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A new way of life.

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 ginger hair falling out bit by bit, her girly eyelashes not being able to hold on and her tiny body wrenching with sickness. But every morning when I lifted her from her cot she surprised me. She was just her usual little self and to any onlooker she was just a 'normal', happy and healthy 8 month old baby. But we knew better. I kept looking at her thinking this is just the calm before the storm.

The weekend following her first cycle of chemotherapy was Easter. We had originally planned to go to the caravan for the weekend, be surrounded by family and do a little egg hunt but we knew this was not going to happen. We quickly realised that all the plans that we had previously made, (including our first family holiday to Spain and Keith's 30th birthday celebrations), would now have to be cancelled. Life was going to have be lived one day at a time and inside our little 'chemo bubble'.





Easter for us was a morning spent playing with Maisie's new teddies and an afternoon having dinner at granny and granda's house, (they too had been busy with the Detol). It may not have been what we had planned for but I was so thankful that Maisie was feeling well and showing unbelievable resilience to her treatment and was able to smile her way through her first Easter. Our girl just amazes me. However, going to bed that night after having seen other peoples fun filled Easter celebrations over social media, a part of me felt robbed. It became clear to me that living life this way, inside the bubble that we needed to in order to protect Maisie, we were all going to miss out on so much of her childhood and it was so unfair. This new way of life was going to be difficult and painful but it was also necessary.


Wendy.












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