The Boy With The Sore Finger

 

Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.
~ Bryce Courtenay

Hey, Lovelies!

I had the most fantastic news from a client yesterday, and she gave me permission to share her story. The only thing I have changed are the *names of the people involved…

Late last year I did a top-up reading for *Madeleine, a long-term client (a top-up is a session for someone who has worked with me before). She’d been through a tough few years as a single mum, having to deal with lockdowns, the loss of her job and home-schooling her two young boys without much support.

Madeleine wanted guidance about work opportunities, and about relationships. She had found a new job, which was not her ideal but it payed the bills, but she also had some entrepreneurial ideas of her own, and she was hoping to get her career back on track. We did some coaching around that, and I gave her insights and guidance to find the best way forward.

Right at the end of the session, with literally a minute to go, she quickly shared a picture of her two boys, and asked if I had anything I needed to tell her.

I looked at *James, her eight-year-old son first. Yes, I said, James isn’t cleaning his teeth – he’s just telling you that he is – and you need to supervise him until you can be sure he is doing the job properly. We had a laugh about that, and then I looked at her older boy’s face, and something made me pull back and look a second time. This was *Timothy, aged twelve. The boy has never given her a moment’s trouble, but he can be shy, and I knew he needed some good male role models in his life. I also saw that something was worrying him. I suggested he get into team sports, because the structure and connection was so good for him.

Sport. There was something about Timothy and sport… a problem…

I just couldn’t work out what I wanted to say about that yet, all I had was a feeling, so I waited, and kept the session open.

Madeleine told me Timothy had been playing baseball at school, and on a suburban team. He was so good that he’d been offered a place at a special upcoming holiday training camp. Initially he’d been excited, but a few weeks ago he’d told his mum that he didn’t want to play baseball anymore, and that he didn’t need to go to the camp. When she’d pressed him on it he told her that he just didn’t find it interesting and that he’d prefer to do something with robots maybe. He swore there were no problems, but his mum asked me if maybe he’d been bullied. She couldn’t work out why he had gone from loving baseball to rejecting it. There had to be a reason.

I saw that there was.

He’s got a sore hand, I said. That’s why he stopped playing.

Madeleine shook her head, looking confused. Are you sure? He never said anything to me.

I felt into his hand. There was definitely pain. A bone thing. But I didn’t have more than that. Maybe he had a greenstick fracture? I felt like it had been going on for a while and that Timothy wanted to hide whatever the problem was.

I’m sure, I replied. I think you should get it checked out. Just to be safe.

We wrapped up the call, and that was that. It had been a good session, and Madeleine had lots to work with.

I didn’t think any more about it until yesterday.

Madeleine reached out on Facebook Messenger and said hello, and asked if she could call me. Before I could even respond, she did!

She called to thank me.

After her session last year she asked her son Timothy if he had a sore hand. When he denied it, she told him I had discussed it with her, and that I wanted him to get it checked out. He then confessed to his mum that his hand was indeed sore, to the point where it hurt to throw or catch the ball, or hold and swing the bat. She looked at his hand, and his left ring finger was slightly swollen and slightly warm. Madeleine made an appointment with their family doctor and the next afternoon they got it checked out. Just to be safe.

It turns out that the swelling was a cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma. He also had a malignancy in his kidney. Timothy has now undergone multiple surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy. The doctors told Madeleine that the cancer was extremely aggressive, and they caught it just in time.

They expect that he will make a full recovery.

Thank goodness we spent that last few minutes of her session discussing her boys and their wellbeing.

Madeleine’s call yesterday made my day!

I’m still smiling 😊🙏🧡🧡

Love, hugs and sore finger miracles, Nicole xx