I need a plan. I need to control tomorrow today and to know a little bit more about how things will go for Rose. So I make an appointment to see our GP to tell her about Rose's relapse. I can feel the Marsden slipping away and know that this is how the future will be - they are about actively treating children suffering from cancer and that's not us any more. Our GP is lovely although I hadn't realised she is also about eight months pregnant. Because I need a little more pain in my day. We have a conversation about community palliative care and I cry and cry but then feel much calmer. I am facing it all now and it simply can't get any worse - but it might get better. On the way home just-call-me-Toni, the Australian registrar from the Marsden, phones fresh from the video conference with the Brompton. They don't want to do anything until three months after the original chest x-ray, re-scan and see how fast-growing the tumours are. We had agreed not to put her through her any excessively aggressive treatment but this strikes us both as just a little too hands-off for our liking.
I take the name of the thoracic surgeon in the meeting and later that night Simon and I look him up on the internet. He is the consultant attached to the London Sarcoma Service working out of the Brompton and specialising in paediatric bone tumours with secondary lung metastases. This is our man. He is about our age and has a confident smile. We sit staring at his picture on the computer for ages willing him across cyberspace to have all the answers. Poor man.
