LNick Cannon has opened up about his decision to not pursue chemotherapy for his late son Zen.
Earlier this month, the 41-year-old talk show host announced that his five-month-old son, whom he shared with Alyssa Scott, had passed away following a battle with brain cancer.
While speaking to People, he opened up about his decision not to seek chemotherapy for the infant.
“We were having quality-of-life conversations,” he explained. “We could have had that existence where he would’ve had to live in the hospital, hooked up to machines, for the rest of the time. From someone who’s had to deal with chemotherapy before, I know that pain. To see that happen to a two-month-old, I didn’t want that. I didn’t want him to suffer.”
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Nick Cannon has experience with chemotherapy as he’s undergone the treatment himself for the autoimmune disease lupus.
Zen was diagnosed with high-grade glioma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer when he was two months old. Doctors operated on the boy and placed a shunt in his skull to allow excess fluid to drain and alleviate pressure, but his tumors continued to grow.
That was when Cannon and Scott began having conversations about possible treatments and what was best for Zen’s quality of life.
“We started asking, ‘Is there a way to prevent this? If not, how long do we have?'” recalled Nick 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, could be months, it could be years.”