Telling Billy

So I have just been given the worst news I have ever had in my life and I've now got to think about how and what I tell Billy.  They do have play leaders and story books to help but I knew Billy well enough to know that he would rather it came from me.  I didn't want him worried about what he had but I also didn't want him to have to go through medicines, obs, operation etc without knowing why and getting worried that way.

I left the quiet room where Juliet had given us the news and walked back to our room.  My head was spinning, there were all kinds of thoughts inside my head and I was still tearful.  As soon as I walked into the room Billy jumped on me for a cuddle, I cuddled him back like I would never let him go.  I knew the next few months were going to be the hardest thing we have ever been though.

Suddenly as I was sat there with him an he was showing me all his Ben 10 toys I had an idea how to tell him!! Billy was so obsessed with Ben 10 and actually thought that he was Ben 10 sometimes so maybe I could use this. 

So I decided on a way that I would tell him. I would use the Ben 10 scenario.  This would be a way to explain but in a way he wouldn't be scared!  He was already struggling with the temperatures, blood pressure etc so I thought it may help.  Although he wasn't really scared of being in hospital he was getting fed up of being looked at and having to take medicine.

After my parents had gone and we had eaten I sat and explained to him that he had a bad Alien called Leukaemia inside him and that the doctors were going to give him medicine good aliens to go in and fight off the bad one.  He thought this was excellent!  He didn't seem scared at all.  He was interested in what the good aliens would be called and how big they would be!  Luckily he was far too young to understand exactly what he had and what the worse case scenario would be.

I told him that on Thursday he would be having another operation to put a 'landing port' for the good aliens in to make it easier for them to get in and fight the bad aliens.  This all made perfect sense to him!  One of the nurses came in then and she thought it was a great way to explain to someone as bright and inquisitive as Billy.  Hopefully this should make it easier for him to take the medicine and not fight us so much.

Maybe some people will think I handled this wrong and maybe I shouldn't have explained as much as I did.  I have always been honest with Billy and I thought I owed it to hm to carry on being as honest as I could now.  He did ask why I had been crying and I just said it was because I was tired.  At his age he was able to accept that life was that simple and to trust Mum and that everything would be ok.  I just wish I thought the same, I was still angry and upset.

Its awful but I was wishing that it had happened to someone else.  Selfishly I wished it was someone that had lots of children not me with just one.  What had I done that meant my child was singled out and had this terrible disease. As Juliet had explained it might be caused by a virus I racked my brains to try and think where he could have got it.  Should I had tried to find a job with less hours so he wasn't in childcare which could have been where it happened.  Should I have moved where we now lived and if I had stayed where we were he might not have got it?

So much was going on in my head ,the hardest thing is when you are a single parent you have no one else to turn to.  I didn't really have someone to tell my deepest darkest fears to who would understand completely.  He was my child no one else's.  I could talk to other people but they weren't as close as I was didn't feel that fear and worry that I did.  Of course people would understand to a extent but unless its your child you cant 100% understand.

Although I had explained to Billy that he was poorly he didn't feel or even look poorly, he was a live wire up and down, in and out the playroom and playing in the corridor.  I kept asking him to come back in, stop making noise.  Then one of the nurses said to me, make the most of it in a few weeks you will be wishing that he was doing it.  If he was being a nuisance they would say.

Now that was another reality check, what would happen? Would Billy be able to walk? Would he just want to stay in bed.  Would he change?  I saw other children on the ward some with no hair, some with a little hair and some with lots.  Some children looked really ill some didn't.  Some children were in pain.  How would Billy be? Would he cope?

He seemed very excited about the way I had explained the whole Ben 10 Alien scenario and was quite sure that the good aliens would fight the bad ones!  Maybe I had explained it the right way he certainly had spirit and fight in him.

The next few days would tell...

See what I mean - ben 10 mad!