SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter One
Todd gazed up at the stars through the large Skylight over his bed. When he had moved in with his parents three years ago he wanted his bed placed in the large alcove, so he could look up at the stars, and watch them dance in all their spangled glory; he felt safe tucked away in his little corner, which originally could have been used as a storage space; but Todd loved this room, he had everything arranged perfectly. His medicines, bottle of water and all he needed were within reaching distance on the little white bedroom table beside his bed, so he would not have to get up in the night shuffling about looking for them. His deep brown eyes started to count the number of large Stars he could see; he did this most nights to take his mind off his worries and believe it or not he had plenty of those! It was not the stars in all their diamond glory he was interested in, but his impending death. The Oncologists had suggested that without further treatment: would be sooner rather than later, time was now running out fast. In approximately five to eight weeks, he would be dead! It seemed so frighteningly unreal.
Almost a year ago when he was fourteen, Todd had an operation to remove a brain tumour; and almost half of it had been removed successfully, it was then followed up by radiotherapy and temozolomide; a new drug now used with chemotherapy which gave him some hope; Unfortunately, for Todd, he had one of the worst high-grade tumours that grow and spread very quickly. His latest scan revealed it had grown again. It was now a stage four tumour, and his hopes of survival had faded.
At the age of four Todd, had been diagnosed with Glioblastoma multiform belonging to a group of primary tumours known as Astrocytomas, a nasty aggressive tumour that grew fast and spread in all directions of the brain. There is no cure.
But when you are four years old, death does not mean such a lot to a little boy of that age; he could hardly read never mind worrying about dying, No child should have to die at such a young age, he was merely a baby! He did not have that earth-shattering experience of not being here anymore, or not seeing Mum and Dad ever again. But at least ignorance was bliss! He became extremely ill after the treatment: And most of his young life was spent in the hospital, growing aware of what was wrong with him. He was fifteen this year, and he knew how lucky he was to have at least spent that time with his family, and now he had a little sister. Mum had called her Pixie, she was just about the cutest little thing he had ever seen, her small features, made her look like a little doll. She had blond curly hair like Mum’s, unlike Todd whose hair was dark like Dad’s, but Pixie’s eyes were deep brown like his and Dad’s, so she had a combination of both his parents.
She was just coming up to two years of age, and now he understood the heart-breaking implications that his passing would have on his family…. he did not want to die…not yet and certainly not now! Just as you reach that fun age in your life when things start to get interesting, like girls, and friends (he had a lot of them) parties, and dates, you find out you are dying! That sucks! Tears started sliding down his pale face, almost grey in its texture. The pain of not being with his family was sometimes far worse than his headaches. For the last ten years Todd had suffered the dreadful side effects of chemo and radiotherapy, most days he was unable to lift his head from the pillow and had to keep a bucket at the side of his bed. However, there had been good days too. He had done a charity walk for cancer charities UK and raised over fifty thousand pounds and he was proud of that, at least that money would go towards cures for brain cancer that may be able to save other kids’ lives.
But as the years progressed, Todd had enough; he felt weaker by the day; The tumour would shrink to the size of a pea only to grow at an alarming rate within a month and then he was back to square one. In addition, the treatment was awful, followed by terrible sickness and worse of all was someone having to empty the bucket every morning. However, no one ever complained, not once: But Todd minded, he hated it!
That is why he decided to stop treatment There was no point, they could not do anymore for him, and he was sure as hell, he was not going to suffer for a lifespan of a few months, at the top, maybe a year if he was lucky. The inevitable was going to happen in a noticeably short time whether it was five weeks or five months. He would rather spend what time he had left in reasonably good health. Besides, he wanted to do the London Marathon for cancer research. And then die with the knowledge that he did not just lie in his bed feeling sorry for himself while waiting to die. At least he had done something useful to leave a legacy for other kids; that hopefully in the future, could save their lives.
He felt sorry for his Mum though; she was devastated when he told her he was stopping treatment, he just couldn’t go on anymore. She had pleaded with him, begging him, her large blue eyes dappled with tears. “Don’t do this son; I’m not ready to lose you yet! Look, at least they can shrink the tumour. You could have a couple more years!” she cupped his face in her soft delicate hands. “You’re my baby boy!”
Todd lay back on his pillow, took her hands away and clutched them tightly to his chest, “Mum, it’s what I want, I don’t want to live like this anymore, feeling so ill, sick, weak, and helpless! Before the end I will lose the use of my legs and arms, my vision will go, and my speech too! Please Mum, please let me make my own decision…. Look, if I were a dog, you would put me to sleep, and end my suffering.”
Pulling her hands away from Todd’s grip; she shook her head and sobbed, “But you’re not a dog, are you?”
“That’s where animals are lucky,” he said, “we can end their pain.”
However, he knew he was underage to make that decision, the oncologists could take it out of his hands and into the courts, but thankfully, they respected his wishes and instead offered support and medication that would make him pain-free at least for a while.
When they went to the oncology unit a few days ago the doctor looked shocked when Todd told him, and then he gave an uncertain smile and sat back in his chair, tapping his pen on the desk. After considering Todd’s determined words he said. “There is no more we can do for you Todd, and I can’t say I blame you, if it were a matter of killing off the tumour as unpleasant as it is, it would be worthwhile. But as you know your tumour is an aggressive one and it is a stage four tumour and there is no cure. But we can offer you a lot of support.” He flicked through Todd’s notes and then looked up. “You have McMillan nurses visit you, how often do they come?”
Ellen said, “Every two days at the moment but I can always phone them if I need them, and his nurse is very nice Todd gets on very well with him.”
“Well, that’s good to hear.” He sighed. “I can say this, Todd is one of my favourite patients, he is so brave Mrs Harper.”
She looked to the floor and smiled softly. “I know.” Ellen Harper got up. “Well, thank you Doctor and thanks for all you’ve done for Todd.” she shook his hand.
“If there is anything we can do, anything at all, please get in touch. I’ll send you an appointment through the post for Todd’s next check-up.” He looked into Ellen’s eyes and she as well as he knew there was a strong possibility that Todd would not make it to the next appointment. “Thank you.” She said.
Todd pulled himself up from the pillows and looked around his room at all his Arsenal memorabilia. He smiled at his Arsenal poster with all the players on his wall, his Arsenal scarf draped over the top of the white wardrobe where he kept most of his things and wondered if he would ever get to see them play again. His bedroom had been brightly painted in blues and reds in all the arsenal colours. For a fifteen-year-old he was remarkably tidy, everything lived in a place, and nothing was out of order; his jumpers and trousers all hung neatly in groups together, so he knew exactly where to find things.
On the windowsill were trophies he had won at school for football matches against other schools when he was well enough to play football. He had to drop out of school last summer when he became so ill, he missed his friends even though they came over once a week to visit, and sometimes they would play a game of snooker on the big pool table in the games room downstairs, or play cards and chat, and it was fun. But if any of his friends had an infection or a cold, then he needed to keep space between them. When his immune system went down, he had to have home tuition, it was different from going to school and playing football at break times with your mates because once you become neutropenic a few days after chemo, life stops, because you have no immune system left; and the next available bug will be waiting to ZAP you right around the next corner!
Todd used to have a mass of dark curly hair until the chemo took it away, but at least now, it had started to grow properly again, still noticeably short but growing back exactly as it was before his chemo. His eyes were ringed with dark shadows making his eyes look tired, it was one of the side effects of the chemo, and his feet went numb accompanied by shooting pains that made him yell in pain. Todd was already five foot two and growing into a good-looking man like his father. He had lost gallons of weight since he had been ill and since then the weight was slow to put back on, but apart from the headaches, he felt good; the only symptom he had now was exhaustion.
His eyes opened wide as a shooting star flashed across the sky and Todd smiled, he made a futile wish…Maybe he would be cured and live a normal happy life! At least, not that it was of any consolation, but brain tumours do not usually spread to any other parts of the body, they mainly confine themselves to the brain. He sometimes joked with friends that his tumour had set up home and the little gremlin had its food supply. It was the only tumour that could survive on its supply of factory-produced blood!! Todd had an amazing sense of humour. If he could make someone laugh, then he could laugh too.