LINDA PESAVENTO

Sitting in a Hong Kong hospital with our five-year-old son, we were certainly not expecting to hear words like cancer or leukaemia. The doctors report left us a little breathless our active and normally healthy child had cancer. Within twenty-four hours of diagnosis, his small body was struggling to deal with the battle going on inside. Within forty-eight hours, he was literally fighting for his life. My husband and I were trying to make sense of all that was going on around us. Our question wasnt so much why but what God, what on earth is going on?

Only hours earlier, we had been planning a dinner out with some friends and other weekend activities. We now found ourselves in a cold and uninviting hospital room, surrounded by medical personnel who showed very little warmth or sympathy for the news we had just received. We were totally unprepared to hear the word cancer. Nor had we any idea that we would be spending the next two years in and out of hospital with our son, fighting this horrible disease.

I have heard people talk about a moment of clarity that you get when tragedy befalls you. Suddenly, you see everything differently and your perspective on life changes. That did happen for us but, in some respects, it was short-lived. Within seconds of that life flashing before your eyes revelation, the enormity and messiness of normal life can start to crowd back in. Who would care for our daughter, Sophia? Could my husband Gary have time off work? Was Hong Kong the right place to be receiving treatment? How would we cope as one of the very few, non-Chinese speaking families in a Chinese hospital? What about the fact that we lived over an hour from the hospital? Countless questions ran through my mind as I struggled to regain some sense of control over our life. 152 pages

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