A few hours earlier, we had come to the children’s hospital to determine what was bothering Mia. I thought it would be a sprained muscle, a pinched nerve, maybe a herniated disk; never in a million years did I imagine she had a tumor and we’d be discussing brain surgery. A team of doctors came by and one doctor said it was a tumor and it was pretty big. He said that she needed surgery right away because the tumor was causing fluid in her brain to accumulate. My head was spinning. I needed to understand. Ask questions. What was the neurosurgeon’s background? How long did it take? How many times had he done this? Did the children always live? Could he promise me she would live?

She was in surgery for hours, and my mom, my aunt, and I sat in the waiting room. Then I saw the green jumpsuit, a little green hat, white beard, and small eyes. We jumped up and the neurosurgeon said, “She’s fine. We’re done and she is sleeping. Come with me.” We walked into a small room and before he could close the door, I asked him, “Is it malignant? He said he had good news and bad news. He told us the tumor was malignant and was called medulloblastoma. The good news was that he believed he had removed all of it.

The most important advice I would offer to a family is logical but not necessarily widely accepted. Quite simply, be certain that your child is cared for by a surgeon who is experienced in caring for children. Children are not simply “little adults.” There is no rationale in assuming that the surgeon who cares largely for adults is equally qualified to look after a newborn baby or young child. This has nothing to do with intelligence, but is simply a logical extension of the meaning of experience in any facet of life. A carpenter who builds bookshelves will probably do it better than a carpenter that has spent his life building houses. A pilot of a space shuttle is not trained to be an airline pilot.