Starting at the very beginning

Let’s start at the beginning, a very good place to start… actually to really go back, to relive it, to go back over each thought, each process, each heart-breaking moment; I want to go back to a day just a few days before the start. I was sat on our sofa, feet up, chocolates in hand, relishing this stage of pregnancy. Embracing the eating for two, counting down to our first scan. Wishing away the time. It was a week before Christmas, the best Christmas we were going to have. Our daughter was nearly two, we knew she’d love all the presents and we had planned plenty of Christmas activities to make it extra special. We’d planned a big Christmas party for our friends and family. It was just going to be perfect. The perfect Christmas and then the perfect start to what would be a perfect year. The year we would meet our second child. If only our daughter could shake off this really annoying tummy bug. It had been a couple of weeks now. Of seeming fine but then throwing up. She’d be happily playing one minute then wiped the next. There’d been a lot going round. She’s at that age, we thought.

So, there I was sat, watching the TV, the news, when they did a special little report on children who were having to spend their Christmas in Great Ormond Street Hospital. Maybe it was the hormones but I found myself shedding a tear. How unfortunate for those poor children. A girl with cancer flashed up, her parents either side of her, holding her hands. “God, how sad, can you imagine?” I said to my husband. I felt so lucky in that moment. To have a healthy child and another on the way. If only she could shift that tummy bug.

That was before, before the start. Just a little moment, one I'd have usually forgotten by now, but one that seems so poignant thinking back. The beginning of a surreal nightmare. The tummy bug didn’t shift. We had already popped to our local hospital with her so she could be seen at the Walk-in clinic. “Just a bug, come back if it gets worse. She could get a little dehydrated.” I remember that first doctor well, we joked in the car on the way home as my husband had spent the entire consultation ogling her! The next day she seemed to be better again. We wouldn’t have to cancel our Christmas party. We went out and spent a ridiculous amount of money (that we didn’t really have!) on food and drink. Then, on the Friday morning, she brought her breakfast up. My husband works split shifts, mornings and afternoons, at a school. As he returned home she was being sick, again. “That’s it. We’re going back to the hospital.” My husband insisted.

“But it’s just a bug. What can they do?” If I’m completely honest, my main concern was that we might have to cancel our party. It never crossed my mind, not even for a second that she could be ill. Really ill. My husband was adamant that we were getting a second opinion. We’d be back by lunchtime and could grab something on the way home. Fine.

Same hospital, different day, different doctor. She felt my daughter’s stomach. As her hand felt across her left side she paused. She could feel something, something hard. Probably constipation- that would explain the sickness. We could go home with laxatives and she should be better quite quickly. Fab. “That’s probably all it is but to be sure I’m just going to send her to get scanned.” We jumped the queue. That should have set alarm bells off for me but all I could think about was how long I’d been waiting for my ultrasound and here was my daughter being whizzed past all these waiting patients. It seems obvious now that they must have known, must have had a gut feeling that all was not well… I guess you never expect anything serious to happen to your own children. I even joked with the lady doing the ultrasound about squeezing me in.

“There’s a mass, there. On her left kidney.” That’s when the penny should have dropped. I’ve watched enough dramas and soaps to know what that sort of phrase means. “We’re going to take you up to a ward. A doctor will be with you to talk to you soon.” I wasn’t worried. I was in a state of blissful ignorance. My husband had to go back to work to lock up the school. “We’ll be fine.” I assured him.

The sound of Christmas filled the corridors as Santa made his way round to visit the sick children. Poor things, having to spend Christmas in hospital. I busied myself with keeping my toddler entertained. In walked the doctor. Suddenly it hit me. This was serious. Her face said it before she said anything. “The location of the tumour and her age indicate…” Tumour? I suddenly felt very weak, very alone. Very unable to listen, to process. “It’s very likely your child has cancer.”

Crashing down. Your world, your world and what it is, what it means, everything comes crashing down. The fear, the panic, the dread fills you instantly. Suddenly, everything is too loud, everything is moving too fast. I want to be at home, my home, with my child. I want for this to be a mistake. In fact it must be. Because this can’t be happening. These things don’t happen to people you know. They happen to other children, other people’s children. Children on news reports and TV specials that you feel sorry for from afar. That remind you how lucky you are to have a healthy child. Not my child. Not me.

But it was happening. At the start, the beginning of our journey. The end of life as we knew it. And what a journey it would be.