A Decade of Naomi!

On 15th June, last Sunday, we celebrated Naomi's tenth birthday. Quite a landmark. Those of you in Kettering and Upminster may well recall a fair amount of commotion caused by Naomi when she arrived at 28 weeks, weighing in at 2lbs 13ozs. We had 'dashed down' to Upminster for the weekend and had ended up spending most of it in Harold Wood Hospital, Romford.

To complicate things further she had a major brain haemorrhage when 10 days old and was on full life support for weeks, not expected to live and certainly not expected to come through unharmed. Now, thanks to medical science and the prayers of many, she is alive, perfectly healthy and planning how to oust Connie Fisher from her role as Maria. (I think she'd settle for Mother Superior...as long as there is a big number somewhere.)

When I was re-diagnosed in November, the consultant told us that my survival would be 'remarkable, but not impossible.' We both agreed that we had seen the 'remarkable' happen and so it all helps us in the struggle to remain hopeful. Now I cannot promise to include a poem in every entry (you may well be relieved to hear) but it just so happens that I wrote one for Naomi as she approached the end of her first decade.

Swimming

We are just back from swimming,
…you dropping from a high flume
into the pool and
gliding to the side…
when I find the photo of you.

Tiny,
delivered long before your birthday,
brand new and still in a plastic box.
Rising and falling at the machine’s bidding,
a milk-straw ribcage propping up a canopy of
rice-paper skin, and the
self-beating drum visible at its edge
firing ticks onto a screen.
It told us you were still there,
hanging on at the end of the plastic line,
the chemical nursery rhyme
keeping you asleep.

I hold the photo frame towards you.
“Who’s that?” you ask, as water
drops from a strand of your hair
on to the shiny square glass
and slides towards the edge.

The Scan Verdict

Waiting Room

Silence.

Tongues that only an hour ago were wet
with the flow of conversation
lie in parched mouths,
words stuck to them like beached fish.

Mr Brownlow, please.

Sitting in a horseshoe of chairs
like cub scouts,
tired eyes probe the floor
where colourful hopes and plans
melt away
like cellophane sweet wrappers
dumped onto a Christmas fire.

Mrs Webster…

A door closes like a clapperboard,
sending a wave of movement
through the scene.
A few of us turn to flick through
blurred long lens photos
of celebrity lives,
frozen without permission.

Mr Halliday…

The nurse closes the door.
Sits behind me.
I look across my scrawled history,
past the doctor
and far enough through the window
to see a boy running up a slope,
his fragile kite fluttering far behind him
a few feet off the ground.




It's never a good moment, heading in for this kind of news. There was great anxiety, to be honest. However, in a nutshell, there doesn't seem to have been much cancer activity since my last scan and this is really good. In fact, barring the news of a miraculous healing which had caused the entire York Oncology team to join their local churches, it's probably as good as we could have hoped for. The doctor we spoke to yesterday said that the shadow on my lung probably is a tumour, but again there hasn't been much significant change. So, thankfully no more chemo now or, indeed, through the summer. Again, we are really pleased, as the summer is a significant family time with all of us off school for six weeks! Camping in the Lake District wouldn't have been quite the same with daddy retching as if to die at the other side of the tent...



The children are all well and blissfully unaware of the build up to the scan verdict. We await the news about Joel's possible placement in a 'special school' nearby, which is far better suited to meet his needs. It will hopefully come in the next few weeks. Talking about Joel, the phrase "Be sure your sins will find you out," was brought to mind last Sunday evening when I was trying to secretly burn a load of branches in the garden incinerator. (Apologies to all you environmental activists but two parents at school who were heavy smokers have just given up, so I thought it reasonable...). I had just about got away with it and no neighbours had complained when suddenly Joel burst through the back door wearing only his pants and started running around the garden yelling "Fire! Fire! Fire!" in his loudest voice. I had visions of our windows being smashed by courageous passers-by hoping to save us. Fortunately, I managed to wrestle him to the ground and bundle him back indoors. There's a lesson in there somewhere...

To Blog Or Not To Blog?

It's an interesting question. I have read a few blogs in my time and they seem to be at two extremes. There is the type that wants to inform the listening world why it was right to choose that roll-neck sweater this morning, or indeed how the blogger is coming to terms with the fact that Typhoo's new range of slightly larger teabags doesn't fit the base diameter of his mugs. (Can I make it clear now that none of my friends' blogs fit this category.) Then there is the type that keeps an extended group of family, friends and concerned strangers informed of very significant developments in the life of the blogger. Some of my friends' blogs do fit this category and it is to this type of blog that I aspire. Those of you who have been on my email list will know that I have been recently re-diagnosed with cancer, and that it is serious. You will also know that Orange have become picky about which members of my address list to deliver my emails to. Infuriating when you are trying to communicate news that is important to you and, hopefully, to others. Perhaps the blog is the answer...taking the pressure off my technology! However, I think blogs are also a way of recording in diary form how things are going, and what the latest dreams, hopes and struggles are. This may well be important to my children in the future.

Now, having billed myself as a weary poet, I probably ought to include a few lines. Here's a more positive one wot I wrote...

.

.

After The Snow

Last night you fell asleep in the valley,
wrapped in the breath of summer,
curled on the bank of the safe path.
Today, you wake on a high road
after the snow.

From under you,
bleached gauze
rolls out to the horizon and
tears coarsely away, revealing
the mottled skin of the sky.
Like Noah,
lingering on a high flood,
you ache for the lost landmarks
and familiar roads that lie
beneath the surface
like veins on a cold day.

The thaw will start
with pale colours
bruising through cloud,
a band of seven soft tones
that will arch over you
like the handle
of a shepherd’s crook.

.

.

Enough for now; time to try and coax Joel into the bath...mummy's out and he really isn't going to do it without a struggle. To bribe or not to bribe?

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