Brain tumour support group

At the close of Pads' midweek 'weekend', he's safely in bed.
On Monday night, Ally and I went to the Brain Tumour Support Group, organised by LATCH. Both Pads' usual consultants gave up their evenings to join us. The speaker was Dr Brazier, a paediatric clinical psychologist. We'd been referred to her when things were really tough for Pads regarding his NG tube. She certainly helped him give his concerns an airing and made some excellent suggestions about how we could help him cope with the ongoing stresses of treatment. Thankfully, after the PEG was fitted, he was able to cope with the needles amazingly well, and so we have not had to go back for another session. This was not the case with some of the other parents and carers also there on Monday night. Their experiences varied from nightmares to violent mood swings, memory loss and quite severe loss of mental ability in general. Once again, we feel like we have come through this fairly unscathed: on his days off Pads has been learning about phlogiston for chemistry homework.
It seemed a bit of a coincidence that, on the morning after the support group, he woke at 4:30 with a nightmare. Thankfully this was not repeated and he continues to sleep peacefully. When I think back to all the bad dreams I used to have as a child, and considering all that he's gone through, it is remarkable that so little of the last 18 months seems to play on his subconscious.