Guest Writer Harvey - The Difficult Kids

Me, Myself and My Immune System: A brief timeline of my love affair with Crohn’s Disease.

Harvey Hancock

Part THREE

I have come home from school crying again. Gary H keeps puffing his cheeks out to imitate my swollen face and he is doing it every time he sees me. Today he put me in a headlock in the playground and wouldn’t let me out of it until a dinner lady dragged him off me. He says, “I know you want me to apologise but I’m not going to.” to the dinner lady. “Why is that?” she responds. “Because I hate him,” Gary replies.

Fast forward a few months. It is leaving day at my primary school and the year has been very tough. My attendance has been low and I haven’t had any friends. My dreams of sailing through Yr.6 were short-lived and I can’t wait to get away from Gary H. He is stood behind me right now, because we are next to each other in the register. Our procession to get our leaving certificates is minutes away but I’m crying again. Since we were lined up Gary has been kicking me after every step we take, and kicks me repeatedly whilst we are standing still. I ask him to stop. He says “No”. The girl in front of me, Laura G, tells Gary to stop kicking me. He tells her not to tell him what to do, so she tells on him. I am dragged out of the line and into the girls’ toilets and cry my eyes out – I don’t understand why he is trying to make me feel so bad and this is supposed to be my special day. The procession goes on without my name being called, and I am reminded afterwards that people missed me. But it doesn’t really do much to make me feel better.

Fast forward a few months. It is my first day of secondary school. I am excited because nobody will know who I am and how I sometimes have “interesting bowel movements”, and that’s good. I meet my new peers and teachers without having to mention my assorted maladies and for the first time since diagnosis I feel normal. Things are looking up.

Fast forward to next year. I am walking around school and everybody knows who I am. I am the boy with a “pipe in his face” – a nasogastric tube that is used to feed me a liquid diet. I’ve been off of school for 12 weeks now, and I wish I wasn’t back here, where stares come from every angle, but even this is preferable to spending another day in bed watching Scooby Doo. As I get pushed into a locker I reconsider.

Fast forward to 6^th form. GCSEs and AS levels have come and gone, and some of the guys still call me “tubey”. I look forward to leaving this place, to university. I am excited because nobody will know who I am and how I sometimes have “interesting bowel movements”, and nobody knows that I had a pipe in my face. Nobody will know that I was bullied by my friends, even by boys significantly younger than me. I’m nervous, but it’s that excited nervousness. I’ll be an equal.

Coming up in Part 4 - Uni and Conclusion...