A Bit of a Shock for Some

Christmas was all I could have wished for. Having laid off the lethal metronizadole antibiotic (a drug similar in compound to one they give to recovering alcoholics which would result in projectile vomiting if taken with alcohol of any kind) since Monday, I was able to have a beer on Christmas Eve, and by God did I savour it!



The only thing to detract from the entire Christmas occurred at 3.00 a.m. on Christmas morning, when I was woken with terrible burning pains from the tumours on my rear. Sometimes, there is a seemingly very acidic fluid produced by these constant companions, and as it hits parts of the open wound, it burns like hell. As a result, Sarah and I were awake for over an hour, and I'm afraid the noises I made were enough to disturb Emma's peaceful sleep. Eventually, the burning sensation passed, and we were both able to get some much needed sleep, but Emma was up and down for the rest of the night - thereby ruining her plan of not waking until at least 7 a.m., as she has in previous years been known to creep into our room at the unearthly hour of 5.30 to tell us her presents were burning a hole in her pillow case and needed rescuing immediately. However, as yet another measure of her managing my illness for me, she put up with her disrupted night, and waited until I naturally came around at about 8 to come downstairs and have breakfast with me prior to the traditional handing out of presents in the morning. (I know in many houses, tha happens after lunch, but I've never been one to hang around that long to see the look on my daughter's face as she opens her presents.)



Although we all came downstairs a little bleary eyed, we were determined to have a good day, which I am proud to say we achieved. Emma, brave stalwart that she is, was in charge of present distribution, rummaging around under the tree for presents for all three of us, which we then opened in turn. Emma's face was a picture time after time as she opened the presents she had been looking forward to since probably December 1st. On one of the presents Emma gave to her mum was a gift tag, slightly wordier than the usual "Merry Christmas, love Emma". This one read: "Dear Mum. I love you. You work so hard to please everyone and I want you to be happy too. I hope you are this Xmas." Sarah began crying as she read, and Emma gave her a big hug. The tag on my present from Emma read, "I hope I'm not being greedy, but I'd like to have a few more Christmases with you." Luckily, she had shown it to me before, and I was prepared for it. Even so, I wasn't seeing too clearly as I opened it.



The rest of the day was no doubt like many a small family Christmas - a meal with crackers and party hats, awful jokes being read out, me drinking two glasses of red wine (a recent record for me, as I didn't instantly fall asleep after the first sip from the second glass), and all of us ready to collapse in front of the TV (actually, Sarah went to bed for a sleep as the previous night's disturbance caught up with her.)



All through the day there were phone calls from family and friends wishing us all well, and at the end of the day I could sit on the sofa looking at my two wonderful girls and say with all honesty I'd had a wonderful day.



Yesterday, we managed to keep up another tradition, although having to amend it slightly. Boxing Day in the past always meant meeting up with friends and travelling to the coast for a walk of a few miles, but this year that length of car trip was just too much hassle to bother with. We made plans to meet on the footpath running alongside the river, which runs at the end of our street. In the group this year were a few people who haven't seen me for over a year or more, and both Sarah and I saw the impact on their faces of my appearance in the wheelchair, a good few pounds lighter than in the past. It definitely came as something of a shock to them, and even our friends who were familiar with the current situation had not seen me in the chair before found the sight of me so visibly ill hard to cope with, so strong is their love for me and Sarah. The momentary look of shock on their faces passed, as they decided as one to treat this as any other Boxing Day walk.

Being in a wheelchair offers a new perspective on life - physically as well as mentally. First of all, the teeth and bums of dogs are disturbingly closer to eye level - no wonder kids in pushchairs can be put off man's best friend from an early age. One slobbering boxer was enough to almost traumatise me as it looked directly into my face while its owner remained completely unconscious of its proximity to the lap of mine which it was momentarily, I swear, contemplating leaping onto. Then there are the reactions of people: there are those who are so determined to show you they still regard you as a valid human being (as opposed to invalid, which is a word I have always found cruelly inappropriate) that they will engage you in conversation even when you're not looking for it. There are those who, less confident in their ability to strike up a conversation simply smile wanly at me to signify they are sympathetic, yet at the same time acknowledging my existence. I have to say, however, that in my brief experience so far, I have yet to meet those people who simply ignore me.

At one point of the walk, we visited the park for the children present to run off more pent up Christmas energy, and I was able to get out of the chair to stretch my legs and alleviate the slight pain of sitting down. This was the cue for several others to try out the chair, Emma being the first. "Shall we mess with a few heads, Dad?" she said as she climbed into the chair. "You wheel me to the play-park, and I'll stand up and yell It's a Christmas Miracle!"

The afternoon was rounded off with a visit to a small Belgian coffee shop, which offers the best waffles, pancakes and hot chocolate anywhere north of Ostende.

The two main days of Christmas hence were passed with a pleasant lack of anything like an emergency, and an extremely pleasant abundance of laughter and friendship. Just today, Sarah reminded me of how in August, we were both uncertain of whether I was going to see this Christmas, and a conversation we'd had with one of the doctors at the hospital, who'd asked if we'd been given any time-frames for my illness. In answer to this enquiry Sarah had said, we hadn't been told anything, but it felt to both of us that Christmas seemed a long way away. The doctor could only nod her agreement. It seems (as was confirmed during my hospital stay last week), the doctors regard me as something of an anomaly: the number of times in recent weeks Sarah and I have been told "You are doing amazingly well", as well as the more circuitous complement I've previously mentioned from Dr Hall, who said "Very few people have worn this pump this long, David", has reaffirmed my belief - no one can tell me what's going to happen to me, because all they ever have to go on are statistics, and if there is one thing I know for sure about me and my family, it's the fact we are not statistics!