Henry's Birthday

Henry would have been 12 years old today. How can 12 years have passed since I held him in my arms and kissed his beautiful button nose over and over? Desperately trying to memorise him in the short time we had. I wonder how we've survived the agony of losing a child.


We always try to make the day about him. We take the kids out of school and normally have a nice day out somewhere and a pub lunch. I can't remember a year where the sun hasn't shone. We managed a walk in the sunshine this year and bacon butties and birthday cake.

But this year unfortunately the day was carved up by my shitty cancer. I had my rad appointment followed by a catch up with my oncologist. It was all ok but now haunted by a phrase he used that they had had to 'go to town' with my treatment. I think he means that in order to capture the affected lymph nodes as well as the tumour he's had to give a high dose to a large area. That's the way I understood it at the time. But now it's whirling round in my head - Does that mean I'm a particularly bad case? And in that case do I have less of a chance of surviving this? I'm too scared to ask that question. I'd rather be ignorant.

It feels like we've had far more than our fair share to deal with as a family. M reminds me all the time that life doesn't work like that - bad stuff happens to good people too. But I'm still left wondering what I did to deserve all of this. And I feel guilty that today hasn't just been about Henry. That it's also had to be about me and this shitty disease.