Three more days and two of them back in hospitals - so we are taking the being at home thing slowly! The pain in Rose's leg kept niggling away and there were more tears on Tuesday morning so, knowing that we would be imagining the worst right through Christmas, we rang Stanmore again and they told us to bring her up on Wednesday. The Marsden was already scheduled in for Tuesday with a kidney scan, trip to the physio etc and Rose had a fabulous day down there - still more like home than home she was absolutely thrilled to be back, was welcomed by all her friends on the ward and in the school, her favourite nurses and teachers, her favourite physio, inspected all the latest Christmas decorations, caught up with all the gossip and had a top time. She hardly even noticed the canula, the radioactive injection, the hourly bloods...
On Wednesday we managed to squeeze in a quick trip to school before Stanmore - we are taking it in turns to sit like school inspectors at the back of the class while Rose does taster sessions of whatever her class are up to...I'm sure we only feel a bit more self-conscious than her poor teacher who is being very accommodating but until she is reliably more able to get around the classroom on crutches I can't see how else to do it. Rose is so wobbly that a sudden gust of wind would bring her down let alone a swarm of little girls on the move - but I'm hoping to be promoted to the corridor soon...
Then Stanmore - all was fine of course but it really was a taste of things to come. A long anxious journey, an anxious wait in x-ray, a desperate attempt to scrutinise the body language of the radiographer, another long wait in clinic and finally - and unexpectedly - Mr Briggs. We're sure he has a secret passage into the building as the consultant list in the waiting room clearly said Mr Briggs not in clinic and we were expecting to see his registrar, his house officer, frankly anyone that could download an x-ray was enough for us - but there he was large as life, twice as gorgeous, with a big smile and an image of Rose's beautiful prosthesis up in lights on his computer. All clean. Normal breathing resumed. Our patient clinical nurse specialist handed me a slip of paper to take to book for another x-ray in eight weeks and laughed when I asked her if she seriously thought that she wouldn't hear from us in the next eight weeks...I think she's hoping to get through at least Christmas now without the Alloccas. But the thought of that every eight weeks, plus similar levels of blood-draining fear for eight-weekly chest x-rays at the Marsden - perhaps we'll just get used to it.
So today was our first proper day of the week at home with the Marsden and Stanmore safely behind us for the week and no more mention of leg pain - and it was great. I took Rose to buy shoes - any incentive for walking - and she chose a fabulous pair of boots which she could hardly stand up to try on in the shop. Who cares, I thought, she can have them even if she never wears them. But once home, and experimenting with them on her crutches, the extra support, the excitement of them, who knows what, just the whole fabulous experience of buying them probably, had a definite impact and a tiny eureka moment occurred! With Simon and I cheering her on she limped round the island in the kitchen holding on for dear life but absolutely definitely and irrefutably PUTTING SOME WEIGHT THROUGH HER RIGHT LEG!! God, I thought to myself, she's my own daughter - why didn't I think of SHOPPING before...
And everything that Briggs had said yesterday - she'll do it now she's at home, she'll do it soon, I promise she'll do it - wasn't a lie just to make me feel better. For the first time in months I actually think she's going to walk again. She's made a schoolgirl error anyway as now we've seen it there will be no peace! She's had terrible stage fright for the rest of the day and hung grimly on to both crutches in case they are consigned to the bin...we haven't stopped praising her for hours and although it is a tiny step along the road she is secretly very relieved and excited and very proud of herself.
Kitted out in the new boots and with a whole new self-confidence we whizzed her to her school nativity play - she watched with us from the audience and loved every minute. We were very brave - with hearts too full even for tears we watched all her lovely friends and the huge hole on the stage where she should have been but we were not as brave as our amazing Rose who laughed and smiled and sang along and hugged herself with the pleasure of just being there.
