If she had a dollar for every time someone told her, “Don’t forget to take care of yourself, you need to be there for Joseph,” she could probably buy herself the spa day she keeps canceling. But life with a child with autism doesn’t leave space for bubble baths and scented candles. It’s doctor appointments, therapy sessions, and school meetings, and then she is at the bottom of the list. The problem is, she recently got a reminder that even moms with the strongest armor aren’t indestructible.
Sixteen years ago, she sat in a similar chair, in a similar sterile clinic, listening to doctors talk about malignant melanoma as if it were an item on a grocery list. Back then, skin cancer changed everything. The surgery left scars on her leg that made her feel like a war casualty, but more than that, it left scars in her mind. Numbers haunted her. Twenty percent of people with her stage of melanoma didn’t make it five years. She couldn’t focus on the eighty percent who did.
And here she was again. Another mole. Another waiting room. Another wave of memories crashes back, reminding her she isn’t untouchable. She had delayed this minor surgery twice already because, well, life doesn’t pause just because she needs stitches. Autism doesn’t wait. Her son doesn’t wait. But cancer doesn’t wait either. And this time she couldn’t avoid it.
She told herself it was nothing. But deep down, every what-if came crawling back. What if this was the time her luck ran out? What if Joseph had to face life without her? Joseph, her only child, her son with autism, the one who relies on her to fight battles he doesn’t even know exist. Who would love him like she does? Who would advocate when the world doesn’t understand him? Nobody. Just nobody. That’s the part about being a mom with autism in the picture—it’s never just about her body, her health, her pain. It’s about the what-ifs. The impossible questions no parent wants to ask but every parent of a child with disabilities quietly fears. Who will protect him when I can’t?
Three weeks ago, when the dermatologist spotted the change, she nodded politely while her mind spun. She remembered the first time, the first scar, the first statistic. And then life piled on, as it always does. Her mother ended up in the hospital, sedated and hooked up to machines. Joseph worried about his grandma. She worried about both of them. And the fear about herself got pushed aside, because that’s what moms do.
But yesterday, in that waiting room, it caught up. The appointment ran late, which meant more time for her thoughts to twist and multiply. By the time she was called in, she was holding back tears and then not holding them back at all. She cried through the explanation, cried when the doctor said it didn’t look too concerning, cried as they numbed her skin. She cried because she remembered the last time a doctor said those words and how wrong they turned out to be. When it was done, they told her no running until the stitches came out. That felt like another cruel joke. Running is her therapy, her lifeline, her one selfish escape. Now, even that was gone for two weeks. Another reminder that she wasn’t indestructible.
So she writes, waits, and worries. She reminds herself that for sixteen years, she has been cancer-free, and that is a statistic worth holding onto. And she keeps showing up for Joseph because, at the end of the day, she has to, no matter how vulnerable she feels. The truth is, she isn’t indestructible. None of us is. But when you’re a mom with autism in your life, you learn to keep going even when your body or your heart feels like it’s about to break. She tells people she’s okay. Not because it’s easy, but because she has to be, for Joseph.
