AsNick Cannongrieves the loss of his 5-month-old son, feelings of “guilt” continue to set in.
“My heart is shattered,” Cannon, 41, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I wish I could have done more, spent more time with him, taken more pictures. I wish I could have hugged him longer.”
Expressing such vulnerability is unusual for a usually upbeat Cannon, who firstrevealed the tragic newson his daytime talk showNick Cannonon Dec. 7.
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“My goal is to make everyone smile every day and to forget about their worries, so at no moment did I ever think I’d be crying on live television,” he says. “I really believe you can’t heal until you feel.”
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CLIFTON PRESCOD
Cannon’s youngest and seventh child, Zen, was diagnosed with high-grade glioma in August.
High-Grade Gliomas are tumors found in the brain and spinal cord. “These tumors can grow and spread quickly,” says Dr. Joffre E. Olaya, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital of Orange County who treated Zen. According to Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital, they are rare, accounting for 8 to 12 percent of all childhood brain tumors, and their cause remains unknown. Adds Olaya: “They are very difficult to treat.”
Doctors placed a shunt in Zen’s skull to allow excess fluid to drain and alleviate pressure, but they discovered that his tumors had continued to grow.
Ryan Pfluger/August
“We started asking, ‘Is there a way to prevent this? If not, how long do we have?’ " recalls Cannon. “The conversations quickly turned to, ‘How can we give him the best life for the time that he does have?’ It could be weeks, it could be months, it could be years.”
After discussing various treatments, including chemotherapy, Scott and Cannon — who has undergone chemotherapy himself for the autoimmune disease lupus — made the difficult decision to not pursue any further invasive procedures and focus on keeping their son “as happy as he could possibly be,” says Cannon.
“I see it as a blessing that I got to be there,” says Cannon. “Alyssa says, ‘I think he was just waiting for you.’ "
While Cannon feels lucky to have been there with his son, he can’t help but feel guilty.
“So much negativity comes my way because of my non-conventional acts and unorthodox [family] lifestyle,” says Cannon, who has long gone to therapy to help with his daily struggles. “But I didn’t want to hide anything.”
So on Dec. 7 Cannon shared his heartbreak with his fans.
“Usually my world is jokes and satire and judgment, but it’s been a complete 180 of nothing but love and people sending their well wishes,” says Cannon of the support he’s received. “It gives me hope in humanity.”
Now Cannon and Scott are focusing on the good that came from their short time with Zen.
source: people.com
