16. The Sperm Bank

So here we were one little 15 year old boy suddenly changed by having his hair shaved off and evolving into a young man…..
After a lot of tears with laughter following the head shaving event it was nearly time for us to travel to Southmead Hospital for a sample of sperm to be stored.
Sounds easy enough doesn’t it, but remember we are talking about a young lad who had only recently been going through puberty…
It was only a couple of hours before we were due to depart that we were informed that the ‘controlled’ circumstances would be him put into a room on his own to ‘get on with it’!!
The whole ward was filled with laughter as all the adults knew where he was going and as you can imagine the air was blue with hidden innuendoes.
The Ambulance crew arrived to take us and the female attendant was an extremely large lady who towered over my 5ft frame. When I told her why we were going to Southmead she made the driver stop on a main road and told me that I had to go in to buy him some ‘reading material’ to help him along.
How embarrassing….there I was 5 feet nothing trying to reach the top shelf to buy a dirty magazine for my 15 year old son, and then even more embarrassed when trying to explain to the shopkeeper ,who had to get one down for me, that it was medical purposes… ‘yeah as if ’ he must have thought!
On arrival we were given a talk as to the reasons why this was to be done and consent was given, Tony was given a little pot and escorted to an office …’No way’ I screamed you cant expect him to do it here. This was the ‘controlled area’, eventually it was agreed he would go to the Gents to do it.
I sat outside waiting for about 15 minutes making small talk with the receptionist worrying that he wouldn’t be able to ‘perform’ his task when out he came.
When later we spoke about it he said ‘Yeah it was fine, I was squeezing spots for 10 minutes’ !!!
The mind boggles …He was going to miss so much in life.

Back to Bristol Children’s Hospital where David travelled back up to stay overnight with Tony and give me a chance to go home. I was to return the 125 miles to spend the following day with James, this was to be the first time of seeing him since his brother was taken ill and the only time I would get to see him before Christmas.
I was so angry, so hurt, absolutely boiling with rage, so many emotions .Was it not enough that I had a son with cancer to deal with ? Now I had to put the other calm head on my shoulders for James, the other son who was living with his father and showing unexplained sexualised behaviour at the age of 6.
Angry doesn’t even come close, I was ready to murder and if I never had so much to lose I probably would have !!!
Who said being a grown up was fun …when we are kids we cant wait for the day that we are totally independent…if only we knew.