up to her, she still had the same smile that I had always seen from her. Despite her youngest son going through what could be the final chance at beating cancer, she looked as if the world around her was amazing and that she was ready for whatever it had in store. We made our way upstairs and to the outside of Noah’s room. So many nurses working IV bags as well as doctors administering different drugs were walking around his bed that I couldn’t even see his face. Unable to go inside for some fairly obvious reasons, we sat down and began to talk. Almost immediately I asked what news she could give me on Noah’s condition. Soon I was faced with a bombardment of medical terms that I could only guess at. The overall result, however, was that the
treatment had just begun. His white blood cells were beginning to diminish and as a result, he has become extremely susceptible to any form of bacteria. We continued our talk on more jovial topics, but as our time together came to a close I just had one more question. “What effects from these past six months have long term effects and what do
ening silence, she responded to me by saying “...I always think back to what Wallace Stevens said, ‘Death is the mother of beauty’. So I think that instead of the “on the edge” worry, that the day to day lifestyle, really appeals to me more than most and that if I were to get that for not only me but for my family, I’d be able to really understand just how much I needed it.” So for the next few weeks after our talk, Noah Shin will be undergoing an intensive treatment that, hopefully, will finally cure him of his neuroblastoma. And by his side will be Cathy and Shige Shin, who in the face of so much, wishes nothing more for their son than for him to be able to go to preschool and live a normal, uneventful life.
“Death is the mother of all beauty” -Cathy Shin you hope to do about it in the future?” I asked. And for the first time since meeting her, I found Cathy at a loss for words. I could tell this was a question that had been eating away at her conscience for a long while and after an almost deaf-
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