The morning after - Part 2

I pull the handbrake up and turn the key, Chris Moyles and the engine noise disappear into nothingness. The vehicle parked in the same place from where I got into it a few hours earlier. I swing the door open as I look at the clock 0850. The keys clatter as they land with all the others in the box, with a sharp turn I am off, though the door so quick the reception staff did not see me. I hurry up the road, a sense of purpose filling my stride, to get home and get on the road to Shrewsbury with my stepdaughter, to find out what type of leukemia she had and what was going to be done about it.

This sense of purpose turned to dread during the 19 odd mile trip to the hospital. A trip I did many times with casualties. But this was different to transporting the sick and injured in my volunteering pass time. Next to me was my stepdaughter, the step of it was a technicality, in my heart she was more than that just Step. This wave of feelings that filled me, some I am still trying to name today, was horrible. The best way to describe them is, I felt I was driving my loved one to the gallows for a crime they did not commit.

The hospital moved quickly with the blood test and we where quickly in with the consultant. As I sat there in the consulting room I looked at him, his lip were moving and a weird language came out of his mouth. It is lucky I have some medical background and can decipher the basics. To get a better idea of what it was and how to treat it, Kim needed to have a bone marrow biopsy. I could not stay for that, no matter how much I wanted to be there. So I took my leave and headed off for a takeaway coffee, sandwich and the daily paper.

As I headed for the Landrover, I knew from experience of watching others what was going to happen next. Prepared as best as I could, a couple of clean rags as hankies, the paper to hide behind, but I did not make it to the landy before it started. Without purpose for 30mins, the tears started to fill my eyes, a lump growing in my throat. My professional side was started to crack, my emotions coming to the surface as they should at a time like this.

I must have been a sight. Sitting in the landy, newspaper open on the steering wheel. Crying and sniffing, like a big blubbering baby. Out of the corner of my tear filled eye I see a Car park attendant passing, looking at the ticket and then at me, un-phased at this sight and carries on with his job. A chuckle fights it way though the sobbing to the surface, as my mind places a thought bubble above his head saying “third one today, must be the day for bad news, and it only 10 am”. My defences where fighting back, I needed to get it back together enough to return to Kim and support her. No matter how much I wanted to curl up and cry, I force the sandwich down and drink my coffee. Wiped my eyes and headed back into the hospital.