You studied at home?
Son: I studied at home. About, probably about part way through year eleven towards the later end of year eleven, from right up Christmas time onward then I used to go in for a couple of lessons a week, like some of the science lessons and the French lessons where the science because the more practical hands on stuff and French is quite hard to learn without having a tutor, that your teacher there, so but the home tutor was marvellous, she absolutely brilliant.
One of my, her helping main reasons I managed to get on and do some of my GCSEs because they kept, they kept on at me, like helping me, I mean she was a big Aston Villa fan which really helped, because we had something on a common ground which we both liked. So sometimes she'd come to tutor me and I wouldn't be feeling too well or I'd be tired so instead of like tutoring me there she just, we'd just talk about the football from the weekend or something for a while until I felt a bit better and got on with work.
And then when I was going for these lessons eventually we arranged it, she would drop me off at school for the lesson or she come from, I'd go in for, in the morning for lesson and then she'd come pick me up and bring me home to tutor me, so she was wonderful. I owe so much to her because she kept me going, kept me going sort of thing throughout it and kept on pushing me to carry on and not to get, because I can remember doing that time a lot of feeling do I just want to give up because it was all too hard and too much, feeling very angry at the time.
Because I mean I had to work doubly hard, more than, do you know what I mean, I was a clever lad before me illness, I was in all top sets and A's all the time and everything like that, so, and then when I tried to start doing, back and do work then after being ill and find, it was very hard and tough to do it, so it was a struggle but.
Mother: An immense struggle.
Son: Immense struggle, yes [chuckles].
Mother: We, we, it, that was a, I think that was almost as hard as when he was starting to go through the radiotherapy, because he was having this internal struggle with himself. This battle that he, he knew he knew these things but because the memory problems as well, he had to overcome those, he had to learn new ways of learning, and new ways of recalling the information and that was a, a real hard slog. And he had also the problems with his eyesight because his field of vision was damaged by the tumours and the surgery. And so we had to get the visual impairment service was involved as well so he, he could have things enlarged at school, all the papers, work, anything he was reading could be enlarged, we borrowed a magnifier that he could use for, for reading books [laughs].
So at the same time as you were trying to go back to your studies you have to adapt yourself because of some of the effects of having the?
Son: The ill, yeah.
Like your short-term memory?
Son: Memory, vision, the tiredness, because -
Mother: He also had diabetes insipidus.
Son: Yeah, I got a type of diabetes, diabetes insipidus which is a, controlled by tablets, but it means you can't concentrate, you're, you're obviously going to the toilet very often, you need to go to the toilet all the time, so. I was having, I was having to deal with that and it was getting like them getting all of the medication used in right, find the right level so I wasn't having to go to the toilet every five minutes. And that was another problem when I was going to school was being able to go to the toilets because obviously in a high school you get a lot of people who hang about in toilets smoking so a lot of the time the toilets would be locked and you'd have to get a key for the toilet which caused more problems sometimes getting hold of one of these keys. |