Raising Maisie May

With Maisie now receiving her chemotherapy we had to adopt a new way of life. A life where sterilising every surface, every toy, and every inch of the house became a daily ritual. A life where we could no longer go shopping, go for coffee, go for play dates or attend baby classes, go swimming or play in the park. A life where visitors were restricted and only allowed in if they had no coughs or colds and they used the hand sanitisers that we had installed in the house. This may sound a tad over protective to some but with a suppressed immune system the risk of infection is seriously high and could hinder her treatment. We knew that we couldn't take her cancer away and we couldn't change anything for her, so the best we could do was to protect her and keep her free from infection, no matter what that meant. Over the next few mornings when I woke my heart was heavy with worry about how Maisie would be. Worried that her little face would be lacking all colour, her beautiful ging...

Less than 24 hours later, when the results from the biopsy barely had a chance to settle, we received a phone call from our consultant. He explained that he had a free slot that afternoon to discuss Maisie's treatment plan in more detail and to also begin chemotherapy if we were ready. Ready? How could we be ready? I had no idea what we needed to be ready for. I had no idea what chemotherapy meant for Maisie, what it would entail, how it would affect her. I had so many questions, some that I was sure our consultant could answer but so many more that I knew he couldn't. But, whether we were ready or not we knew that we needed to go and begin whatever process was ahead of us. We knew that it was Maisie's only option at this point. When we arrived at the clinic I began to feel so overwhelmed and I felt like we shouldn't be there, that we had no need to be in a place where chemotherapy and tumours where the hot topic of conversation. As we waited to be seen by the c...

Waiting.....  Nobody really likes it do they? Waiting for a bus, waiting in a queue, waiting for exam results, waiting for your husband to empty the dishwasher; they all suck right?  Well waiting for the biopsy results of your 8 month old baby's tumour is a whole different ball game. After 5 days of waiting, where one minute felt like an hour, an hour felt like a day, and a day felt like forever, my head was in overdrive heading to Belfast to hear what the consultant had to say. All that waiting had made every possible scenario and outcome to become blurred and overthought. I couldn't see past this. I couldn't see any light. I couldn't see a future. The word cancer does that to you. All that my eyes, my head and my heart could see and feel was pain, fear and uncertainty. The smile of being blissfully unaware of what was ahead. On the drive up I kept saying to myself please let it be benign. If its not, and it is cancer, please let it be a Wilms. Isn't tha...