Friday 14 November 2008

Today Drew woke up at 12.50am crying that his fingers were hurting, when he was still awake 30 minutes later I gave him a Panadol and he came into our bed. For the rest of the night he would doze off and wake up crying that his fingers were sore and that he couldn't move them properly. He stayed home from school and I managed to get a doctor's appointment that day around lunch time. Drew had had a cold two weeks earlier and the Dr noted that his glands in his neck were slightly swollen, and that his spleen was hard. He ordered an urgent full blood count, and mentioned maybe glandular fever. Later that afternoon the Dr rang back and told me Drew's blood results and that he had spoken to a Doctor at John Hunter Hospital and he wanted Drew admitted that afternoon. It felt like someone had taken ours lives, put them in a jar, shaken them vigorously and hurled the glass against the wall, smashing it into smithereens. At John Hunter they took Drew's blood not long after arriving to be sent away for testing and told me he had Leukaemia. Later that night Drew was given a blood transfusion - I couldn't reconcile that this morning I had a child with aching fingers to having a child that afternoon diagnosed with Leukaemia - it all seemed very surreal.