Anonymity

When I moved here six years ago, I had just gotten back from a seven month trip overseas, anonymity had become my friend.  I moved to an area where I only knew my sisters and brother in law.  I’d been in Sydney before that and my friends remained there.  I'm originally from a small town and I worked in the local supermarket and so I knew pretty much everyone.  So although at times living on my own was lonely, I enjoyed that I could walk around and not know people.

How times have changed!

I don’t feel that I'm anonymous anywhere now, but people don’t necessarily know me as me, they know me as ‘Dexter’s mum’.  My little man has caused such a stir in his short life, that everyone knows him or knows about him from someone else.  It’s rather odd.

Our weekly trips to the local hospital for bloods and dressing changes see all the nursing staff greeting us with such familiarity.  And although in this situation, it’s comforting, it’s also kind of wrong!  When I call up to book him in, I just have to say my first name and they know who we are and what we need.  I walk into the children’s ward and get greeted with smiles and questions of how everything is going.  

I know the nurses are just doing their job, and this shows how good they are at it; I just sometimes wish that we weren’t the family who got straight in without waiting.

I like to be able to hide away and walk down the street and not be looked at.  I like keeping to myself, I always have.

Despite being at RPA for three months, I have kept in touch with only one other mum from that time.  And while I'm curious to know the progress of the other babies who were long stayers like us, I can appreciate that their mums wanted to keep their anonymity too.  For me, that time was not a time for making friendships.  It was a time for bonding with my son and hoping every day that he would make it through.  I was happy to chat with the nurses, but I just didn’t feel comfortable associating with the other parents – I liked being in my own bubble.  

And now we are going through the same thing at Randwick.  We have been going backwards and forwards to the Children’s hospital for almost five months.  Faces and families are familiar.  You can’t help but learn of the other stories and heartaches – the room has four beds in it, all separated by a thin curtain, so there is no such thing as privacy while you are there.  But just because we are all going through the experience of having a child with cancer, doesn’t mean I want to talk and become friends.

I'm nice to the other parents and will speak when I'm approached, but I do find that I am mostly ignored by the others, which I am happy with.  My husband on the other hand gets accosted by every parent (mostly mums) whenever he walks in and by the end of the stay knows their names, their child’s name, where they are from, what they do for a living and what kind of cancer they are dealing with!

And I'm grateful for him for doing that, for taking the time to make the others feel special by engaging them in conversation, for taking their minds of their situation for five minutes.  It’s just not for me!  

At the moment we are that family that people look at and talk about.  We are the family that people feel sorry for and get emotional about when they hear our story.  I just hope that one day; we might be able to go back to being anonymous.  For now though, I hope people don’t take me withdrawing as a form of snobbery – I just every now and then, need time to be me, just me.