Our Lives
Like her friends, my daughter couldn’t wait for her prom. But to get there, she faced the fight of her life.
As an elegant figure stepped into the living room, I gasped.
‘Oh Katie!’ I said. My youngest daughter was nothing short of a vision.
‘I’m so excited, Mum,’ she said. Katie, 16, had been looking forward to her school leavers’ prom all year, and had splashed out on a blue floor-length gown to wear.
Now, as she did a little twirl, I could see how thrilled she was.
Katie loved school and was head of house for her year. If anyone deserved to celebrate in style, it was her.
She and her friends hadbooked a white limo to take them to the event. We’d also hired a professional make-up artist and hair stylist, and booked fake tan and nails.
‘You look beautiful,’ my mum Kay said. ‘But we’ll need to take that dress in again.’
Mum was a dab hand with a needle, and she’d had to be — as just recently, Katie had lost weight.
She’d always been athletic, and loved netball and Irish dancing, but I’d put her weight loss down to stress.
She was tired too, and would nap for hours after school.
She was in the middle of her GCSEs, while her big sister
Amy, 18, was sitting A-levels. ‘Please don’t put too much pressure on yourself,’ I said, as Katie left her dinner uneaten.
Then one morning, she woke drenched in sweat.
She had an exam that day but, in tears, she told me: ‘Mum, I don’t think I can go.’
I knew then that something was seriously wrong.
I told the school, then our GP sent us to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children for blood tests.
And the following morning, I got a call asking me to bring Katie back to hospital.
As we waited to see the doctor, I looked around the ward and noticed a lot of the children had tubes coming from their noses. Some had lost their hair. And I realised something. I tried to block it out but
Katie had noticed too. ‘I’m on the cancer ward, aren’t I?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I replied, knowing I couldn’t lie to her. ‘But thedoctors are trying to work out what’s wrong. We don’t know anything yet.’
Katie had a sample of her bone marrow taken, and we were told to expect the results in two or three days.
But that same afternoon, I got a call asking us to come in the next day to see a consultant.
Knowing what it meant, I called the girls’ dad — my ex, Matthew.
Together, we sat the girls down.
‘Katie needs to go into hospital…’ I began.
Tears slid down her face. ‘You’re going to be all right, Katie,’ her dad said. ‘You can fight this. You’re strong.’
Next morn
