Nick Cannon is talking openly about the months that passed between knowing that his son Zen had cancer and his passing.
The Masked Singer presenter, 42, opened up on The Checkup with Dr. David Agus in an episode about how they discovered their young son had brain cancer.
At first, Cannon’s baby boy was “healthy, lively, and usually smiling,” but at around two months old, he started to observe the baby’s “strange” breathing patterns.
The biggest shame I have as a father of many children is that I don’t get to spend enough time with them all, in part because I work nonstop and in part because I’m overburdened.
“He had a somewhat larger head than the others, but my kids all have enormous heads. I was born with a large head, “Cannon threw in.
Zen’s parents brought him to the doctor because they thought he might have asthma, and the doctor was instantly concerned because the baby’s growth was the “first indicator anything was occurring.”
“They conducted numerous tests. He was not permitted to leave the hospital, “He remembered. “You may thus assume that you believe you are bringing your youngster in for a checkup in order to rule out the worst case scenario, which is asthma, you know? And it came as a shock to learn that he has brain cancer.”
He said that doctors “sort of lay it out for me,” and he requested them to “be straight” with him so he could prepare himself and shield Scott from whatever would come next.
A rare and aggressive type of brain cancer called high-grade glioma was discovered to be Zen’s condition. Chemotherapy was offered as a possible method of treatment for Cannon and Scott.
He stated, describing how they used a shunt to drain fluid from Zen’s brain, “When we first went to the hospital, just to decrease his head from fast continuing to grow, there were a handful of operations we were all for.”
“That seemed rational to me. He felt less discomfort, and the surgery went quickly. It was all about living well, “he observed
“From that point on, they basically informed me that your boy might survive to be 3 or 4 years old in the best-case scenario. When I first heard that, my first thought was quality of life. I wanted him to live the finest life he possibly could.”
When it came to chemo, Cannon questioned whether treatment would prolong Zen’s life or decrease his suffering; they said, “Not really,” citing the tumor’s location.
Even in that short length of time, I couldn’t image your kid having to do chemotherapy after seeing him hooked up to all of those equipment — and the fact that he had to have a shunt two or three times was sad each time.
As part of his lupus treatment, Cannon underwent a type of chemotherapy and “understood what it did to me.”
“As a grown man, I was aware of how that procedure worked. My hair was thinning, “said he. “It drained everything out of you; I wouldn’t even call it agony. I couldn’t even begin to conceive what it would do to a newborn.”
In addition to requiring Zen to “live in the hospital,” the treatment option raised worries about his quality of life.
In the end, Cannon and Scott “got to the space of ‘we want to enjoy him and we want him to enjoy [us]’,” he recalled, adding that “he would have never gone home.”
The father described the final days as “difficult,” and he gave Scott credit for “her strength, her tenacity.”
“Without her, I most certainly could not have succeeded. Because she was the only one, she managed everything “He nodded his head. “We experienced some lovely times. We had the chance because we were aware of the impending change. Even on the final weekend, I was aware that it might be the last one; it happened much faster than we anticipated.”
Cannon went on, “Fortunately, we took in the sunrise, visited the beach, watched the sunset, said some lovely prayers together as a family, and generally got closer as a unit in a very lovely way. I appreciate that, but it was absolutely challenging. It was quite upsetting to watch your child suffer and watch as things stopped working.”
Cannon also has a daughter, Powerful Queen, 23 months, a son, Rise Messiah, 10 weeks, and a second child, Golden Sagon, 5, with model Brittany Bell in addition to Zen and their unborn second child.
With Abby De La Rosa, he has a 3-week-old daughter named Beautiful Zeppelin, 17-month-old twins named Zion and Zillion, and 11-year-old twins named Monroe and Moroccan. He also has a 5-month-old boy named Legendary Love with model Bre Tiesi and a daughter named Onyx Ice Cole, who was born in September with former Price Is Right model LaNisha Cole.
