Open Writing

I can’t sleep, can barely breath and am struggling to eat. My brain is full of screamed obscenities. I make an appointment to see my GP.

‘We don’t really want to start down that path, yet,’ he tells me gently, when I ask if he can give me something to help with the anxiety. ‘I think we should wait and see if things get worse.’

I’m unable to contemplate things getting worse and frantically try to bury thoughts of what that implies. It’s clear he’s desperate to help but he’s a good doctor and doesn’t prescribe lightly.

‘I’ll write you a sick note for the final nine days of term,’ he offers.

It isn’t what I want. Miraculous, medical magic is what I crave, a pill to make everything better. I’m afraid to let go of my ‘normal’ routine but feel unexpectedly lighter to have one whole chunk of my life lifted from my shoulders. Now I am free to concentrate on helping James and David, if he’ll let me.

On Tuesday, James and I set off to the hospital for what we’d been told will be a range of tests and operations to put a portacath in, biopsy a lymph node in his groin and take bone marrow samples from his spine. A portacath is a little metal cup they insert just under the skin below the armpit. It has a tube running up to the neck, where it enters a vein, straight into the heart. It means that the chemo, blood tests and other drugs can be administered directly into this instead of sticking endless needles anywhere else.

Tears wet my face and blur my vision most of the way to the hospital.

‘Why are you crying, Mum? I’m going to get well.’ It’s a cross between a statement of challenge and a question.

I’ve always tried to be honest and open with my children but I can’t bear to bruise his hope or cause his resolve to falter. ‘I know you’ll get well, sweetheart.’

Please God, let it be so, I plead in my head. ‘I cry at cartoons like Dumbo so there’s no chance I can hold them back now.’ I try a smile but it feels stiff and artificial.

When we arrive on the ward, none of the promised tests have been booked.

There is no bed for James and we are left in a playroom for an hour and a half whilst they try to sort something out for us. James, expecting an operation, has had nothing to eat and his leg is incredibly painful. There seems to be no urgency in any of this, whilst all I can think about is the cancer multiplying exponentially and spreading throughout his body.

Eventually, we’re sent to another hospital, in a different part of Leeds, for tests on his heart as a baseline to monitor any possible side effects of the chemotherapy. Driving to Leeds has been bad enough, searching for this unknown hospital in an unfamiliar, busy city just adds to the apprehension I already feel.

*

In the summer that I was 15, I took the drivers’ education class held at the high school during the long holiday. It was quite a comprehensive course. We were taught how to change tyres, did simulations of night driving and had lectures and quizzes on theory, as well as practical hands-on experience, including motorway driving. My dad supplemented this training by taking me out in his car. He insisted that I keep a log of the miles that I’d driven, as he wouldn’t allow me to drive unaccompanied until I’d logged 1000 miles. He was generous with his time and it didn’t take as long as I feared it might (months rather than years).

My dad also wanted to teach me how to drive the boat we had on the lake. I’d driven it a few times, when he thought I could have a go at pulling a water skier.

My brother, Charlie, and one of his friends wanted to ski so I went along.

Charlie’s friend got in the water and my dad made sure he had swum well away from the boat before he turned to show me how to pull away gently until the ski rope was taut. We didn’t have a rear view mirror and we failed to check a final time before we started up. But the boy had panicked, swum back to the boat and been sucked under, into the propeller. The blades had sliced his leg to the bone in three places.

Incredibly, he didn’t cry all the way to the hospital, as I tenderly held his leg in a towel. The body shuts down the pain sensors if the trauma would be too great to cope with. I felt hysteria and nausea seething under the surface, which I desperately fought to control for his sake.

I never drove a boat again, nor do I enjoy driving of any sort. Had it not been a vital life skill where we lived, I probably wouldn’t have continued to learn to drive a car. Accidents happen in an instant, a momentary lapse and the unthinkable can occur. No reprieve, no opportunity for ‘But I didn’t mean…’