Please welcome Kelley from magneto bold too! with today’s guest post.

I was 6 when my dad got cancer for the first time.
Hodgkins lymphoma. Back in the late 70’s there was not a lot they could do.

They gave him 3 months to get his affairs in order.

I remember him coming home after that diagnosis. My brother and I in bed in our shared bedroom. An enormous room in our newly rented house after coming ‘home’ from a year living in rural Queensland. A room with a huge scary picture of the Queen in one corner, a wall of window and a makeshift partition to give us our own space.

He was drunk. Although I didn’t understand that at the time, as my father never drank. He was yelling and screaming and my mother was crying.

I was worried that he might wake the bird.

Kids.

He went to hospital. We played. We went to school. We made cubbies in the yard and collected skinks in an old pool.

One afternoon I was sitting in the lounge marvelling at how amazing eyes were. I was eating an orange and it squirted in my eye. It stung. Then I started contemplating how eyes work in my fascinated, unlimited imagination. It involved little men with levers and a boss with glasses giving out orders. And they were yelling cause I got orange juice all over their floor.

My mum came in and told me we were going to visit Daddy at the hospital.

We went on the train. We had icecream. We went to the bookstore and bought a book for Daddy and a book for me. Kids Own Book. It had activities and fun stuff to do in it. I was so excited about showing Daddy that book.

Down streets, up elevators, walking down scarily long corridors and finally we were at Daddy’s room. He was smiling. He looked tired. And skinny. But the other people in the room looked worse. But that was OK, cause this is the place that would make Daddy feel better and then he could come home and I could sit on his lap and cuddle again.

I looked out the window while my parents talked like adults. Boring adult stuff. I don’t remember the details. I was staring at the Nylex sign. The time keeper of Melbourne. An icon. Not that I knew that at the time, it was just a really cool, really big clock.

Soon it was time to go home. I don’t remember leaving. We went to McDonalds.

Kids. Funny the things they remember. So insular. Such a blessing.

A few days later Daddy was due to come home. But we weren’t allowed to go near him. Something about being radioactive.

I told the kids at school and they thought it was so cool. They said he would glow green! So in the middle of the night my brother and I crawled on our hands and knees to look under his bedroom door.

There was no glow. There was no pulsing light. We were jipped.

I don’t remember any more from that time. And that is because this is a happy tale.

Almost 30 years later my Daddy is still here. He was the doctors guinea pig. They tried every single experimental drug they could find on this young strapping healthy man with a death sentence. Drugs that today are common place. Therapies that are now saving thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives today.

Not that my Daddy had a choice in the matter mind you, but I like to think that my Dad made his mark on the world. A wonderful positive mark. And he did it with grace and quiet dignity so that all his children remember of that time is what they ate and a huge freaking clock outside his hospital window.

Now how was that for out of my niche? Seriously. No potty mouth in sight.

Kelley is a self-confessed potty mouth blogger and shoe addict. A fellow Aussie Blogger, Kelley is part of a new project which I am a big part of – one of the reasons I haven’t been around so much lately, details to follow soon. I am a huge fan of her blog and admire her for feeling free to use language on her blog which I was a bit gutless about using here.

You can read more from Kelley at magneto bold too! but be aware there is language present which may offend some readers.

And remember, you can get out of your niche too – all bloggers are welcome. Just contact me.

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