After the third session of chemotherapy I went home to my own family. My daughter wasn't aware at this point but she, prior to having my hair cut off I was washing my hair and my daughter was there with me and my hair was floating in the sink, and she asked what was wrong. So I had to tell her. She was only 9. Her way to deal with it was she wrote me a poem, which was a quite touching poem. But she came, she came round to thinking, she didn't, she didn't look on it as death, she knew what chemotherapy was because of some of the programmes she'd watched, but I basically said I had cancer. So she didn't really relate too much with the cancer but knew that I was ill.
She was a very intelligent 9 year old, and she ran outside and took off up the lane, didn't want to know me, didn't want to speak to anybody, and then about an hour later she came back and she handed me this poem she'd written. Which was very, very touching, but it just explained exactly how she felt. Since then I haven't hidden anything from her. But it yeah, the hardest point was telling my 9 year old daughter. You know, but we never ever, no she did, I think she maybe did ask me was I going to die, and I think I had said, “Well, hopefully not, I intend to fight it”, you know or “I intend to be here”. |
