Mr C
The journey to Southampton happened in a haze. Karen travelled with Tate in the ambulance on Boxing Day evening. I followed a couple of hours later. Before I could leave, there was another impossible decision to make. Our daughter, Nell.
We had never left either of our children overnight with anyone before. Family life had always been just that—family. The four of us. Yet within a few hours of hearing the words brain tumour, we were already being pulled apart. Nell went to stay with close family friends. Karen stayed with Tate.
I drove alone. A call to a close friend on route to try and decipher what was going on.
It would become a routine we would grow to hate – our lives separated but hinged together by a journey we never chose to go on.
Southampton General Hospital became our world almost overnight. It was strange how quickly we slotted into the hospital bubble. Tate was admitted onto G2, the paediatric neurological ward.
The machines seemed endless. Heart monitors. Hourly neurological observations. Torchlight shining into his eyes through the night. Blood pressure checks. More observations. Then more again.
The irony was that amongst all this chaos…Tate was calm. He accepted everything. He rarely complained. If a nurse needed to examine him, he simply held out his arm. If someone said they needed another test, he nodded. Children have an incredible way of living entirely in the present. He wasn’t worrying about tomorrow. That job belonged to us. This was just another day in his life – the first day of many where he would teach us, and others a thing or two about resilience, bravery and some kind of belief that we are all put in these lives for a reason. And that just maybe have lived before within other beings and will do again after this one.
Before all this, I’d been fortunate. Apart from the usual childhood illnesses, hospitals had never really featured in my life. I was about to discover a world I knew very little about. And the people who quietly keep that world turning.
The nurses on G2 were extraordinary. Not just because of how they cared for Tate. But because of how they cared for us. Looking back now, I realise they weren’t just treating one patient. They were treating three. A frightened little boy. And two parents whose world had collapsed in the space of twenty-four hours. They somehow managed to answer questions before we’d even thought to ask them. They knew when to explain. When to reassure. When to leave us alone. And perhaps most importantly…They never gave us false hope.
They gave us honesty.
When your child is critically ill, honesty becomes strangely comforting. You don’t want promises. You want truth.
Both Karen and I had spent our careers working alongside children with additional needs and disabilities. That helped. And it didn’t. We understood the language. The acronyms. The procedures. We could advocate confidently for Tate. We weren’t frightened of asking difficult questions. But knowing enough to understand what professionals weren’t saying…That was sometimes much harder.
That first night Karen stayed beside Tate. I checked into Ronald McDonald House.
I’ll write more about that incredible place another time.
If I’m honest…I don’t remember much about that night. Whether I slept. Whether I ate. Whether I even unpacked my bag. I think I simply existed. Hour by hour.
The following morning Tate was taken for an MRI scan under general anaesthetic. The first of what would eventually become around one hundred general anaesthetics over the course of his treatment. At the time, though, we didn’t know that. We thought this was simply another scan. Another hurdle. Another day.
After the MRI, we were taken into a consultation room. Waiting for us was Mr C, Tate’s neurosurgeon. I’d imagined someone rather different. Someone distant. Clinical. Perhaps intimidating. Instead, he was calm. Kind. Completely unhurried. He spoke to us like two parents rather than two medical cases. The scan appeared on the screen. There it was again. The tumour. Even bigger than we’d imagined. Mr C quietly explained what he believed it was. A malignant brain tumour. Probably fast growing. Likely no more than three months old. I hadn’t realised a heart could break twice in two days.
Yet somehow…
It did.
I glanced across at Karen. She looked as though she was standing on the very edge of a cliff, trying desperately not to fall. I couldn’t catch her. I couldn’t stop what was happening. All I could do was stand beside her.
Then came the conversation no parent should ever have. Brain surgery. Not one operation.
Three.
Because of where the tumour sat—deep within the centre of Tate’s brain—it couldn’t all be removed safely in one procedure. Each surgery would remove a little more. Giving Tate the best possible chance before radiotherapy and chemotherapy. We were being asked to place our son’s life into the hands of a man we’d met less than an hour earlier.
It sounds impossible. Yet it wasn’t. Because something about Mr C inspired trust. Quiet confidence. The sort that doesn’t need to announce itself. Even now, years later, I genuinely believe there was nobody else I would have wanted standing where he stood.
There was one moment, though, that somehow made me smile. Even inside the darkest day of my life. Mr C became completely absorbed looking through Tate’s scans. Almost talking to himself.
“Hmm…”
“If we came in this way…”
“And then perhaps…”
He stopped. Looked up. Smiled apologetically.
“I like to have a Plan B.”
I laughed. Not because anything was funny. But because for the first time since Boxing Day… Someone sounded human. As it turned out, Mr C didn’t just have a Plan B. He had Plans C, D, E and probably the rest of the alphabet too. Looking back now, that’s exactly the surgeon you want.
Like every parent, we asked the questions that haunt you. Was it our fault? Should we have noticed sooner? Should we have pushed harder? Could we have got him to hospital earlier? Was there something—anything—we’d missed?
Mr C didn’t hesitate. “No.” He explained that we’d acted quickly. In fact, quicker than many families he had seen. Brain tumours in children are rare. Many GPs will never diagnose one during their entire careers. There wasn’t anything we could have done differently.
Tate was simply…
Unlucky.
Those words stayed with me. Not because they made it easier. Nothing could. But because they took away a weight of guilt that every parent instinctively tries to carry.
Then came the conversations no one ever prepares you for. The risks of surgery. Possible brain injury. Loss of movement. Changes in speech. Changes in personality. The possibility that Tate might not survive. It’s one thing to hear your child has a life-threatening illness. It’s another to realise the only treatment available is also life-threatening. There is no easy choice. Only the least impossible one.
After Tate’s third brain surgery (in one week), I found Mr C in the corridor. I remember saying, “Thank you just doesn’t seem enough.” He smiled. Almost embarrassed. “Oh, don’t be daft,” he said. “It’s my day job. And Tate’s worth it.”
I’ve never forgotten those words. Nor something else he told us right at the beginning.
“The road to recovery is a bumpy one.”
“You’ll have highs and lows all the way.”
He was right. Some weeks we felt we’d climbed six steps. Only to slide back four. Then climb again. Then fall again. Recovery was never a straight line. But perhaps that conversation with Mr C gave us something we desperately needed in those first few days. Not certainty. Not false hope. Just someone honest enough to tell us the truth… …and skilled enough to help our little boy begin the journey home.