Written by Sharon Fish (Donell's Godmother)
Monday 15th October
Today was the last day before Donell starts on his epic journey with Radiotherapy. Well its my turn now to give you my take on what has been happening !!! The last few weeks have been a roller coaster of a ride !!!!
The wait to get to treatment stage seemed a long one but now we are here things can only get better We thought we would treat him and take him to the cinema to watch hoodwinked. We managed to get everyone successfully settled before the lights went down !!! We stocked up on nibbles and ice-cream much to Donells pleasure although he wasn’t allowed too much unfortunately. Everyone enjoyed themselves although towards the end Donell was spotted having 40 winks !!! Hee hee
27th October 2006
We have completed Donell’s 2nd week of treatment and what a difference a week makes. The last two days I have seen such a phenomenal change in Donell it is quite amazing. Some of his old personality is starting to show through. At the beginning of the week Donell was quiet and would watch you with his eyes but very little speech, unless it was to ask for food !!! And didn’t seem to be interested in doing much….. I bought him a blue laughing blob from my weekend visit to London which you need to clap to activate and he wasn’t interested at all. In fact would moan and push it away.
Yesterday (Thursday) I arrived about 6.30pm and he was playing and interacting with Keira. Keira was being grumpy and we were trying to calm her down and Donell was trying hard to help. We then had some great fun making a pumpkin, ready for the Halloween party on Tuesday - it now has pride of place on top of the television. Donell would like to light the candle but we have had to say no as we are in a hospital. As a joke I offered to put my mobile phone inside and he hasn’t let me forget it!!! Have had to replay that over and over again..
Today it was like a light bulb had gone off in him. Once more the old Donell is evident and this can only be a good sign. There was a big crowd when I arrived and a little boy was playing with Donell. I had bought some Halloween inspired toys, a torch to make up for the fact that he couldn’t have the candle in the pumpkin, a Casper mask and some scary long nailed fingers. He really enjoyed joining in playing and having a laugh which was a sound that we hadn’t heard for some time..
Come 7.30pm, Lydia and Chris left the hospital and the weight of responsibility was with me. He wasn’t having any problems at night but if he was going to develop any I was convinced that it would be on the one night that I was here with him on my own. I have loads of experience with children from tiny babies but I was still very apprehensive that this was more responsibility. We had a great time though and nothing to worry about. We did colouring and then some playing with the Halloween toys. Had a yoghurt (now there is a surprise - I think Donell will be taking out share in Muller shortly !!!) and then it was a painless task to get the young man into bed and settled for the night. I then sat on the spare bed and put into words what I have just written. It’s a privilege to be allowed to be here with this very special little boy. I have known him since he was bump and I would never have imagined that I would be here reminiscing about all the good times and praying that there would be many more....