13. A Summary Of My Past

This post is a summary of my past to give you all a little insight into my background. It will also enforce in me the reasons why I am writing this.
As I have said in previous posts I am not an author I am just an ordinary Mum and therefore my writing maybe a little confusing for some. It is a roller coaster ride for me, as my life has been. I hope you will stay for the duration as it is my aim to keep my son’s spirit alive ….

At the age of 18 I left my parents home to start being independent, my parents and 4 sisters were not happy about this and all refused to talk to me for several months. For the next 3 years I became rebellious and a party animal, completely lost and really only ever wanting to settle down with Mr. Right and have unconditional love.
I then met my first husband who never met the approval of my parents , they saw what I couldn’t and so when we married all my family apart from one sister refused to attend. I went to bed that evening and cried myself to sleep knowing that I had made a huge mistake , but as I had been brought up to believe that marriage was for ever I knew I had to make a go of it.

I went through my first pregnancy with no contact from my family , until at 31 weeks I was rushed into hospital with pre-eclampsia. My parents then made contact and my daughter was induced at 36 weeks weighing just 3lbs and 5oz.
My husband by now had shown his true colours, I was married to a dirty, lazy , compulsive liar and hypochondriac.
In the first year of my daughters life we moved 3 times , the last being to a hostel for the homeless. Whilst there she stopped breathing and was rushed to hospital with what turned out to be whooping cough.

My marriage was unbearable but I was not strong enough to admit defeat and instead became pregnant with Tony thinking this would help the marriage. Again through this pregnancy I fell out with my parents over my husband, and once again I had no support from the family. They never saw Tony until he was 9 months old.

In 1983 I was just rebuilding my relationship with my parents when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer . At the same time, my husband decided to convince himself that he was dying and forced himself to be sick every evening , I was unable to get any help for him and was told by our doctor to go and see a priest !This was a real strain on our relationship as he was trying to 'compete' against my mother.

Just before my daughters 4th birthday she was rushed to hospital, as she woke one night unable to stand or walk due to pain in her legs. Following 3 weeks of tests and an exploratory operation it turned out that she had an infection in the bone, a week of antibiotics and she was fine.However during this time she was in traction and X-Rays showed a shadow which we obviously feared the worse.

After years of mental abuse my marriage eventually broke down, a very upsetting couple of years ensued with me having to obtain a court injunction to keep him away as he threatened to kill us all. He eventually stopped all contact with us when he failed to turn up for a court hearing where it was ordered that he could only see the children under supervision.

I then met and married a soldier but sadly as he was away for the majority of our time together we both led very separate lives and the marriage only lasted for 3 years.

I then met James father and shortly after meeting, my mother lost her battle against the cancer. During the years following my divorce from my first marriage my mother and I had become incredibly close and I took her death very bad.
She died in the July and only weeks later my father announced that he had met someone else who he planned to marry. This was devastating for me and I could not forgive him for what I felt was betrayal towards my Mum. He had not even interned her ashes and had moved in with another woman. I could not attend their wedding and went to the cemetery instead.
Feeling very vulnerable after Mums death and my fathers marriage I planned to have James who was born the following December ,and we married the following year to give the children some sense of security.

The following years were very unhappy, after James was born my husband divided the family in two by making it obvious that he loved James more than Laurrie and Tony. As they got older so it became more noticeable to the point that he virtually ignored them and only ever gave one word answers if they tried to speak to him. I had started a business during this time and he insisted on giving up his job to help me, even though I was against the idea.
His role in the venture was to do the accounts, but unbeknown to me he never had control of the situation and we ended up losing not only the business but our house as well as we were forced into bankruptcy.
We were moved into rented accommodation and I secured a really good job in sales as he said he was ‘not able’ to work. I therefore became the breadwinner and he became ‘house husband’ not through choice but necessity.
What transpired was that he was only looking after James and leaving the elder 2 to fend for themselves.
I eventually decided that my children HAD to come first and that this family divide was not healthy for any of them. We were at a point where he wasn’t speaking to me either and so I told him I wanted to end the marriage.

This was when the real nightmare began and where I begin my blog... In Memory Of Tony……………………….

12. Another Trip To The Theatre

We were sharing the house provided by Clic with a family from Greece, their son had been in Bristol Children’s Hospital for months with a brain tumour.
They had come over to the UK as a last resort, it must have been awfully hard for them as they had left a young daughter behind and the Mum never spoke any English at all. Most of the time she stayed at the house cleaning, that was her way of dealing with things.

It was only a week until Christmas but none of us were in the mood for celebrating, how difficult that was when you are in a hospital ward full of children!
They are so resilient it made me ashamed of myself for feeling despondent. So many were there with very serious illnesses, Cancer, Organ transplants, Cystic fibrosis just to name a few. And yet very rarely did you see a child complain or even cry , they put us adults to shame.

So many emotions were flying around, everyone was afraid and didn’t know what to say in case they upset you.
Here we were just Laurrie, Tony and myself in a strange City 125 miles from home.
David had gone back as he still had his job to hold down and the cats to look after.
Christmas was now on the back burner, but how do you explain that to your 5 year old estranged son ?

I was so torn how could I give my 3 beautiful children all this support without falling apart?
How could I tell them that everything was going to be OK when I wasn’t sure it would?
I was missing James so badly he should have been with us, there was plenty of room in the house that had been provided. His bastard father will one day pay for what he has done to my family. Could he not see that these siblings should be together, he knew in his heart that the only reason he ‘snatched’ James was for his own gratification and that’s what scares the life out of me….
I hate being a grown up, nobody told me I was going to have this much hurt in my life, what have I done to deserve this…..more to the point what have my children done?

*Tony went to theatre the following morning to have the line in his neck removed and a new one put in his chest (Hickman line).
Whilst he was under the anaesthetic he had the catheter removed and a lumber punch was performed, this was the first stage of treatment which was known to us as the COP.
From now on as part of the treatment he was to have steroids every day. When he returned from theatre he also had a line in his hand which was where they were administering morphine.
Generally although VERY grumpy he appears to have accepted this awful situation and is dealing with it as I thought he would with a positive mental attitude.

Tony you will never know much I love you and am proud of you xxx *

* Extracts taken from the ‘little black book’.

11. My Little Black Book

Over that long weekend I bought a little black book so that I could write all our feelings and information in, this book I entitled ‘THE ROAD TO RECOVERY’.
It was to be well used over the following 8 months and this is where I am drawing all my memories from. My reason for doing this now is as an attempt to ‘heal’ myself as I am still stuck in the past, unable to move on.
It is not an easy task that I have set myself as every time I open the book all the memories flood back as though it were yesterday, but I know that I have to do this to try and retain my sanity.

The following, is an extract that Tony’s sister Laurrie wrote, at the time she was only 17 herself and was also very frightened. The only experience that she had of cancer was her Nan dying of it 6 years before.
She was also studying for her GCSE’s and was , like us still worrying about her baby brother as well. Laurrie and Tony had the typical brother/sister relationship , they argued like cat and dog but as soon as the chips were down they stuck together like glue. Here’s what she wrote …

Mr. Spicer arrived at 9 a.m to see Tony and pre-warn him that he may have cancer, Tony was very brave and didn’t cry instead he asked a lot of sensible questions and spent most of the day thinking.
Mr. Spicer was due to visit at 6 p.m and was to be accompanied by a French Consultant called Eric, however, this was not the case and Mr. Spicer arrived on his own at 6.30 p.m.
He briefly explained to Tony that he had B Cell Lymphoma , and that he would need 6 months of chemotherapy , after Mr. Spicer left Eric arrived and had a private word with Mum and David.
As this was happening Tony found a lump under his right arm of which he was concerned about.
Eric and parents returned to explain to Tony the plans for chemotherapy.
Initially Tony explained his fears to Eric who dismissed them and carried on explaining the treatment plan, which confused and frightened Tony.
Eric said that Tony’s treatment would in fact take three and a half months, different to what Mr. Spicer had said. Eric told Tony that it would be advisable to make a sperm sample for storage as treatment could leave him infertile, at this point Tony was still upset and scared about the lump he had found and Eric left leaving him more confused to think things over.
Written by Laurrie

10. The Long Weekend.

Opposite the hospital was a public phone box which faced directly to where my darling son lay fighting for his life …this was where I made my longed for calls to James. It was on this day that, when I phoned, he said that his Dad wanted to speak to me ,I was totally not prepared. The sound of his voice filled me with anger as he asked how Tony was ……
My reply was ,and I quote “How dare you, you the scum of the earth, after all what you have done, all the lies that you have said in court about my family , you have the nerve to ask me about MY son that you wanted nothing to do with !!!”
No answer was the stern reply …
James came back on the phone and I had to immediately switch to being Mum to my estranged 5 year old….. the world being a happy place…. nothing wrong ….cool, calm and collected … inside wanting to scream , cry, shout ,murder… and all the while looking at the hospital, where I had to go back and again hide all these emotions and stay strong .
Mums have to be strong ,after all it’s Mum who holds the family together , don’t they?

Tony’s recovery is slow but good, and he’s a model patient polite and very brave. The pain is now under control and the tube is removed from his nose.
A few problems arose over the weekend, unfortunately the catheter had leaked and had to be re-fitted which really upset him. Then in the evening the epidural leaked because the dosage was so high and morphine had to be given through his Hickman Line as the epidural drug was not getting through.
He was allowed to sit in a chair for 15 minutes and encouraged to exercise his lungs by deep breathing.

The waiting for the final results on Monday was taking it’s toll on all of us , but Tony in particular was very irritable , who could blame him…
David had brought Laurrie up to stay in the house with us that Clic had provided, the only person missing from my little family was James. I so missed him as did the others. There was that un-spoken fear as well in the back of all our minds ,for Tony and James.

9. A Time To Celebrate ?

After a very restless night Tony was eventually made comfortable as the dosage for the epidural was increased making him virtually pain free.
Unfortunately though he was now having trouble with ‘weeing’ and had to have a catheter fitted. Not very nice for a 15 year old to endure, especially when all that surrounded him and the other patients was a curtain. Still he was brave and it also helped him tremendously.

We were introduced to the Social Worker for Clic (Cancer and leukaemia in children) and were told that as he had now been officially diagnosed they could help us with things like accommodation.
To us this was a huge relief as the hospital was more than 125 miles from home and there was no way I intended to leave him there on his own.

Anyone who has read my previous posts will know that as this was all going on I was also deeply concerned for the welfare of my youngest son who was living with his father.
Just days before Tony was taken ill my youngest had drawn a picture and told me things that sent alarm bells ringing once again that all was not as it should be at home.
I had taped our conversation and taken it along with the drawing to our local Social Services Welfare Officer as well as a transcript of the conversation that they had requested.(This was the first time we had managed to get a recording )
I was told that they would look into it for me, but sadly Tony was taken ill and we were whisked off to Bristol before I had a chance to follow it through.
I was now able to relay these concerns to the Clic Social Worker who promised to find out what action had been taken….another relief (or so I thought)

The day seemed to get better, Tony was able to sleep most of it away, and was responding really well to the treatment.
Then the best news of all , our consultant came back from London to tell us personally that early indication showed that the Cancer he had was the one that could be treated !!
It felt like Christmas had arrived 2 weeks early….all the rest of my family were busy preparing for celebrations with their children and here I was celebrating that my eldest son had a ‘good cancer’ and my youngest was being investigated by Social Services for exhibiting unusual sexualised behaviour at the age of 5.
What did I have to complain about???
I was so torn between my boys and my daughter, I had Tony possibly dying in front of me, my youngest living with his father whom I was only allow to speak to when his father dictated I could ,and who I was worried sick about, and my daughter, at home, aged 17 who was worrying about us all.
How I missed my Mum so much… sadly she had died from breast cancer 8 years before at the age or 57 , and my Dad ?... living in Spain with his new wife who he married 4 months after Mum had died.(Perhaps a little bit of resentment there do you think ?)

8. Biopsy Day

He’s in so much pain today, an intravenous drip of morphine was given but had little effect .
They prepare for surgery but as he had a bad night he is really tired, scared and very irritable.
To have to leave him at the theatre door was such a wrench, I’m so frightened but have to hold it together after all we still haven’t been told officially…maybe they’ve got it wrong….maybe Tony was right ,it was just too many cola cubes ! Now your being stupid Sharon.
David and I went for a walk whilst he was in theatre, I hoped he would be in there for a while as that would probably mean that they could take this disease out of him now.
Sadly an hour later and he was being taken to recovery, nobody needed to say anything to me I knew in my heart that this was not going to be good news.
We were told that they had found several lumps, one was attached to the liver and another was by the bowel and could not be surgically removed.
It was then that they hit us with it…they were sure that he had one of two types of cancer, one that would not respond to treatment which would mean he would only have weeks to live. Or he could have the ‘good ‘ one which responds well to treatment.
So there we had it , the dreaded word, CANCER. He was all of 15 bloody years of age, why, why why?
Only weeks to live ? No this cannot be right …he’s my baby, did I scream cry do you know I cant remember, and that saddens me because I want to remember every last detail.
What I do remember (and later feeling guilty about it) was that when the surgeon came in to see us he was carrying a little white bag , presumably the tools of his trade. But in my state of shock, I expected him to open the bag and show us the samples that they had taken!! I laugh at my stupidity now but it took quite a while before I admitted it to anyone.
I also told the surgeon that I knew this was going to happen as I had been for-warned several years ago by a clairvoyant (That’s for another day). He must have thought he had a raving lunatic on his hands.
Now we had to play the waiting game , the samples were to be taken to London for testing to see which type of cancer he had the ‘good’ or the ‘bad’. How can you have a ‘good’ cancer ? even the name itself sends shivers down your back.
He’s brought back from theatre to Ward 13 to the bed with just enough room for the little plastic chair ,he had a tube in his nose to stop him vomiting, an epidural tube in his back to numb his stomach and a line in his neck for drugs to be administered.
David drove the 125 miles back home to look after Laurrie and I stayed with Tony for what was to be one of the worst nights of my life.
He was in so much pain and I couldn’t do a thing, he kept waking and crying he was just so frightened. At one stage he asked me ‘to let him go’ I remember the screaming in my head asking the so called ‘God’ to help me.
I was quite vicious to the nurse in the middle of the night as it was obvious that the epidural was not working and after several attempts of paging a doctor I was told that he had gone home and they were waiting for him to come back. Apparently it was only him that was authorised to give the medication. After what seemed an eternity I shouted to her to give me the drug and I would administer it my f******* self! Not the way that a respectable mother should behave you might say, but to be honest I’d have done anything to be able to relieve the pain for him and the fact that all I did was scream and shout a little abuse I suppose wasn’t too bad.
Well we got through the night, both exhausted, tomorrow another waiting day.

Written by: Mum