My Family…… and other animals.

Another week when I hadn’t planned to publish an update, but for happy and proud reasons, I found a good reason to write again this week.

Back in December 2015 when the original diagnosis of Throat Cancer arrived Carol and I were really worried about how we were going to tell the kids, what their reaction would be and how they would cope. At the time Anna was in her second year at Lincoln Uni and Max was starting his A Levels. Having a dad facing treatment for cancer, albeit with a good prognosis, wasn’t the ideal way to be preparing for exams. In their own ways Anna and Max coped, got their heads down and worked hard. Then came May 2016 when I got the news that “It” was back and I’d need surgery. This wonderful news coincided with Anna’s final exams and Max sitting his A level exams, great timing again Mr Cancer, cheers mate.

Anna and Max are very similar in some ways. They’re both kind, courteous, polite and hard working. Anna, like a lot of girls, worked very hard through school, did well in her GCSE’s and A Levels and ended up with a great degree and a job she enjoys up in Leeds.

 

Max had to work much harder. Like a lot of boy’s he found exams a bit of a struggle and had to have two attempts at his A Levels, but got the grades he wanted in the end. Both of the kids have worked at the rugby club at different times, Anna in the kitchens and Max as the cameraman for the 1^st XV for a couple of seasons.  Both have worked at Explore Learning as tutors, in fact Anna is now a Manager of an Explore Centre up in Leeds. But Max has outdone his big sister. She was never named Tutor of the Year, which is an award Max received this week. A decent pay rise and a posh dinner are his rewards, as well as looking pretty damn good on his CV for future job applications.

Max has had the nickname Muppet Max for a number of years, and I’m sorry to say it was probably me who first started using the name some years ago. He was known for doing pretty daft things, usually on the rugby pitch, much to the dismay of his team mates and coaches. When he first started playing, aged 5, he very rarely made the 1^st team, by the time he was in the Colts he was normally in the starting XV. Rugby, like life, is a slow burner as Graeme Cook would say.

The vast majority of the really promising players at Under 10 or Under 11 are no longer playing, but Max has shown what hard work and not giving up can do for you, in rugby and in life.

This week has, by and large, been pretty positive. My voice has been quite strong most of the time, work has been going ok and Neville has by and large been behaving himself when you consider he’s still very much a puppy. That's if we discount Wednesday night when he became petrified by the heavy wind rattling the cat flap in my office. Carol took one for the team and slept on the sofa with him from about 3am. So Thursday morning was quite a subdued affair in Clark Acres, the dog was still slightly spooked, Carol was limping (having fallen down the stairs last night) and I was pretty knackered too having slept quite badly once Carol wasn’t in bed for me to warm my feet on.  Things took a bit of an upturn around 11am when Max, who’d been up since 8.30am (????) got a text message from Portsmouth University, he’s been accepted onto his course for later this year! This is brilliant news as he’s worked so hard in the last couple of years to achieve this goal under such trying circumstances. He can fly off to Paris next weekend with Laura and enjoy himself without having to worry. Max, if you’re reading this, it’s not compulsory to propose at the top of the Eiffel Tower, as much as we love Laura………….  J It also transpires that Explore are opening a centre in Pompy later this year, so his student debt can be subsidised.

Carol and I have already discussed putting the house on the market, selling up and disappearing to the sun with Neville come September, we may even leave a forwarding address for the kids, if they’re lucky. It does feel like a case of “Job Done” and we’re both so incredibly proud of what our children have achieved to date. Somewhere along the line we must have done something right or we were lucky. I’m pretty crap at saying things out loud, but I’m not too bad at the written word. Just before I went into hospital in June it was Fathers Day, Max made me cry when he proved he’d followed in my tradition of being pretty damn good with the written word.

Finally, for this brief update I thought I’d point you in the direction of someone well worth following on Twitter if you use it. Lobke Marsden @lobke_marsden  works in Leeds on the children’s cancer ward as a Radiotherapy Play Specialist, she makes it fun for kids to be zapped. When I’d finished my RT and was given my mask I decided to decorate it in Rams colours,

 

Lobke goes way beyond that and makes the kids RT masks into works of art RT is a pretty shitty thing to go through as an adult, as a kid it must be even more awful, but, and it’s a very small but, to do it in a Batman / Superman / Spiderman mask must make you feel invincible. Wish I’d had one when I went through it. …….. #NHSCrisis?

As always, thanks for reading.

To be continued………………

#Shoulder2Shoulder.