BOSTON -- A woman accused of withholding cancer treatment from her eight-year-old son said the boy is her world.

"My life since I was 20 years old has consisted as, number one, a mother, always, and I will stand firm on that," Kristen LaBrie told the Boston Globe. "I have these little people to turn into men. That is my life, and that's what makes me happiest. And now that that has been taken away. Everything I knew is now in question. Everything."

LaBrie of Beverly told The Globe that her attorney told her not to comment on charges that she interrupted treatment for her son, Jeremy Fraser.

Authorities said the boy's prognosis was good until his mother deprived him of medication. Now he is not expected to survive. LaBrie told the newspaper she does not know how she will reconcile her feelings if her son dies.

"I guess I'm not going to answer that question," she said. "It would be too emotional of an answer. As a mother, this is a child, an autistic, very sick child who needs assistance with eating, with walking, with breathing, assistance with everything. And I do not see it as a burden, but as my life. Clearly there is no sense of relief from thinking about that not being there anymore."

Jeremy is now living with his father in Saugus.

LaBrie said she would have preferred if her son was placed in medical foster home, where he would be getting treatment.

His father, Eric Fraser, said he's stopped chemotherapy so his son can enjoy his last days, instead of getting sick from the medicine.