Memories of Max - A Father's Story

Chapter 2 - The Unit

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A couple of days after Max was admitted with his first illness, I remember watching a father and son in our little four bed ward. The child was feeling low and was very quiet and so his father climbed on to the bed and hugged him and told him how much he loved him. They hugged for some time, and the Dad continued to talk softly to his son. The boy responded to the affection and began to talk and his spirits started to rise. Most of the conversation was audible. This was a very public display of private emotions. I was close to Max but felt I could never show my emotions so openly in public. I had not been there long and there was much to be learnt. It was not long before I too enacted those special family moments regardless of those present. You cease to care because nothing matters anymore except the welfare of your child.

After a couple of days we were moved to a single room, due to Max's prevailing condition and also the presence of other infections within the Unit which threatened him. At the time we were very glad for the privacy, but there were unforeseen disadvantages because we isolated ourselves from the other families. Max's health see-sawed and after a couple of weeks we moved back to the wards.

Life within the Unit varied between elation and boredom interspersed with the routine tasks and more often than not the grim determination to get past the crisis of the moment.

The elation came when progress was made in the treatment, or when Max's morale rose and was feeling well. Boredom came when his health was stable for a few days and there were no crises. This is all relative. Stable means that today nothing untoward happens. You are only in the Unit either because your child is extremely ill or because the current treatment is potentially life threatening. The grim determination came from passing from one dire situation to the next.

During Max's leukaemia, the determination was predominant because the treatment for his type of leukaemia involved potent chemotherapy and in our case many complications. We lived in the Unit for three and a half months except for one afternoon at home. The complications and chemotherapy were the reasons we spent so long without respite.

Life within a Children’s Cancer Unit has a dynamic of its own. It works, but on a level which has no bearing on the outside world. During our time at the Unit the atmosphere was close and very supportive. Every parent there, irrespective of race, religion, class, creed, or colour had one terrible thing in common with every other parent. Their child had cancer.

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