Finding home

For the past few months my main task (home educating and general mothering aside) has been to find an area, school and home for my daughter Meli and myself. Her 27 months of treatment ends on April 3rd and come Septemer, she will be ready (if not raring) to join a school with teachers who are not relatives and to learn alongside real other children!

The world is, in some senses, wide open to us. I am happy to slot my plans and ideas into what best suits Meli, and am not constrained by any career logistics. We could run to the hills! I could release the excitement and relief I am storing up until April 3rd and let it carry us towards a few years of much deserved joy and beauty on a biodynamic farm in Tuscany, in a medieval village in South West France, or on a chip-fat fueled journey across Europe. We could burst through the walls and horizons that, for the last two years, have been defined by hospital visits, blood test appointments and the attempted avoidance of germs – and go and court fun instead.

But while having fun will have to be a big part of whatever it is we do, can we let it lead us? I toy with this question and get over excited about warmer places and wider views. But the other guiding principle tugging hard at my attention is, (dare I say it), health and safety. Health and safety. Those words conjure up images of pedants in white suits ticking boxes on clipboards. But for us, now, it means knowing that the air, water, food, and community around us are all contributing to Meli’s recovery to full, vibrant health. This is the simple hope of any parent – that their child can grow up safely, healthily, happily and that they can thrive. Our experience of leukaemia has alerted me to all the potential toxins and carcinogenic dangers that exist in this modern world. I do not trust pesticides, pylons, mobile phone masts, wifi, car pollution or mobile phones. Question marks hang over many of these defining features of contemporary living, but I am not going to risk my daughter’s health while researchers tussle over whether or not they can cause harm. I am choosing to avoid them as much as I can.

Finding a place that is free of both the city’s high level of background radiation and the countryside’s pesticides is not easy, certainly on this crowded island. One solution would be to find solace in the trees – woodland surrounding our home and Meli’s school would give some protection from nearby agricultural, engine and electronic pollution. When I find a school or place that seems promising I spend much time scanning the area for pockets of protective forest on google map. Towns that lie entirely surrounded by a patchwork of yellow and brown squares are crossed off my list, as are towns with big industrial sites nearby, or motorways.

It is not surprising then that what once felt like a wide open hunt for a home now feels more like conducting a search through a pin hole. I like to think I am being careful rather than paranoid, though I realise my views are not (yet!) widely held. My mother pointed out last night that there are plenty of children that recover from leuakaemia and that eat sugar, play on wifi nintendos and don’t live in forests. But I do feel that it would be foolish of me to know of the potential hazards and leukaemia-inducing stimuli that exist out there and to not do my best to steer clear of them.

The hunt can be deeply frustrating. But as a sensible and wise friend reminded me recently, learning to accept the unknown is one of the most precious lessons this leukaemia journey has given us. I don’t know where Meli and I will be living this September. But then, who does know such things?