It’s not that I wish I had cancer. It’s just that when

I look at my brother, I want to be treated the way he is.

When I was seven and Mike was five, he was diagnosed with a skin cancer called melanoma. For months, my mom had been telling the doctor that she thought a mole on my brother’s chest looked funny. Finally she took him to a dermatologist who recognized what it was. The doctors were shocked. It’s extremely rare for kids to have a melanoma - especially at five years old. After measuring how deep the cancer reached, the doctors were even more surprised. While a melanoma is usually less than a centimeter deep, my brother’s was 2.5 centimeters. It was the surgeon’s opinion that in order for the cancer to have gotten so deep, Mike must have been born with it and it had been growing his whole life.

The doctors told my parents that they would operate to see if they could get rid of the affected area but that it didn’t look good. Of course, my parents were hysterical. They’d just been told there was a good chance their five-year-old son would die.

Being seven, I didn’t understand what was going on. I saw death as something that happened to old people. I figured anyone my age couldn’t get any sicker than a bad stomach bug. I remember sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to my parents crying in the kitchen.

Obviously, my brother was experiencing something horrible. Before the operation, they did all sorts of painful tests. I’m sure he was scared and had no idea what was going on. Because of this, everyone allowed him to act out, and he was never punished for anything. He got everything he asked for, and family always sent him presents: video games, movies, and the newest toys. At the time, all I wanted was for the operation to be over so I wouldn’t be second priority anymore.

Thankfully, my brother’s operation went well, and through the years, his checkups never showed that the cancer had returned. Unfortunately, spoiling my brother didn’t end when he got better. For years, he got everything he wanted, and it seemed he was always right and I was always wrong. Whenever I voiced that opinion I got the look and was told, “Mike was sick. He can’t help it; you need to understand.” Maybe my brother was angry that he had been sick, but he still needed some discipline. Instead everyone let him act like an animal. I wanted the attention Mike got; I wanted to be just as important as he was.

Fast-forward a few years, and Mike and I are in high school. Nothing’s changed. They’ve finally finished with the “he was sick; it’s not his fault” excuse, but they’ve moved on to just ignoring anything that he does wrong. Not that he’s going out and selling drugs, but my brother’s still the same spoiled brat he always was, and my parents act as though it’s completely okay for him to treat everyone badly. It’s stupid stuff like when my mom tells us to do something, he just laughs and turns on the television, and she just smiles. Sometimes I feel like Mike is my parents’ miracle child, and in order for me to measure up to his just living, I have to do something extraordinary that I’m not capable of. I’m not Mike, I’m no sports star, I come home past curfew, the cops in town don’t exactly love me, and I haven’t miraculously survived any diseases.

So, I don’t wish I had cancer. That must be terrible. But I want the same attention he has always gotten and the “Get out of jail free” card too. The worst part is the guilt I feel. What sort of person resents her younger sibling for surviving cancer? What kind of selfish human being wants a sickness so that people will treat her better? I ask myself these questions, and it makes me feel horrible to think that the answer is me. It’s not that I wish I had cancer, but sometimes I think that if I had, my life would be happier now, and that kills me.