Today is daffodil day in Australia. This is a day set aside to raise awareness of cancer by the cancer council. It is a day once a year that I reminisce heavily on the death 12 years ago of my (then) 7 year old son. It amazes me to think he would be 19 years old this year if he were still alive.I was separated from my first wife and camping at a friends house when I received a call from my older sister telling me to get to the hospital as something was wrong with my son. Shortly after arriving at the hospital my son was air lifted to a major hospital in Sydney where he was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer called Rabdosarcoma (A malignant tumor of muscle tissue.)
The cancer had started near his jaw bone and had progressed down his spine and formed many legions on his lungs. Diagnosis to death was 14 days. It (the cancer) was inoperable. I define the time as probably the worst in my life. So little time and such a very sick little boy who showed no more symptoms than a toothache for which he was dispatched to the dentist by his mother.
My final memories of my child were watching Jurassic park over and over in the hospital with "Look daddy, Raptor..." his favorite animal. Finally, as the end approached he frantically clutched at my head, pulling me close and kissing me with dry, cracked lips. He knew what was happening to him.
Today I may succumb to a few beers down the pub. I dearly loved that child...
1 comment:
Thankyou for pulishing your blog as it enabled me to find out what my patient this evening was suffering from. I am an x-ray tech in a local hospital here in southern California and I was assigned to perform a series of chest x-rays on a young boy who was diagnosed with this type of cancer. I hate cancer, especially when it attacks the young and I have to deal with the sadness that my empathy brings.
I am sorry for your loss of your son. I wish you well and keep his memory in your heart.
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