A full understanding of my predicament was still a way off.
The thought of resuming normal life after three and a half weeks away from home was exciting. I even questioned the doctor regarding my availability for selection in the school cricket Xl the Saturday I was discharged from hospital. He politely suggested that it would not be such a great idea.
The chemotherapy had had the desired effect, and I felt good.
Apart from the boredom, the intermittent sickness and the isolation, the trauma seems now to have been comparatively minor. Far worse was to come. I was naive enough to imagine I was almost through the ordeal.
A month was decided upon for the recovery time before more treatment could be given. I was out of hospital, and that was a real achievement, because the minimum stay of six weeks had almost been cut in half. I was now to be an outpatient which meant weekly visits to the outpatient clinic.
My arrival home was a happy occasion for my family, although the demands and strains I was to place on them were going to be enormous. I had been moved from my colourful upstairs bedroom, its walls covered with almost lifesize rock posters, to the ground floor study where I could be more easily looked after. Also my parents wanted to restrict me to using the downstairs bathroom, rather than sampling all of the germs in the house.
There are seven of us in our family. Gary and Linda are older than I, and Dale and Melissa are younger. They have always been most loving and supportive, and formed a platform of strength for me to fall back on. It would be hard to gauge what effect having an extremely ill brother in the house had on them, but they never complained within earshot of me.
faffajane
Pro 
Hugs x