On my birthday, life was as good as it gets for a while. But fate can change your life in the blink of an eye, writes BRENDAN LANDERS.
MY SON’S name is tattooed on my chest, just above my heart, in bold, black, Celtic lettering. This is not, as you may suspect, a consequence of a day of drunken debauchery. Nope. My tattoo is the simple proof of a promise kept.
Years ago, before music and girls took centre stage in my son’s preoccupations, he was mad about soccer, and his hero was David Beckham, who had his children’s names tattooed on his body. My boy quickly joined the dots. If Beckham was devoted to his kids in this way, surely I wouldn’t be backward about coming forward in acclaiming such devotion? No better man than me to rise to a challenge, especially one from the apple of my eye. “All right so,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
Adults can underestimate children. Some parents mistakenly suppose their kids won’t notice casual deception, hypocrisy or broken promises. In this respect at least, I know better. As far as I’m concerned a promise made is a promise kept, especially one made to a child. So there was no way I wasn’t going to eventually get that tattoo. I delayed, however, for several years, before living up to my pledge. This was not due to fear of the needle, but my belief that a treat is sweeter when it has been long anticipated.
Now that this kid of mine is a teenager and beginning to deal with the tumultuous change and insecurity his age entails, I figured that this may be an appropriate time to send him a message, to reinforce the tenet that, amid all the broken dreams of this world, there is a modicum of security to be found by a searching boy in the haven of a parent’s love.
So now my son’s name is tattooed just above my heart. The boy is chuffed. I tell you all this by way of introduction to the story of how I recently got the fright of my life.
It was a sunny Saturday. In the afternoon I watched the boy perform with his fellow troopers in their end-of-term performance at the Gaiety School of Acting. This was a family affair, with requisite grandparents, uncles and aunties in tow, and I was pleased as Punch.
It was my birthday and after the show we went home for dinner, cake and presents. Life, for a while, was as good as it gets. But fate can change life in the blink of an eye.
The boy went out with his pals and came home with his knee all swollen from a fall, looking like it might be fractured. A medical opinion was called for. None of us relished the prospect of a Saturday night in an emergency room with the dregs of Dublin nightlife. As much as we deplore the injustice of a two-tier health system, we opted to go private, and my wife and I took the boy to a drop-in clinic.
An X-ray was taken and the doctor brought us in for a look. He pointed at a weird-looking protrusion on the boy’s knee and said this didn’t look good. He described it as a tumour and used other alarming terms associated with cancer. He didn’t offer an alternative scenario or sugar-coat his words. The entire thrust of his diagnosis was grim. As the doctor spoke I worked hard at keeping a poker face, while my stomach churned with terror.
The doctor said time was of the essence. He wrote two letters for us – one for a bone specialist and one for a hospital – and suggested we take the X-rays to an emergency room, have them looked at and get blood work done in anticipation of Monday, when the consultants would be open for business.
Off we went. That drive to the hospital lasted 20 minutes, but during it I think I aged 10 years. I remembered interviews I’d heard on the radio with parents of kids who had been touched by cancer and I recalled them describing how for them there were two lives – before and after. My knuckles were tight and white on the wheel as I contemplated the dreadful possibility that we were now in ‘after’.
I dared to look across at my wife and the tears were running down her face as she tried to maintain composure. We struggled to stay calm and hide our fear from the guy in the back who was innocently chattering on about how he hoped to get a wheelchair and do wheelies up and down the hospital corridors.
My head was so full of worry that it felt like it was expanding. But I also felt a huge up-swell of love for the boy and knew this was the well from which I would draw strength to face whatever adversities that might lie ahead.
We parked the car and approached the emergency room anticipating a night of the horrors. A miracle happened and, courtesy of a wonderful nurse, we were in and out in less than half an hour. This modern-day Florence Nightingale perceived our anxiety, took the X-rays from us and called a specialist who came down and checked them. In 20 minutes the nurse was back to tell us the growth was benign. The advice was to go home and see a specialist about having the growth removed.
First thing Monday morning I was on the phone. I spoke with two more nurses who were just as perceptive and compassionate as the first. They promptly cut through the bureaucracy of the health service to ensure our remaining anxieties be quickly put to rest.
On Tuesday I dropped the X-rays out to Cappagh hospital and on Thursday we saw a consultant who confirmed the previous diagnosis and gave the boy the all-clear.
That night I sagged into a chair with a big measure of whiskey and tension gushed out of me like air from a burst tyre. My thoughts turned to those living in ‘after’. My heart went out to them, and it occurred to me how vital it is that those of us who are healthy should now and then eat humble pie and consider the plight of those less fortunate.
We should erect a million monuments in tribute to nurses of the world who are, indeed, among the unsung heroes of our civilisation.
Brendan Landers is a freelance writer.
Orna Mulcahy is on leave