Ieuan Rhys Powell, to give him his full name but everyone called him by his middle name because it was easier to say, was born on the 7th January 1998 at 12:16pm in Yeovil Maternity Hospital.
He weighed 7lb 14oz on arrival and was a decent 55cm in length, with a head circumference of 33.3cm. I still have all these little details written down.
Rhys was about a month premature because his Mum (see footnote below) had been suffering from pre-eclampsyia, which had meant a number of stays in hospital during the previous weeks. Fortunately we weren't in hospital on Christmas Day, but Boxing Day ended up being another matter, as did New Year's Eve.
After he was born, Rhys spent the first days of his life in the baby Intensive Care Unit before spending a few weeks in the flat on the maternity ward. A time that still brings back memories of nurses knocking on the door and asking what was cooking because it smelled delicious, it was a casserole, and, on another occasion, trying to walk the length of the ward while hiding wet jeans due to a nappy failure while he was sitting on my lap.
With that start in life it was no surprise that he was going to make our lives interesting.
Between his first Christmas and New Year, he developed a case of bronchitis, which resulted in us making a visit to the hospital in Cheltenham to get him checked over. We'd been staying with my in-laws in the Cotswolds at the time and were heading to Wales to stay with my parents over New Year.
In the summer of 2000, Rhys was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL).
A few months before he was diagnosed we had gone away for the weekend to a wedding, leaving Rhys with my parents. The week after I was away on a training course and received a phone call from his Mum to say that he'd been limping and didn't want to walk, just wanted to be carried. They were taking him to the doctors.
The doctor suggested that he might have pulled a muscle or something similar and it wasn't unusual, if it didn't improve in a few days then they should take him back so they could take another look at him.Within a couple of days he was OK again.
In July, his legs hurt and we took him to the doctors who suggested that we monitor him and if it got worse take him to the hospital. That same evening we were in A&E waiting to see a paediatrician.
When she eventually arrvied we talked and she told us that she didn't like the colour on him, he was far too pale compared to his Mum and I, and she wanted to do some blood tests. We could either go home and come back in the following day, or she could admit him and they could do the blood tests on the children's ward that evening. We opted for the latter.
Once was safely on the ward in bed, and bloods had been taken, I left him and his Mum and went home.
Back then we had dial up Internet at home, which meant that when you were using it people couldn't phone you. At around midnight, the front door burst open and Rhys' Mum came in. I was needed back at the hospital because the blood results had come back and the paediatric consultant on duty wanted to talk to us about them.
Throwing on some clothes, we headed back to the hospital and shortly were sat in a room with the consultant who told us that Rhys had ALL. The shock was so much that it was all I could do to stop myself from laughing.
The doctor explained about the disease and what the immediate plan of action was. Rhys would be tranferred by ambulance to cancer ward at Bristol Children's Hospital.
Waiting until Rhys was being taken to the ambulance, I headed home and packed some bags for a few days, then drove up to Bristol and the hospital; arrving just as the ambulance crew were leaving.
The next couple of weeks were a whirlwind as Rhys began treatment and we tried to arrange for him to be transferred back to Yeovil where his treatment could be continued by the doctors and nurses there, under the supervision of the team at Bristol.
There were memorable times for him while staying in Bristol during those early days.
We saw the hot air balloons flying passed early morning when they took off from the balloon fiesta.
Rhys was allowed out of hospital and went to the zoo.
Months of intensive treatment followed before Rhys was deemed to be in remission and was switched to the maintenance treatment that would last for the next three years.
In 2003, Rhys finally came off treatment and our family life could get back to something that resembled other people's.
But the story doesn't end there and I'll continue with what happened next in another post.
Footnote:
I've mentioned Rhys' Mum in the post, by that I mean his biological mum, the person that gave birth to him and spent the majority of the time at hospital with him. Throughout his life I was the main bread winner and so had to go to work. Even so, when he was in hospital in Yeovil I spent as much time as I could, when not working, at the hospital with him.
When he was having treatment in Bristol for extended periods and I couldn't be there with him because I had to work I would drive him and his Mum to Bristol, drive up and back during the week to visit overnight, and then go back up to pick them up at the end of the week, either to stay the weekend or to bring them home for the weekend.
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