Memories of Max - A Father's Story

Chapter 5 - Freedom

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It takes time to adjust and become a family again and slowly we readjusted to this new life. It was nothing like the life we’d had before. It was overshadowed by Max’s cancer. Depending on the treatment, the diagnosis, your knowledge of the cancer, and the general case history, there are varying degrees of resulting concern. We were very aware of the problems related to Max’s potential relapse.

These problems arise because a lot of the symptoms of cancer are very general and non specific. So are the symptoms of innumerable other illnesses and also non illnesses which could also be interpreted as being a relapse from leukaemia.

We had to determine our ground rules. Temperatures were fine, as long as they were associated with some visible symptom. We could cope with a cough or cold, spots and anything which could be ascribed to a definite cause. We knew Max like a finely inscribed map. We’d watched him in minute detail for so long. Every symptom, every reaction, every drug, was catalogued subconsciously. Together with those reactions which could be clearly defined were those that could not. Temperament and morale came into this category. All these little signs that one cannot put into words, that defy a written explanation, but which meant something to us were also silently filed away in the subconscious.

Sometimes our observations made no sense and so the alarm was raised. Then we became very worried.

When we were discharged from the hospital, we were told that Max would soon return to normal and that the chemotherapy would have no lasting effect. In our case this was not true. I have a picture of Max which was taken some time after he was discharged from his leukaemia treatment. He was a small bundle of skin and bone. I’d scooped him up in my arms and cuddled him. He was so small, so light, so little. I remember thinking “What has happened to my child?” I wanted to hold him forever. Those precious moments. Snapshots. You want to re-live them over and over and yet all you have left is the celluloid

Max suffered from aches and pains and was generally very weak for many months after treatment. For months he could not walk more than about a hundred metres without collapsing with exhaustion. I would then carry him on my back.

Max was five years old and was heavy when carried over a distance. There were times when I heard caustic comments from passers by who watched me carrying this limp child and thought that he should be walking. At the time Max had hair, and there was no way that these strangers could discern our true situation.

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