Memories of Max - A Father's Story

Chapter 3 - Waiting

Home

“No, Allan, I think you misunderstand the situation, we are aiming for cure.”

I was now even more confused. What was he talking about?

“What do you mean? We were told that the last treatment was a one off. You told us that there was no going back. You told us that Max could never be treated again. I don't understand.”

“I’m so sorry. There have been improvements in the drugs since Max’s last treatment. We said that at the time because as you know we could not subject Max to the same drugs again. Another dose of the same drugs would be too much for his body to withstand. There have, however, been advances since you were last here and there are other drugs that we can use.”

The guillotine was miraculously raised. Numb resignation now soared into hope. The relief was unbelievable. Max had a chance of survival.

We had moved from certain death to possible life. It’s very strange to have your child’s death sentence lifted. We felt almost elated. This is all relative. A second treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia would still be difficult and presented many life threatening risks, but it was a huge step forward from being terminal.

The consultant rang us about a week after Max had been diagnosed. He rang at about eight o' clock in the evening. He started to explain that Max could still not be treated, despite our earlier conversations, because the hospital still did not know the nature of his cancer. These sort of bombshells became commonplace. Complications. You try to prepare yourself but thunderbolts strike from out of the blue.

“Hello Allan, It’s David."

“Hi David. Thank God you’ve rung. We've been desperately waiting to hear from you.”

“I’m so sorry we've not got back to you sooner but there have been some problems.”

Alarm bells started to ring.

“What's the problem, why aren't we starting treatment?”

“Well the problem is that we don't know what treatment to start Max on because we are not sure about the type of cancer.”

Click here if you would like details of how to buy a copy of the book