INTERLUDE: THE SMALLEST ONE - THE CONVERSATION I DIDN'T PLAN FOR!!

So Roxy and I were in our favourite position tonight, the same position we have been in for the past 7 years of her life...her firmly attached to me. The location of this attachment doesn't really matter, if I am there, she will be firmly attached to me. She is getting better but for years she has been a terribly shy little girl and needs her Mummy at least in view, but preferably with one part of her anatomy glued to me. Roxy was born totally deaf...well she had 10% hearing in one ear we were told and we only found this out when she had started school and was just 3.5 years and suffered with awful bronchitis and then she progressed to pneumonia with hospital stays. Anyway, when we eventually found out she was deaf, they operated and thankful we are at 90% hearing now and with very occasional chest infections. We think a lot of her shyness came from the early years of not being able to hear, but she has transformed from this shy little girl to an outgoing, deeply humorous (very black humour I might add) and a truly loving little girl. She knows that I have been in hospital and she knows that Mummy had an operation and was poorly and she thinks that my chemo port on my chest is my magic button. She understands that I go in every 2 weeks and will ask "oh is it your bag day today?" We never told her the word cancer, mainly because we thought at 7 she just wouldn't understand or be able to process it all.

Tonight that all changed. So we are in our favourite position, attached to each other on the sofa, and out of the blue, she turns to me and asks "Mummy, why did you suddenly go into hospital and stay there for a few days", "well baby, you know Mummy had to have an operation to remove a lump in my tummy", "what sort of lump was it", a tumour I tell her. She does not understand what a tumour is, so I tell her it is lump that grew inside my tubes where all the food is processed and that lump grew badly and had to come out, along with some of the tube (intestines). She looks at me and I can see she is really thinking...I was not expecting this and feel a little panicked if I am honest. "Ok, so the bad lump came out and why do you have the medicine going into your magic button, what is it?" I bite the bullet. She will be 8 in September and not the baby I still hold the image of in my head - ok, she will always be my baby but she is growing up and has her own thoughts, feelings and opinions. Well the medicine is called chemotherapy and they give it to people who have something called cancer. She interrupts me "oh, but Mummy, people, well people with ....".  She doesn't finish her sentence, so I ask her what she wants to say to me, she replies "people die from cancer...are you going to die Mummy?" She buries her head into my chest and clings on to me. No tears from her, I fight back my tears. How does my little girl know about cancer and what it can mean??? I can only be honest from here, so I tell her that yes, some people do die from cancer but a lot of people get better and I had very very big plans on getting better. She doesn't talk anymore, she just holds onto me. I put her to bed and we lay together not speaking. She holds my face a lot and just looks at me with those big brown eyes of her...we've always had this kind of connection Roxy and I. We look at each other, she takes her mummy bunny (her sleep comfort that she has had from birth) and wipes it on my neck so she can smell me when she sleeps. I tell her that she must speak to me about any worries or any questions that she might have. She reassures me she will and then closes her eyes.

It has been a pretty tough 48 hours in our house with the littles and conversations. Number 5 chemo is also being pretty tough on me too. We will get through it, I have no doubt about that. I can't help but worry about my littles, we all worry about our littles even during 'normal' times. For the first time, I had a little panic feeling in my stomach tonight...what if (there is the bloody what ifs again)...what if ...!!!