Friday

15. The Day His Hair Was Cut Off ....

In Hospital Again
Today was truly a day of mixed emotions lots of tears, with sadness, anger and thankfully laughter, yes laughter something that had been non-existent in ages.
We were told that the type of cancer that Tony had, that following treatment he would have a 95% success rate of surviving. With such a high percentage everyone was filled with optimism that he could beat this.
We were given a choice in treatment, we could go down the tried and tested way which would be 6 months of chemotherapy, or we could elect to go into a medical trial scheme which basically meant that we would be randomly selected for various other types of treatment all involving chemotherapy.
This we were told would hopefully have the same outcome but would help new protocols improve.
It was not an easy decision at all to make and as Tony was nearly 16 I felt it only fair that his feelings should be taken into consideration and that it should be a joint decision.
Although I was not completely happy we decided to elect for the Medical Trial, Tony was adamant that he wanted to help other children…
The treatment that was randomly selected was a 3 month course with stronger drugs. We had been told that some of side effects of the chemotherapy would be hair loss and sadly probably leave him infertile.
It made me mad that all the consultant seemed to be worried about was the infertile side of things and was insistent on him providing a sperm sample for storage for the future. He made a strong case for Tony’s future by saying that he would be glad that he had done it when he got older. Although I could see the logic in this I was just desperate to get the treatment started, but until he had provided his sample, chemotherapy would have to wait.

So Tony decided that as he was going to lose his hair anyway he would have it shaved off now! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, here was my boy with his ‘curtain’ hairstyle stuck to his head with hair gel, asking to have it all shaved.
The Clic social worker lent us a camcorder to record the event and one of the male nurses called Richard came in on his day off and did the business!
Some of the conversation was x rated but we were all crying with laughter as we were told what to expect at the ‘sperm’ hospital.
So off came the locks and underneath emerged a young man, so very, very handsome. His eyelashes were so long that the young nurses were actually swooning over him. Gone was my little boy in one head shave , here I was honoured by being given the chance to see the man that he was growing into.


Oh God Tony I miss you so much darling…
Sorry readers I’ll have to stop for a break here but please come back..


Written by Mum