Chapter 11 - Terminal

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Sara burst into tears. "It means that you are going to die."

The scene then descended into a tragic black comedy. I had lit a fire and the chimney was blowing back. The room started to fill with smoke. I tried to stop the logs smoking as Sara cried and Max wailed. The fire alarm then went off and I couldn't find a chair to switch it off. Chaos ensued.

The smoke cleared and slowly we all calmed down. Sara and I were left with a barrage of questions and statements from our grief stricken child.

"I'll never reach ten. There must be something they can do. Why can't they do anything? It's not right that I die so soon."

I had told Max previously that he needed to reach the age of ten before there was any chance of cure from his leukaemia.

"They've done everything possible Maxie. They can't give you any more chemo because that too will kill you."

"How will it happen? How will I die? When will I die, How long? Tomorrow, next week, when? When? How long have you known? How long have you kept this from me?"

"We don't know how long you have left Maxie and even the doctors don't know. They are going to give you some chemo as tablets to slow down the disease, but we don't know how or when. You might live for a couple of months, but we don't know. We were told by the Royal Marsden two days ago. Do you remember last night when we tried to get you to talk about the illness and you didn't want to talk? Well we were going to tell you then. You know that we would never keep anything from you Maxie."

He nodded and seemed satisfied that we had not deceived him. This was very very important to him.

"I won't be able to go shopping for things."

"What do you want to buy?"

"I don't know, but I like shopping. I'll miss you both, I don't want to miss you, I don't want to miss my friends."

"We will all miss you too. You will always be with us though and you will be able to watch us from heaven."

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