Sorry … but it was all fun

What can I say? Apologies that it’s taken me this length of time to post an update about the festive season. Christmas and New Year in the Bird house was a fun affair from start to finish. Everybody, including Adam stayed fit and well. Excepting the bit about having a child with an aggressive life-threatening disease, it couldn’t have been much better. Santa was kind to all of my children, and furnished Adam with a new Nintendo DSi XL. He spent the next few days gleefully taking hideously distorted photos of various family members. Me with one super-sized eye and two mouths is not a good look.

My parents stayed with us over Christmas itself and there were also other family visitors during the week that followed. Neither Alison nor I have any family who live close to home. Alison’s parents live in the West Midlands and mine just inside the Norfolk border. Adam’s illness has changed all our lives, but we are blessed with two sets of parents who have offered unconditional support from the moment Adam was diagnosed. I dread to think of the mileage they’ve put in over the past 20 months … let alone how much they’ve spent on fuel!

When it came to New Year we felt confident enough about Adam’s wellbeing to seriously consider travelling up to Birmingham to visit Alison’s parents. When we mentioned it to the children they were universally enthusiastic about the suggestion. As Adam himself said ‘I haven’t been anywhere except home and the caravan for so long’. And so early evening on New Year’s Eve we packed up the car and headed up the M40 and out of our 20 month old ‘comfort zone’. No hospital on standby, nothing. We had a lovely couple of days up there. ‘I do like going places for a visit’ said Adam of our trip. On Sunday afternoon we headed back home to prepare for our second trip to UCH for Adam to undergo another round of I¹³¹ MIBG therapy. ‘

So there you have it. Sorry for the lack of updates … but it really was all fun. It was how Christmas should be and we long for many many more just like it.