Open Writing

On Monday, as suspected, the buffer is removed. The swelling is not oedema. Dr Edwards tells us a bed is booked for James in Birmingham. The surgery will be on Wednesday morning, a week before James' sixteenth birthday.

David is on his half-term holiday so he's able to come with us and stay until Sunday. Howard has to work and will meet us there in the evening. It's a long journey. I feel like I'm driving to an execution. We stop off at Meadowhall on the way and watch the film, Dragonheart, for a shot of escapism. I hope it will give us something else to think and talk about.

The cancer is pouring poisons into James' system now. His temperature keeps spiking and crashing. He's in pain, tired all the time and barely eating. His skin's a jaundiced shade of grey. He's pinched and inward looking. He sleeps most of the way. David takes refuge in his Gameboy and I try to concentrate on driving through my tears.

As soon as we arrive at the hospital, they rush James down to X-ray, as it's nearly 5pm. They've given him a large private room, which we're grateful for, as we'd found the big, open, noisy wards very wearing the last time we'd been in this place. There are two beds in James' room and David thoughtfully offers to stay over night, in case his brother needs him. Howard and I feel guilty sloping off to a hotel and offer to take turns but James prefers his brother's company.

The surgeon comes to visit James in the evening and is superb. A quietly spoken man, he seems young, perhaps in his thirties. He stays for ages patiently answering all of James' questions, thoughtfully and thoroughly. The surgeon promises an extra MRI scan first thing in the morning so that he can clearly show James that this is the only way we can save his life. It's a gift for which I will always be indebted.

He's as good as his word and shows us the results when we get to the theatre at noon the next day. The cancer has grown from the size of a cherry in May to a 25cm long monster that fills the whole of his lower leg. James, groggy from the pre-med, finally gives the surgeon permission to go ahead, as long as he does the best job he can. I kiss him as he drifts off to sleep and remind him not to be sick when he wakes up (power of suggestion).

We wait back on the ward. A junior doctor has told us the operation will take about half an hour so we're pretty worked up an hour and a half later, when a nurse comes to tell us the doctor wants to speak to us on the phone.

'Sorry about the delay,' he says, 'the previous case held things up. The operation has gone very well, with little bleeding and apparently clean, clear tissue.'

The release turns my bones to soggy pasta. I have to remind myself to breath. All those drawings James left lying around the house shocked me and I'm frightened of how I'll respond when I see my mutilated son. Sensations like static electric pin pricks flash round my body. I pray. Somehow my spaghetti legs take me down to the high dependency unit, where we find James awake.

All the previous terror, anxiety and anticipation evaporate and calm relief floods over me. The first thing James asks is for us to look at his stump. He scrutinises our faces to test our reactions. I'm surprised to discover how easy it is. The bandaged limb is neat and part of him; the horrible, scarred, cancer-filled lower leg, gone forever.

James seems satisfied with our responses and drifts in and out of sleep. About 6pm we decide to slip out for something to eat. We walk back into the unit, almost giddy now the tension of the day is behind us. In an instant we're plunged back into fear. James is writhing in agony and the nurse is frantic. They can't control his pain and his blood pressure keeps causing the monitor to cry out in alarm.

The nurse feels the problem is due to a full bladder, which because of the epidural James is unable to relieve, but she isn't allowed to catheterise him herself. For forty minutes she's been trying to get hold of a doctor.

Nothing can describe how it feels to be helpless whilst your child screams in pain and machines tell you he's in danger. Howard and David set off to find a doctor themselves, enlisting the help of the nurses on the ward and finally head for the canteen to drag one from their dinner. Fortunately, a doctor is located before that's necessary.

When she arrives, the doctor walks straight past me, ignoring my frantic gestures and comments that 'he's here, he's here'. At the far end of the unit, I hear the nurse apologise and say, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude but we have a patient in pain and very distressed parents'. When I hear the nurse apologise a second time, I have to leave the room. I have never been so close to physically and verbally abusing anyone before in my life and that won't help my son.

David and I go back upstairs to calm down and let the doctor do her work. James asks his dad to wait outside the curtain. He can hear the doctor say, 'I'll need this or that item' and the nurse's restrained reply that everything is ready (and has been for some time).

'Well, I'll need some number 7 gloves.'

'I'm afraid we only have number 8's.'

'Oh, I suppose they'll have to do,' is the snotty reply. 'Right let's have a look here. Wow, look at the size of this!'

Howard nearly chokes before he realises she's talking about the glove. Six hundred and fifty ml of urine lighter and James' pain subsides. Needless to say, I spend the night with James and the following day they take him back to his room on the main ward.

*

That's not to say I never lose my temper. Our second house was an end-terrace and had a shared yard with an entrance directly into the road, nearest my house. There was also access up steps, in two places, along the lane running behind. The gate at my end was broken so, when I let the dog out and the children were playing, I would wedge an old door against the opening, held in place by the dustbin.

One day, as three-year-old David and a little friend played just outside the door, I was keeping an ear on them whilst I washed up in the kitchen.

An almighty crash sent the dish slithering through my wet hands and my arms plunged to the elbow in the suds to steady myself.

Nancy, a friend of my neighbour, Mrs Wells, was on her way to visit and barged through my makeshift barrier. Without pausing to lift the old door back into place, this woman stomped past the two shocked children and the now barking dog and left them vulnerable to the road.

Psychedelic green and orange rage exploded in my guts. Securing the door-gate I roared, like a lioness protecting her cubs, down the yard to make my feelings known to this woman.

'Do you realise those children could have been hurt because you left that gate open?' I demanded.

'Your dog bit me,' she said, lifting a clean, unblemished white cardigan to reveal an unharmed arm.

'I'm thinking of reporting it and having your dog put down.'

Anger now clawed its way past any shred of manners I might have possessed. 'If you ever come through my yard like that again, I'll bite you,' I growled.

'You must never behave like that in my home towards my visitors again,' Mrs Wells informed me in a steely voice, as I turned to leave.

For two days my fury steamed through me. I imagined all the things that might have happened, I raged at the woman's ignorance at not using any of the three alternative entrances and more.

At the same time, a different voice in my mind was quietly repeating, 'forgive my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me.' With great persistence, it was made clear that I had to choose. If I wanted my sins, faults and mistakes forgiven then I must forgive this woman. It had to be God's way or the way of the world. I knew I wanted God's way but it wasn't easy. Prayer made it possible.

Gradually, as my own outrage subsided, I remembered the kindness with which Mrs Wells had always treated me. I thought about the charity of the woman who was giving her time to visit this elderly housebound friend of mine. I realised it was our own laziness that resulted in not having a proper, safe gate in place.

Finally, I was able to forgive the woman and went, at the first opportunity, to apologise. It was pretty clear that she had not forgiven me but that did not detract from the restored peace I enjoyed with God.