DAY 24 – 15 November:

Michelle: Mike has to leave, to go away for work. I am crushed. I don’t know how I am going to cope without him, he has been my rock through this all, even though he is just as much affected by it all as I am. I understand it’s something he has to do, for his own sanity and because he has a work commitment. I am sure they would’ve understood if he had told them he couldn’t go. But Conor was still fighting, no change but stable. Stable was good.

So I could be stable too, and carry on our routine with the help of my parents. Mike refuses to say goodbye to Conor, instead he tells him he will see him soon. It’s one of the toughest moments. It all sometimes just feels too much, too hard to cope with (I repeat this phrase so often, but there are just simply no other words. And hard doesn’t even cut it, not by a long shot).

Michael: There is constantly so much going on. Wake up, get dressed, sort out Rachel, taker her to school, go to hospital, back, fetch Rachel, eat, play, back to hospital, home, dinner, bath and bed routine with Rachel, back to hospital again, sleep. Phew! Rinse and repeat. But not in a negative way, it is exactly the routine that keeps things going. If one were to just sit you’d be in the loony bin in no time. It is this routine that keeps all of us sane.

Then I hear I have to go to Malaysia for a day for work. He seems stable and the doctors think so too. I agree to go. Only two days door to door. I need to stay busy.

I try and spend as much quality time with Conor as I can. Less focus on the numbers, less focus on the graphs. My hand on his head, willing him to get better. I leave with the words: “I’ll be right back”