by Janet Hobbs

Created on: January 30, 2011

I had a new baby, John. I was so happy! His colic was a little stressful but I had wanted a baby all my life and now he was here. I took to nursing like a pro and found his every movement and expression fascinating. He cried a lot but I got one of those swings that calms colicky babies and it worked like a charm.

When John was 10 months old, he got a cold that would not go away. After a month, my maternal alarm bells rang so loudly that I took him to a pediatrician, then another, and then still another, until the last one palpated his stomach and noticed his spleen was enlarged.

“Leukaemia?” I asked, my vast knowledge coming from a Reader's Digest article I'd once read, entitled The Triumph of Janice Babson. (My twelve-year-old self wondered how she triumphed since she died at the end.)

“He looks too healthy for leukaemia but his spleen and liver are a little too big so we are going to send you down to the lab for tests.”

“Okay.”

Two days later, the phone rang and an irritated voice on the other end, said John's white blood count was 40,000, about 32,000 too high.

“Leukaemia?” I asked

“Probably,” said the nameless, cranky voice. I felt I'd been run over by a tank.

We were referred to an oncologist and after many tests, the doctor called us in to inform us that John had rare and virulent case of leukaemia.

“It's untreatable,” he said, adding that he felt John had a year at best.

I went home.

I remember sitting in the living room, looking at John, as early autumn sunlight streamed in the window.

Suddenly I was in the moment, astonished by John's beauty, and feeling as heaven and earth were meeting, even though things looked so bad.

Right that instant, I decided not to believe the doctor. Really why should I when I knew that if I did, John would feel it in my milk and would give up? I knew I couldn't demand that he live but I consciously decided to open to the possibility that he would, to hold the space for something better to happen.

Two weeks after that important day of decision, a series of helpful people plus coincidence, put me in touch with Olga Worral,

At 86, Olga had spent her life offering healings free of charge. Having lost her own twins in infancy, Olga's church-supported ministry focused mainly on children.

Olga agreed to pray for John, suggesting we place our hands on him at 7 pm daily, our time. She said it helped ground the compassion she was sending. I was

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