Just a quick update after my post "Scanxiety" & for those of you who don’t follow me on social media: Last week when Dylan went into hospital for his vincristine no.20/44, the consultant read us the entirety of the results from Dylan’s MRI scan on 27.4.18. She told us definitively that the only problem with … Continue reading A Bit of Light in the Darkness
On Friday Dylan had his fourth MRI scan. It was of the entirety of his head & spine. He has been struggling on & off with back pain for the best part of a year. Initially the consultants thought it was due to his steroids (dexamethasone - which does cause him pain) but as time … Continue reading Scanxiety
“Never tell anyone that you’re depressed, especially the doctor. It will go on your record, you’ll never get a job & it will be used against you.” The antiquated unwise words of my mother years ago when I was in my teens. A generation of stiff upper lipped misinformants has created a generation of people … Continue reading Don’t Sweep It Under The Carpet
One evening just over a week & a half ago I receive a text message just as I am about to walk into my local supermarket. As I read the message my legs go weak; then as what I read is confirmed to me in a subsequent message my legs give way completely & I … Continue reading You Can’t See It
Tomorrow morning is the last dose of steroids for this month. Until April 2020 Dylan will take dexamethasone twice a day for five days every month & frankly it would be an understatement for me to say that steroids are a test of everyone’s patience, strength & mental wellbeing. Dexamethasone is a steroid that is … Continue reading Love But Mostly Hate
I am so tired. At the start of this journey I spend every night next to Dylan in his hospital bed until he is allowed home; fifteen nights lying next to my little boy who has just been diagnosed with cancer. I do not really sleep, I have become hypersensitive. I watch him throughout the … Continue reading Running on Empty
Dylan is due to have his eighteenth lumbar puncture to receive the drug methotrexate intrathecally this Wednesday. He will be given his twenty sixth general anaesthetic, a needle will be inserted into one of the spaces between the bones of his lower spine & the drug will be injected in order to prevent cancer cells … Continue reading This is Chemotherapy
Well, it was not the start to the New Year that I had hoped for. On 4th January 2018 Jill Williams, Nick’s mother (Dylan’s grandmother) passed away. She had non Hodgkin’s & Hodgkin’s lymphoma & as I mentioned in my previous post had been battling cancer on & off for the last twenty years. Recently … Continue reading A Dark Day
This tightrope stretches across the deepest abyss, into a blinding & indeterminate blizzard. The strength needed to walk it is phenomenal; it requires constant micro managing of reality versus my mind. I feel as though I am no longer myself, I have to focus hard in order to behave as rationally as possible for my … Continue reading The Tightrope
Two days ago marked one whole year since we first found out that Dylan was seriously ill. It is the day that a line was drawn, a line that marks life before cancer & subsequently life with cancer. The infinitesimal details that mark before & after are now forever etched firmly in my mind with … Continue reading The Diagnosis
Dylan is six months into his cancer treatment going through the bit called “delayed intensification”. He has recently had two rounds of chemotherapy, is on two different anti sickness meds & has just started steroids. He is groaning in pain in the back of the car which I am driving to take his then seventeen … Continue reading Picture This:
As a youngster my eldest son Ruari showed little interest in any type of make believe kingdom, he was the kind of child who knew Mickey Mouse wasn’t real from the day he was born, he detested Harry Potter & he hated any type of fairground ride with a passion beyond anything I could explain … Continue reading The Truth About Build-a-Bear
Quite simply cancer elicits very exacting, black & white choices: take the treatment & hope for life versus don’t take the treatment & lose hope. In truth cancer doesn’t always allow the luxury of choice, often it just takes over & leaves you with no hope at all. We were lucky we had the opportunity … Continue reading C is for…Choice
There’s a loneliness that comes with cancer. Something that is difficult to convey to those who have not seen its sheer unforgiving devastation first hand. The angel of sadness sits on my shoulder everyday. Sometimes I walk around the supermarkets & shops wondering if I should just tell people that my son has cancer & … Continue reading Waiting for Normal
The Little Big C 