Having never lived through a cyclone I suppose I really am in no position to use such an impressive event as the basis of my comparison. But I am going to, because it feels appropriate. Because when I think of a cyclone, I think of an overwhelming sense of destruction and fear. I think of a complete loss of control. I think of saving myself and my family from impending danger, and clinging to beloved objects in a vain attempt at salvaging parts of a life that will never be the same. I think that maybe being told my two year-old daughter had cancer was sort of like that. Maybe. Sort of.
Never one for public meltdowns, I was surprised to find myself on my hands and knees outside the door to the hospital ward, where Elsie became a patient. My heart pounded in my ears, my stomach fell to the floor, my chest ached, my head spun. I sobbed and I sobbed and I sobbed. I had never known a burning, blinding, aching, twisting and terrifying pain such as this.
Elsie was two and a half when doctors discovered appendicitis was not the cause of her tummy pain. Rather, it was a kidney tumour. A large tumour, diagnosed as a Wilms Tumour that had spread to her lungs. I will never forget the matter-of-fact way in which the surgeon told me the news and I will love her always for the eye contact she maintained and the strength in her voice.
A whirlwind ensued. Elsie was admitted to the ward before undergoing every scan they could think to employ. I joked she hadn’t been photocopied yet. I don’t remember my husband laughing.
The moment I couldn’t control my own actions was after a day of prodding, poking, invading and assaulting my little girl who didn’t understand why mummy was letting all these people upset her so much. Nurses had given her a drug to make her dazed and to forget they were about to insert a tube through her nose into her gut. I lost it. And there I was, on the floor near the hospital elevators, overcome by grief and unable to fix my own child.
screaming & farting 