Episode 38: “A Good Kid” - Guest Episode with Jack Foster
We are so honored to be able to share our first guest episode on the show today. Jack Foster shares the story of his wife’s cancer, his daughter’s mental health, and the way he now sees his son was affected by it all. We thank him and his family for sharing their story with our community. Content warning: mental health struggles and suicide.
SHOW NOTES
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Sources and Further Reading:
You can reach out to us here if you want to follow up with Jack; we can pass along your message. He is open to sharing even more of his story if it resonated with you.
Our spot on NPR that resonated with Jack
How to find mental health help:
Find a therapist you can afford (select “sliding scale” under payment options if you know your insurance won’t cover it)
TRANSCRIPT
Kayla 0:09
You're listening to the My Sister’s Cancer podcast. I'm Kayla Crum, registered nurse and writer.
Ella 0:15
And I'm Ella Beckett, social worker and cancer survivor.
Kayla 0:20
We're sisters on a mission to care for the cancer community through the sharing of real life stories, a sprinkle of sass, and lots of support.
Ella 0:28
Join us in a new kind of pity party. It's a pity so many of us carry the heavy burden of cancer alone. So let's make it a party and carry it together.
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Kayla 0:42
Welcome back to My Sister's Cancer. I am your co-host, Kayla Crum, and I get the pleasure of introducing to you our very first guest today. So we've been putting out a call for guests for a little while, and we had two people respond. And we first thought we would put them both in one episode, but they were so generous with their stories and their time that we actually decided to give each of them their own episode. So today you'll hear from our first guest, Jack Foster. He's going to share his family's story and how that connects to our mission of making siblings feel seen and heard during family tragedy and difficulty. And then next week, you'll get to hear from Trish, who currently has a son going through cancer treatment, and about her family's experience as she also has a daughter who's going alongside of him through this process. I do want you to know that today's discussion will include conversations about mental health struggles and suicide. So if that is not a good topic for you right now, please go ahead and skip this one. I will let Jack tell you about himself. You'll hear his story in the beginning. And then at the end, we have a bit of a discussion about the nature of siblings and parenthood and why this is all so difficult and so worth paying attention to. Thanks for joining us today.
Jack Foster, Guest 2:18
Yeah. My name is Jack Foster. I live in the greater Boston area. You came to my attention - I get NPR, and I read it. I saw your story, and it really resonated with me because I saw, uh, how my son, how this affected him. It wasn't a sibling with cancer. It was a mother with cancer, but also a sibling with severe mental illness. And it was like - intersection of perfect storm for him. So back when he was in fifth grade and my daughter was in seventh, my wife was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer, which morphed into thyroid cancer, which morphed into lymphoma and then into bone cancer. It all happened really at a very quick short period of time. It acted very quickly. She had a couple surgeries. They got her into chemotherapy right away. A very strong chemotherapy. They said, you know, this choice is the strongest they could give her and said, because, you know, you're fighting for your life at this point in time. You know, we told the kids right away. Reid was still a little young, my son; my daughter, at seventh grade, very tech savvy because she can get all the information and, you know, she sees what's going on. So we started to move forward. It became very time consuming. You know, having to help my wife. We went to the doctor’s for at least 4 or 5 times a week, chemotherapy. So at the end, turned out she had six surgeries, over 50 chemotherapy treatments and a year of radiation. This was all drawn out over about 3 or 4 years. And I, you know, I kind of got caught up in the situation where I have to take care of my wife. We kept moving forward, and as time went on, I think they saw, you know, some very traumatic images of my wife when she wasn't very well. It was a couple times, you know, she was in intensive care. There was a time here at home, and luckily on this one weekend, they weren't here. And I'm glad they weren't. She almost died here at home. So moving forward, I figured, you know, maybe they should get into some type of counseling. Might benefit them just to see where they're at. My daughter was very reluctant to go, which makes sense now. At the time it didn’t. I think she realized she had some things that she was battling internally. And my son - he went in; after, you know, going to some sessions, you know, it was reported by the doctor that Reid was in a good place. He had a full understanding of what was going on, his emotional IQ was very good and, uh, he was doing a good job. I mean, he was very close with his mom. And for - for a boy that young to go and spend the whole day with his mom and chemotherapy and lay in bed with her. That's hard. And that's your mother. So time's moving on. And my wife was outstanding through the whole process. If she could be at the dinner table she’d come down. I’d take a wingback chair and wrap her in blankets and she tried to be there every night, to be present. You know, she'd still try to go to the kid's events and, you know, everybody would stare. She didn’t have hair. She lost her eyelashes. And I thought, you know, that the kids handled that well, you know, always did a good job with that. And, uh, so as time went along, my daughter was now in a pretty exclusive prep school. She's a good athlete, very good student. And she had a total mental breakdown. She ended up in the intensive care unit at Children's Hospital Boston. She attempted on her life. It was kind of 50/50, they said it was really touch and go, but they weren't sure what's going to happen. On that night, it was very hard. My wife and I were at the hospital and I looked at the clock. It's 5:30, Reid’s home alone, and he had no idea what was going on cause I was at the emergency room with my daughter and they said, “She's dying.” They called my wife, said, “You have to get in here now.” So she just came. And, you know, the afterthought of it, the things that you don't think of like, oh my God, he’s at home by himself. We knew he was pretty independent, pretty confident young kid. But, you know, and this is what this is, the things that you overlook is how you laser focus on the needs at hand. That we almost forgot about our other child. And so, this became the perfect intersection of my wife being sick and my daughter developing into some very severe mental illness. This went on for ten years. She continued - Mackenzie was able to mask this very well. She was very embarrassed that she was mentally ill. You didn't talk about that. But when she came home, that mask would come off. People wouldn't have known if you talked to her, if you met her, she spoke four languages. Very mathematically oriented. She was a very good athlete, all-league hockey player a couple of years in a row. And very driven. But we'd see that side of her where she wouldn't sleep. She’d be up all night and sometimes just mumbling and sometimes screaming. Very difficult. Reid’s room was right next to her and this was going on, you know, for many years. During this time period, there was many hospitalizations. And what you try to normalize is when you look back on it, how traumatic that would be for Reid. Now we're going to visit Mackenzie. You go through about four layers of security doors and there's bars on windows. It's very industrial. It's, you know, it's not - they're not the most attractive places to be. It's very intimidating. There's kids in there screaming, you know, running around and, you know, we'd be able to take Mac with us and go outside on the grounds, you know, if it was snowing we’d bring some boots and a pair of pants for her, we’d bring the dogs. And the kids would run around with the dogs and then have fun. And it's like, “Ah isn’t this wonderful?” Like that's how you normalize things. And it's not. It's the most abnormal thing. You know, they make you go sit in a private area and have dinner, and then that day ends and you go home and, you know, Reid would always pretty much go with us because Mackenzie would ask, like “How’s Reid doing? I’d like to see him.” And he always did. He never said no. But I think that was traumatic for him. Going to see that was like it was going to see his mom in the hospital. Now he's going to see his sister in a different type of hospital. Which is even kind of scarier. During this time period Reid was a good kid. And I think Kayla, something that you had mentioned in one of the things that I read, like, you become that good kid because you don't want any more issues and stress on the family. He was outstanding. He's just a good kid. Did his work, he played sports. Never became an issue. He really kind of flowed with the punches. So you don't even think to ask if there’s something wrong. Mackenzie, she went through a really good period. She got some really good help. She went off to college. We never told a lot of people about Mackenzie because she was very proud and also extremely embarrassed. So kind of - I think Reid did the same thing. I think he never really told people out of respect for his sister. Once Mac went away, it started to get more difficult. She started becoming more manic. When she would come home, it was very difficult. To the point that Reid, you know, he'd call me and say, “I'm afraid right now in the house with her.” And that's a difficult situation because she was, she would get very manic and become very aggressive. And that's a terrible way to be when you're afraid of your own sister. And she always felt terrible after these episodes, she’d have no recollection. She’d be totally blacked out. No idea what happened. And obviously it was never on purpose. It's just, she was, you know, she suffered greatly from mental illness, and that really affected Reid. It took a lot when he was afraid of his own sister. She was triggered very, very much by holidays, especially Christmas, which was the worst time of year. And to this time, it's always a difficult time for us at Christmas, because we became so in tune that Christmas was going to be terrible. We’ve gotten better at enjoying Christmas. But that’s a terrible way for a young child to be growing up. That Christmas can't even be enjoyed because, you know, it's very difficult. And at the time you don't think about it, it’s okay, it's just another day for us. We'll just move on. So there are episodes like that and there's one that sticks out in my mind. Mackenzie was home from school. She had been struggling, so we were trying to get her back on her feet a little bit. She was going into Boston to meet some friends, and that was it. So Reid was usually - he had hockey practice that night. He was usually home by 9:00. It’s 9:15, 9:30. And he wasn't home, which was kind of weird. So we just kind of speculated he went and met some friends. We get a call from a woman who says, “Are Reid Foster’s parents?” And we're like, yes. She says, “Well, he's at my house in Brookline, Mass.” Which is on the other side of Boston. And she goes, “He's looking for an address, which is the same address in Brookline, but there's the same address in Boston. He says he's looking for his sister because she lost her phone, and he said his phone died. So he came to the door. And when I told her the wrong address, he goes, can you do me a favor? He goes, can you charge my phone?” So he put it through the mail slot because she didn't trust him. And I thought, he's like the last person you would suspect in the world. Finally, we got ahold of him, and I was able to call police that were in the area. They located both of them. They brought them to the station. My wife and I drove and were able to get them. And I remember I was upset with Reid, and I said, “Why didn’t you call me?” And he goes, “Dad, she called me. You know, she told me, she asked me not to tell.” And that's how loyal he was, even though the relationship at this point was very fragile, very difficult relationship. And now I regret that I got mad at him for that. But I was like, you know, I would have went with you or, you know, you could have come home. I would’ve went, you know, to support him in that situation. He's driving around Boston in an area he doesn't know, trying to find his sister, you know. Then I'm getting mad at him. That doesn't help the situation. Reid’s, like you said, no problems. He's a good kid. Mackenzie pulls herself together. She finds a really good program, stays at university then for another year to get another degree. Seems to be doing pretty well. She was home at one point in February, and she talked about the future of what she's looking at. She had some options that she was thinking of. So it was very positive for us. And she didn't show any signs because you could always tell when she was in the mania, even just the way she’d text. And we didn't see that. And she didn't show any of the signs, because when she did, she’d know that my wife and I would fly out there, kind of get her back on her feet, get her to the clinic. She went to this woman's clinic; they were great and they were outstanding. The day she finished, we were on speakerphone. We're all eating dinner. And she goes, “I finished,” she goes, “I'm going home to change, meet some friends and we're going to go out.” And then she texted us and said, “I'm all done.” And we just assumed that she was done with school. She committed suicide that night. Reid was with us when we got the call. He was just home from his freshman year in college. It was - it was very devastating for all of us. It wasn't until after that that Reid started to show some signs of things weren't great. You know, he did lose a sibling. Even though the relationship was very difficult and trying at the end, you know, it's still a sister and I think it had a big impact. Made an impact on his life moving forward. We could start to see that a little bit more as he started to get into college, a little bit more that he was maybe having some struggles. He seemed a little bit more disengaged. But again, never a problem, never, never trouble. So I think maybe he was - he was removed more from the situation, and I think maybe he thought about it more and I don't - I can't say how many people he told or he didn't tell. I don’t think he talked to a lot of people about it, and I think he kept that bottled up for a long time. The two faces of these types of diseases, cancer: people are like, “Rah rah, let's put shirts on!” Mental health stops at the door and woo. Nobody wants to talk about it. You know, it's two different messages he's getting, you know, it's okay to support cancer, but mental health means, you know, you're crazy, you know, you’re off, something's wrong. And I think it's very difficult. It's difficult to process as an adult. I couldn't imagine trying to process when you still have a young developing mind and how to handle all this. He ended up - right before he finished school, he got a job and he started transitioning. And then he talked to us about it, my wife and I. He says “I need some help.” And we never kind of really thought of it. Again, looking back, you see signs, but at the time, they don't - the big picture seems good. It's the little signs that you see that you look back, then you beat yourself up on and we start to see little signs. But I was so glad when he was able to come to us and talk to us, and we were able to get him in line with the therapist. He's been with her for a couple of years now, and I think he's making progress, you know, he has a longtime girlfriend for a few years now. He’s content, and I'm happy. I just pray every day, you know, just let him find some happiness in his life. Some stability and happiness. I used to pray for Mackenzie for happiness and once I realized that wasn't going to be attainable, I used to say just stability. Just, just flat. Stable. And I was afraid seeing Reid for a little bit. But now I've seen him and he's in a good place. He's very involved. He works hard. I think he's in a good place. So I think it's okay like, I think he's stable, you know? Now let's, you know, I hope he just finds happiness. Because he was robbed of his youth. You know? He really was. And I think that at the end of the day, the lesson here being: you have to deal with what's in front of you that’s the most important. That's triaging. What's the biggest issue here? And that's what you do. And all those periphery, tertiary, secondary things, you kind of just keep going forward and go past those. And you know, as a parent, I’ll always feel bad about that. But, you know, it was out of my control. I had to do what I had to do, keep everything together and still work. And, you know, also take care of my dad at the time. You know, it was a lot, but you still feel bad. And, you know, he definitely didn't deserve that. But he never complained. He just took it in and internalized it all, which was, you know, in retrospect I feel bad that he did that. You know, he did it for his own reasons. Like you said, Kayla, you don't want to create more issues. You want to focus on the hand of what's important at the time, and for him to realize that a young age, it's pretty outstanding to take that on, because he could have acted out. He could have easily gone down a different path. And, you know, he didn't. He stayed on course. But, uh, you know, like I said, I think you take care of what's in front of you at the time, since, you know, you do what you got to do, and you look back and you self-critique and a lot of self-critiquing going on. Very similar. So when I saw your thing, it really resonated with me. I said, that's - this is truth. This is no lie. And, you know, it definitely happens because I saw it and now it's so, uh, kind of have a first front row seat to what you have gone through and what Ella - what you went through also. I go around and talk about mental illness and suicidal tendencies, and I always say, if I can help one person, I've done my job. If I can keep one family from going through a tragedy, I've gone through my life. It's time well spent. You know, I say I'm going to make you laugh. I'm going to make you cry. It's a raw story, but it's real. For me, it's - it's like a cleansing, almost.
Kayla 18:16
Oh well thank you. I really appreciate you sharing so much of your story and that your son gave his permission, too, for you to share a little bit about him. That's… that sounds like a long path of a lot of pain. And, I mean, I'm sure you yourself, I mean, you were carrying so much. So I get how you're saying you're always going to wrestle with guilt and such, but I hope you also know, like you said, you know, it's triage and you just were trying to keep your head above water. So I hope that, you know, hearing your story, maybe someone listening is like that college-age Reid or something, like the kid who maybe could vocalize that they need help, right? So I'm so glad he was able to come to you. And I hope that if there's siblings out there listening to this, you know, this isn't to make the parents feel bad, but it's to make the siblings maybe reach out for help sooner. Or if a parent does have the capacity, like it sounds like you got your kids in therapy when your wife was sick, and that was probably a great building block for later for Reid to ask for help too. So.
Jack 19:24
Well, thank you, but that was - that was a younger age. In retrospect, I probably would have went down that road again.
Kayla 19:30
As kids get older, I think it also gets harder. Right? Because like when Ella got sick, we were both in college, and that's sort of that gray area where you're trying to become an adult, but you're still a kid. And it's - it's not like your parent can just be like, “All right, I signed you up for therapy and you're going,” it's a little more gray than that. So that gets tricky as kids get older. For sure.
Jack 19:51
It is. And again, so what you're doing here though too, it's - it's not just college-age kids. It's younger kids. If your parent can become aware, if there's a sibling that is sick, um, you know, it's okay to sit down and talk to your kids and, well, this is - that therapy was at the very beginning of all this, too. You know, it got worse and worse. And at that point in time, I probably rationalized, well, I already got the blessing therapist, Reid’s emotional IQ is high. He's very in tune with what’s going on. But so many other things piled on top. Then you start moving forward. So, um, with this platform, I hope if a parent listening or a sibling, who knows a cousin, anybody that’s important in your life- it's okay to feel bad. It's okay to feel like you’re kind of being left out of the picture or you want to help, you know, but, uh, you know, a lot of times at that age, you don't know what the answers are. You don't know how to conduct yourself. So the only way you can do is to think of, like, don't be a problem, you know, unfortunately.
Kayla 21:01
Yeah, yeah. We hope that our podcast and stories like yours help people like siblings understand that their experience is valid too, right? It's not just a person with the illness, it's for sure also, the family affected.
Jack 21:18
100% and it's not - you know, you can't discount those feelings. If someone came to me - if Reid came to me when he was 14 and said, “Dad, I’m not okay,” I wouldn’t have said “You’re fine, leave it alone.” You know, the typical old Irish cat response and everything. “Oh you're fine.” Yeah, I kind of wish he had. But I also understand why he didn’t.
Kayla 21:34
Yeah. And I think that one thing that surprised us that we've mentioned on the podcast before is how almost delayed or like later, some of that mental health or like processing had to happen for us. Like when you're in the moment, you're kind of just trying to get through, right. And then it's in the years after, sometimes as you're rebuilding, that you really start wrestling with your own feelings sometimes.
Jack 22:00
And you know what it is too - I think about this often. We had a lot of good memories as a family. Even when Mackenzie was still like, you know, dealing with mental illness, we still had a lot of great times. But you don't remember because good is easy. Good just happens. And you remember bad because bad takes efforts. You’ve got to address bad. And it's a lot of effort. Like what's the next move, when do you go into the hospital? What can we do? What resources are available? How am I going to deal with this? You know, I had to take my wife to the emergency room. And those are the things you remember, because they leave scars. You know, I always say happiness doesn’t leave scars. Happy just happens, and you forget about it. It's those scars that you have that you remember. And that's unfortunate because also sometimes there's some guilt there. It's like, man, we had a lot of good times and there was a lot of happiness there, too. There was a lot, a lot of really good things too, right. I just have to work at digging them up. You know, but they’re there. And I’m sure you guys had a lot of good times too.
Kayla 23:16
Mhm. Yeah I think our brains on like a survival level are trained… they're going to remember the bad, right, to try to protect us in the future. But there is that good, if you can try to dig back for it, for sure. Yeah. I appreciated what you said about the hidden burden of mental illness, because that's for sure true. With the cancer and the t-shirts and the 5K’s and it's like it's this big thing that you're allowed to sort of talk about. And it wasn't always that way. I think 50 years ago, cancer was much more of a taboo. But, you know, I hope that we're working towards erasing the taboo around mental health, too. But I know we have a long way to go still.
Jack 23:59
There was a stigma that really was keeping that in. It really was, and you’d be labeled. And it's so much better now than it was even a few - a couple of years ago. You know, it's gotten so much better. There's so many more resources. It's out there as people are more open about mental health issues, especially now since COVID. I think there's a lot of, you know, I think there's a lot of adversely affected young people since then. There's more resources, thank goodness. But now it's, uh… I’ve tried to, you know, do some things, raise awareness about mental health. You know, hopefully every little bit counts and again, you help one person, you’re probably doing the right thing. I think you guys have probably helped more than one person, so.
Kayla 24:51
Well, I really appreciate your time and your story. Is there anything else you wanted to share with our audience before we sign off?
Jack 24:57
No. Just, Ella, congratulations to you. It's awesome. I'm happy. Kayla, thank you for the opportunity to come on, because I, I do like - I don't like telling the story, but I don’t mind telling it either, because if we can help somebody. And this is a good platform, it's a different type of platform. But honestly, as soon as I read that, I was like, oh, man, this is so true. But you know, you can't discount that. Not at all. And I never heard anything about this: siblings of, you know, ones that have cancer. I'm like, what a great idea. Good for you guys.
Kayla 25:37
Well, thank you so much. And yes, yeah, we really appreciate your vulnerability. I know it's hard, but like you said, it's worth it.
Jack 25:46
Oh that's right. Definitely. Well, thank you very much. Thanks again.