When Our World Stands Still, Life Goes On

The information provided in The Kinder Way Podcast is for educational purposes only, and is not intended as a substitute for professional advice from a licensed advisor. The content of each episode is the opinion of the host and interviewees, and does not represent the views of Serenia Life Financial or any of its other subsidiaries or affiliates. Please always consult a licensed insurance advisor for guidance. Serenia Life Financial does not endorse any third-party views referenced in this content.

Episode Transcript

Once upon a time… waaaay before I became a mom myself…. back when our Facebook feeds were filled with actual friends – not advertisers – I remember seeing an old friend from high school post about her young daughter’s cancer diagnosis. If my memory serves me correctly, it was either a rare form of cancer or maybe it was already further along than they’d have liked. But suddenly, they were looking at months and months of treatment at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, which happened to be 4-5 hours away from where they lived.

These kinds of stories are typically too much for my ‘mom heart’ to bear, so I’m just going to spoil the ending right now and tell you it was a HAPPY ending. This little girl is now all grown up and from the pics that come up on Facebook now and then, she seems happy and healthy.

It’s wild how differently stories like this land once you become a parent, and you realize this isn’t some ab-stract tragedy — this is something that could happen to any family, to your family.
But if I look back to that time, I remember thinking how sad it was, how scary it must be… but also how far away it felt from my own life.

I could not IMAGINE how this old friend and her husband felt during those very long months. Not only were they doing everything they could to save their daughter’s life, but they had to put THEIR lives on hold for a very long time. I honestly don’t know how they did it.

Maybe they took turns taking time off work – they DID have other children who I assume stayed home to go to school during that time… So someone would have needed to be there to take care of them… unless they paid for extra help? I’m really not sure.

But even without knowing all of the details, it’s still easy to see how quickly the expenses would have added up… without a regular income coming in.

Accommodations, meals, child care, the cost of gas if they drove home on weekends to see their other kids, the cost of living with a large family, and the possibility of alternative treatments or medications that may not have been covered.

ALL of that on top of worrying if your child will beat one of the scariest illnesses out there! Ugh.

Now we all know that most parents are lucky to not have to experience something like this – but we also can’t predict whether or not it will happen! And if the little people we love most in the world were to fall seriously ill and require months-long treatment, of course we would want to be at their bedside… day and night.

The truth is, when a child gets seriously ill, it’s like our world stops.
It’s like everything that actually matters suddenly lives inside a hospital room.

But the reality is, the outside world keeps chugging along — bills still come out, rent is still due, the mortgage doesn’t care what’s happening at Sick Kids.

It makes me think back to the first year of MY son’s life. I was on a pretty typical maternity leave here in Canada, and was planning to return to work after 12 months. But when we started introducing solids to our little guy, we were devastated to learn that he had – not one, not two – but more than 6 life-threatening food allergies.

And when foods that are supposed to nourish you are suddenly no better than poison, life suddenly feels very scary. The most harmless of things – peanuts, egg, sesame seeds – could have killed our baby if accidentally ingested, and the truth is, I wasn’t ready to put my son’s life in the hands of a busy daycare. So, I decided to extend my mat leave to 18 months. And when that time was up, I ended up leaving the company after my request to work part time was denied.

I bring this up because I very much felt the financial impact of choosing my child’s health over a paycheque. And while I was luckily making some money on a freelance basis, I was suddenly expected to… pay back my mat leave top-up since I had left the company… PLUS I was hit hard during tax season (who knew moms on mat leave were penalized so heavily?).

Still, I was lucky that my husband was making enough to be the main income earner temporarily, but I had never felt so utterly dependent before. I didn’t like feeling like I wasn’t contributing financially – we lived in an expensive city, we had a new baby, our rent had gone up… it was a pretty stressful time!
But I guess that was the first time I really understood what it meant to choose your child over your income.
There wasn’t one big, dramatic moment where I looked at my son and said “I choose you.” It was just a series of decisions that slowly chipped away at my sense of financial independence.
And even though we were okay on paper, the stress was very real.
All this to say it is a bit easier for me to imagine how it would feel if an unexpected life event meant suddenly saying good-bye to that bi-weekly deposit into our Chequings account we’ve all come to rely on.

It’s super scary to think about, but – with the right financial planning – it’s actually completely avoidable!

Warning: I’m about to use some jargon. But I really want to tell you about how Critical Illness Insurance for children can mean avoiding the stressful financial scenario I described a moment ago IF your child is diagnosed with one of the serious illnesses listed in the policy. These typically include diagnoses like cancer, congenital heart disease, type 1 diabetes, and autism spectrum disorder.
So if you can swing something in the range of $15–$20 a month, Critical Illness Insurance for kids can mean that if your child is diagnosed with a covered illness, you’d receive a lump sum of money to help your family get through financially when you aren’t able to work. Simple as that.

In my opinion, the monthly cost is WAY more manageable than facing many months without pay.
I think the problem is that a lot of parents assume that if something serious ever happened, they’d… “figure it out.”
But remember that in today’s economy, most middle-income families are one or two paycheques away from things getting really uncomfortable.
Not because we’re irresponsible — but because modern life is expensive, and most households rely on two incomes just to function.

When you think about it that way, it becomes kind of obvious that it’s just as important that we, as adults, get this type of coverage. But it’s never going to be as affordable for us grown-ups as it is for our kiddos, simply because of our age.

Now if you DO have a bit of extra money to spend, and you’re concerned you may never make use of this coverage, I should mention that some policies come with the option to buy a “Return of Premium” add-on. That means if you’re lucky enough to never need the payout, you can get your money back down the road. It’s definitely an extra expense that you’re paying up front – so not for everyone – but it’s worth asking your advisor about.
One other thing I should note: when you buy Critical Illness insurance for a child, there’s an option for coverage to last until their 75th birthday – at the same cost as their childhood policy – that’s like hundreds of dollars in monthly savings for them as an adult! Because, of course, you are going to pass on those payments when the kids are old enough to take them on… right? Or is that just me?
I actually remember, when I got my first full-time job, my dad transferring the cost of a small life insurance policy he had got me when I was a baby on to me. I was initially kind of annoyed… but I wasn’t a Life Insurance Convert back then. (And it was honestly super cheap!)
But I digress…

I just want to end by saying that, at the end of the day, we all know that no amount of insurance makes having a sick child easy.
But planning for these sort of “what if’s” can be a big help.

And when it comes to our kids, I’m sure most of us would agree: if there’s a way to make a challenging time even slightly less heavy, it’s worth thinking about.

If you want to know more, I’ve linked to some resources at the bottom of this episode’s description. Feel free to give ‘em a look!

And now it’s that time in the episode where I sprinkle a little bit of kindness in…. here goes!

Soooo I work for an organization whose core value is kindness. So it’s not uncommon to see random acts of kindness happening around the office on a pretty regular basis. (I guess this is less of a single moment of kindness and more so an observation of my workplace culture.) But.. from the CEO to the Executive Leadership Team to colleagues I bump into in the lunchroom, everyone here is just so kind and approachable! I especially appreciate our Employee Spotlight Program, which is basically an online platform where we can give our colleagues a shout-out for being kind, helpful, or just great team players. I’ve never seen anything like it at previous workplaces, but it’s the type of thing that gives you warm fuzzies when you read through it. 😉

Anyway, what about you? Do you have a moment of kindness to share? Whether you saw it or took part in it, I’d love to hear about it. Share it in the comments below… and see you next time!