Childhood Leukaemia: Leads to Creative Therapy

July 22, 2015, Ange, A Creative Touch, Uncategorized, , 2

 

If you are anything like me you might find that childhood Leukaemia leads to creative therapy in one way or another for you. It is such a difficult time for families, when a child becomes ill, that anything you can do to help cope with it, help remove yourself temporarily of thoughts of the awful treatment and the potential for relapse is a worth taking a look at.

I believe using any creativity you can muster is a great form of therapy for just about anything.This is not only useful for a parent, whose child is ill, but for the child as well, and the entire family. I highly recommend art, music and writing as my number one go to therapies, but they are not the only options.

This Time In Our Lives Was Very Stressful!

 

The stress of learning my daughter had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, initially gutted me and remained prevalent throughout the course of the treatment and beyond. All the time I spent in hospital with my daughter when she was ill, found me with time on my hands and a chance to think. Creative therapy seemed to be the obvious route to take with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait, and wait, and wait.

 

A Minor Pastime Becomes Sanity Saving

 

Writing is a great way to offload emotions. I began writing poetry to help with releasing some of my pent up thoughts and feelings in a very emotionally charged time. Being able to express myself, even if I would be the only one to ever read them, helped a lot. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Writing helped save my sanity.

Now I have headed in the direction of a different kind of creative writing, blogging about our experiences in the hopes that I can bring some peace and resources to others going through this. What better time to bring those poems out and dust them off so that others can finally read those poems that I never thought would see the light of day. Below is my very first one.

 

A TWIST OF FATE

 

At a time like this, I can’t understand,

A twist of fate, way out of my hands.

Why has it happened, to my little girl?

She is my whole life, my one precious pearl.

 

Leukaemia, they say, is no longer a death sentence,

Her prognosis is good, but I’m still very tense.

It could be years, ere I know for sure.

If modern medicine, has produced, a desirable cure.

 

It must be frightening, at just three years old,

To be constantly in hospital, she’s been so bold.

Her treatment’s just begun, on a long, hard road,

All those agonies and fears, bears a heavy load.

 

Some days, she appears, to be very sick,

Others, she’s so well, you just couldn’t pick,

The chemotherapy, can make her quite ill,

It’s a fight every day, just to swallow that pill.

 

If she enters remission, the better I’ll cope,

But the trick is to stay there, and that’s my hope.

For now, we just live, each day as it comes,

And look to the future, with other dads and mums.

 

She looks so beautiful, as she sleeps,

When the pressure becomes, too much, I weep.

For my lovely baby, that bundle of joy,

And those special faces, she pulls to be coy.

 

I must be strong, for the both of us now,

We’ve a long way to go, and I don’t know how.

To lose her I doubt, I could remain calm,

But if I broke down now, it could do MORE harm.

 

If I can do anything, to change places with you,

I would not hesitate, to do it for you.

My cherished darling, I love you dearly,

Have faith and get better now, hear me clearly.

 

 

Written for my daughter diagnosed, with Leukaemia on 3^rd August 1992, by Ange, August 13^th 1992

What Did You Think?

 

There you have it. Not the most spectacular of poems, but it was useful for releasing the stress I was living on a daily basis and served to ground me and keep me hopeful that my daughter would survive this.

Try It For Yourself

 

Try doing something creative yourself when things are getting you down. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you discover about yourself. Perhaps you have a hidden talent that you have never explored before and now have an opportunity to test it to your heart’s content. There are many kinds of therapies in existence and I will be talking about quite a few different ones, but I really wanted to start with the one closest to my heart, which at that time, was mostly writing poetry.

It May Even Be Your Legacy In The Making

 

Childhood Leukaemia is stressful. It’s hard to see any positives in something like that, but if it leads to creative therapy, one day you may look back in years to come and be able to remember these times, like I do, through your creations. Not to dwell on them, but to see how much you have grown as a person, to remind yourself of your inner strength, what you are capable of. Who knows it may lead you to giving others a message of support, help and understanding, in terms of writing about your own experiences and perhaps even being able to improve your financial position in the process.

 

 

Thanks for reading and allowing me to share my feelings with you of this trying time of our lives with my version at the time of creative therapy. I hope that you find ways to express yourself and may it be just as therapeutic to you as poetry was to me.

 

Warm Regards

Ange

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