Around the first week of January 2011, Joel started complaining of headaches. This wasn’t unusual - we’d all suffered from seasonal flu over Christmas, and we had blocked sinuses and headaches so we thought it’s just the flu dragging on.
He was also a little clumsy.. but then, he’s only just turned 6. Aren’t all 6 year old boys clumsy when they’re running around? He’d trip over himself - but he’d been doing that a while for comedic effect and for a little attention.. a little Charlie Chaplin. (He was named Joel Charlie after his grandad Charlie, not Chaplin!).
Back in November during an eye test, they found a squint and wanted a closer look. We weren’t worried about this - I have a squint after all, so we weren’t too bothered by Joel having one.
Then just over a week ago, Joel was off school after being sick on the Monday morning. I had to take Eve to school, so I asked Joyce, my mother in law if she could come and look after Joel until I returned.
When she arrived I was stood in the hallway talking to her about Joel. Then - he looked up from the sofa where he lay, and his squint alarmingly bad.
He had a follow up appointment booked at the eye infirmary for February 17th because they wanted to check out his squint and his Hetero Chromia (he has one blue eye and one brown) - although this wasn’t cause for concern - he’d been discharged from Walsall Manor Hospital about this, but New Cross Eye Infirmary didn’t have his records and wanted to get their own facts.
I called them to ask for an urgent appointment because I was really worried about the sudden severity of his squint. I was called back 24 hours later with an appointment two days later.
Louise took him to the hospital for his appointment with the opthamologist. When he returned, he burst in through the door smiling…
“Hey fella, how’d you get on?” I asked. I looked up at his mum, Louise and she burst into tears.
They had found signs of intracranial pressure and wanted to get an immediate MRI scan. No slots were available for that day, so one was arranged for the following day.
We waited, nervously.
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