Diary of a brain tumour sufferer, Getting ready for baby

BBC News Online science and technology writer Ivan Noble was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour in August 2002.

Since his diagnosis, he has been sharing his experiences in an online diary. For a long time I have been trying to put off thinking about the birth of my son. I have seen him in scans at the hospital and I have felt him moving around. But I have been too scared of what might happen to me before he is born to let myself really look forward to meeting him. One of the really depressing things about this disease is that it can turn you in upon yourself without you really noticing. Cancer and all that surrounds living with it are such big things that it is easy to lose sight of the lives of other people. Chemotherapy is tiring and sometimes I sit around watching the world go by and waiting for the people who look after me to come and go. The future But the lives of the people close to me are part of my future. They are the future that will become the present when I am gone. So it is time now to be a bit braver and play my part. Medically it looks like I am doing well. I have just started my third six-week cycle of chemotherapy and my blood test results showed I was tolerating it well. And I reached a significant point when I realised it was now more than three months since my last operation. Three months after my November operation I already needed another. But now three-and-a-half months after my February op I am doing really well, better than expected. I appear to have got through the couple of months where I was really manic. And I am happy that I have managed to reduce my intake of steroids. Steroids are there to suppress the swelling around a tumour and so the fact that I have manage to cut down on them is very good. Strength required Now, then, I am trying to summon up a bit more strength and remember that I have more than one child to think about. We should be able to see our little boy on another ultrasound scan this week. We heard his heartbeat on a monitor last week and it was good and strong. He moves around all the time. All we can do now is get the house ready for him and make up our minds about his name. It will not be long now – he is due in July. (Source: BBC News: June 2004)