Читать книгу Siobhan's Miracle - They Told Us She Had Weeks to Live. Then the Most Amazing Miracle Happened - Ellen & Derek Jameson - Страница 8
ОглавлениеThe all too familiar journey from her home in Shropshire to the Royal Marsden over and registration complete, Siobhán had one urgent question for one of the specialist nurses she knew from previous visits. ‘A friend has baked me some hash cookies,’ she confided. ‘What is the received medical wisdom on the healing properties of marijuana?’ The nurse confirmed what Siobhán had already read on the Internet: that marijuana could help the patient to relax during the therapeutic process. Even more importantly, it was not known to have any detrimental effect on the chemotherapy she was about to undergo.
The nurse showed Siobhán to her bed in a small ward. Peter watched as his wife unpacked her suitcase and neatly folded her specially bought pyjamas at the bottom of the bed. Then Siobhán stowed the rest of her belongings in the bedside locker and waited to be taken to X-ray.
With Siobhán signed in, Peter was leaving, having been reassured that she was in good hands with the hospital’s ever-capable and compassionate nurses. In a small side ward Siobhán was about to change into a hospital gown by her bed. As Peter walked away along the corridor she called him on her mobile, urging him to come straight back.
The nursing staff wanted him to attend a hastily arranged conference in a side office. Siobhán clutched Peter’s hand, her face ashen. She was dreading the prospect of being told that things were even worse than they had been led to expect. Perhaps they could not treat her.
‘The Room of Death,’ she said dramatically. ‘I knew it, I’m too ill even to be given any treatment. I’m going to die. I can see it in their faces. They can’t look me in the eye.’
Though no less fearful, Peter tried to reassure her. ‘That’s their professionally inscrutable persona. Noncommittal – you’re not supposed to be able to read their expressions.’
After a few minutes, which Peter remembers felt like hours, the couple were shown into a room. There on the clinical lightboxes were Siobhán’s X-rays. A clinical team of half a dozen people had gathered: doctors, nurses and a radiologist. Sensing her distress, a young registrar spoke kindly to Siobhán, saying simply, ‘You’ll soon feel better.’
The previous year Siobhán had undergone a series of radical operations and chemotherapy sessions. These interventions seemed to have been successful and she had been kept under observation with a twice-yearly check-up. A watching brief, the radiologist had called it, playing down the seriousness of the possible malignancy in the lungs.
‘As the time of the six-monthly appointment approached, Siobhán had been getting more and more wound up,’ remembers Peter. ‘She desperately craved the reassurance that only the medical staff could give her that all was well.’
But, determined to get on with a normal family Christmas for the sake of their children, Siobhán and Peter had tried to put aside doubts and fears. ‘We’ll deal with it if and when the time comes,’ they had told each other. Besides, Constance and Oscar, then four and two, were too young to be aware there was anything wrong. Siobhán and Peter were determined to keep it that way.
By the time of the next scheduled appointment, Siobhán had begun to experience breathing difficulties. At that examination the radiologist had confirmed her worst fears. X-rays showed that minuscule discrepancies observed on her previous visit had intensified. Secondary cancer in the lungs was extremely bad news and the medical team warned Siobhán that she was facing an aggressive course of chemotherapy. She would need to be admitted as an in-patient while the chemical cocktail was administered and monitored.
One immediate disappointment was that having been part of a clinical trial for the new cancer wonder drug, Interferon, she was now taken off the treatment. Clinical trials are monitored under strict medical conditions to assess their potential effectiveness to the largest number of patients. Once the standard norm is compromised – as in Siobhán’s apparent lung irregularities – the trial becomes worthless. She pleaded in vain for the trial to be allowed to continue. In any event, she was informed, the Interferon might react negatively with the new chemical regime she was about to undergo.
Using the intervening weeks to arrange time off work and to arrange childcare, Siobhán started to prepare for the inevitable period of incapacitation. The University of Sussex granted her an open-ended leave of absence from her duties as a lecturer in English Literature and Feminist Studies.
It was at this time that Siobhán had accepted a family invitation to undertake her pilgrimage to the Holy Shrine of the Blessed Mary at Lourdes. By great good fortune, the visit had coincided with the Feast of Our Blessed Lady – Mary’s Feast Day – on 13 February.
‘Siobhán called several times from Lourdes,’ Peter explains, ‘and she certainly sounded spiritually refreshed. Her attitude was hopeful and positive.
‘Strangely enough, she never actually suggested that she might have been granted a miracle or a reprieve. It was more that she felt energised and inspired. Most important of all – a priceless gift – she declared herself no longer afraid.’
And now, a few days after Siobhán’s return from Lourdes, she and Peter waited as the radiologist stepped across the room to the X-ray plates. His first words sent a wave of shock and relief through Siobhán, who was shaking by this time. He came straight to the point. ‘There are no abnormalities on the X-rays. Whatever appeared to be there – is there no longer. No treatment is required.’
Siobhán and Peter clung to each other as the radiologist continued. ‘Back in December we spotted a small lesion on the lungs – one month later the abnormality was the size of a walnut. By now we expected to be examining irregular cells the size of a grapefruit. Instead, there is nothing to be seen. The abnormalities have disappeared.’
Peter shook his head in disbelief. Siobhán, stunned, shocked and too relieved to ask for further explanation, stammered, ‘Am I cured? I’ve just come back from Lourdes.’
Before anyone could whisper the word ‘miracle’, the leader of the medical team smiled indulgently and said, ‘Let’s not go down that path. Just be glad that for today you’re free to go home. We’ll keep you under observation, but try not to get your hopes up too high, too soon.’
Not wishing to tempt fate by staying any longer than necessary, Siobhán almost ran to her bed, repacked her suitcase and tore out of the door into the street.
‘Only when we were out in the fresh air, did we dare to breathe again,’ says a still bemused Peter. ‘It was as if a huge weight had been lifted from our minds. Who could deny that something profound had happened.’
As they walked away from the hospital hand in hand, Peter let out a sigh of relief and Siobhán said a prayer of thanks. Hailing a taxi, they went to the London address where their children, Constance and Oscar, were being taken care of while Siobhán underwent treatment.
To this day Peter admits to no religious faith. Even so, back then he had been willing to believe a miracle might just be possible if he wished hard enough. Welcoming Siobhán back from her pilgrimage to Lourdes, he had said a silent prayer.
And now, it seemed, the cancer was vanquished.
On the phone to us that evening Siobhán was cautiously optimistic. ‘I’m still in shock,’ she confessed, ‘but so far, so good. The Blessed Mary has answered my prayer.’
She certainly never doubted that she had been spared by the grace of God. She never ceased giving grateful thanks for her reprieve and returned to the faith of her childhood with a renewed fervour.
When you have been so close and stared death in the face, life itself becomes more precious than ever. Siobhán set about completing all the things she thought would be denied to her for ever.
Siobhán embraced life with new vigour. Not knowing how much time she had been granted, she was determined to make every second count. Over the next five years, under constant monitoring from the Royal Marsden, the cancer did not return. Siobhán was given the all-clear.
She returned to her post at the University of Sussex, where she had worked since 1991, and completed a ten-year research project with fellow academics. This dedicated scholarship produced the final two volumes of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, already the foremost work on writing by and about Irish women.
Then, in 2004, Siobhán was appointed to the position that she had coveted for years, Professor of Irish Studies at her alma mater, Queen’s University, Belfast.
The family gladly moved across the Irish Sea from their home in Shropshire and Siobhán was immensely proud when eleven-year-old Constance was accepted as a pupil at Rathmore Grammar, the school from which she herself had launched a high-profile transatlantic academic career. Oscar, two years younger, was installed in a good, football-playing school and husband Peter closed down his public relations company to begin a degree in film studies at Queen’s.
Happily settled in their Belfast home with a new black Labrador puppy and three cats, they felt life could not have been better. Then, on Christmas Eve 2006, came the devastating news. The cancer had returned.
Peter sounded scared when he phoned us. He waited until the children, excitedly anticipating a visit from Father Christmas, had gone to bed. Not quite asleep, they could be heard in the background loudly debating the question of Father Christmas’s existence. Their voices carried across the corridor from bedroom to bedroom. ‘I’m too old to believe in Father Christmas,’ called Oscar crossly. ‘If you don’t believe in him, he won’t come,’ his big sister Constance warned him.
Peter called up the stairs, ‘I’m on the phone to Nanny and Granddad. If you don’t go to sleep Father Christmas won’t be coming to either of you.’
We all laughed. Then he dropped the bombshell. ‘Siobhán hasn’t been too well. She has had some tests. She’s going back to the Royal Marsden next week.’ Siobhán took the phone. ‘Don’t worry,’ she tried to reassure us. ‘It’s early stages. They don’t even know yet if the spots they can see on their X-rays really are cancer or scars from old operations.
‘Merry Christmas – we’ll talk tomorrow.’
As I put the phone down, my husband Derek and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes. We feared the worst. I went to my office and lit one of the candles we had brought back from Lourdes.
‘Dear God,’ I prayed, ‘give us all strength.’
