In Memoriam; Judy's Last Year

1 April has been a date to be feared in my life.

 

And 1 April 1973 was one of the worst ever.  In fact the experience of seeing my darling daughter go through her illness was probably the worst of my life.

 

1 April was when we became aware of what was wrong with Judy, and the future turned black.

 

While we were touring the South Island in January of that year, camping at camp-grounds and exploring the sights, Judy had started to complain of headaches. The worst, as I remember it, was one day when we were camped at the outlet to Lake Rotoiti, where the Buller River leaves the lake, and there is a beautiful camp ground among the trees, where we stayed a few days in glorious weather.

 

On about the second afternoon Terry and I proposed to climb as far as we could up the range of hills to the east of the lake. Judy was having one of her headaches, and asked to stay behind in the tent; she would not hear of us abandoning our climb for her.

 (This photo was taken Christmas Day 1972 in Dunedin when we were visiting our cousins, Don and Fran Bird and their children)

So we went. Terry and I followed the track up through the bush to the tussock and then further up we left the tussock for bare rock and finally reached the ridge of the hills at what I later understood to be 6000 feet. The ridge was sharp, with a steep drop to the east to the valley of the Wairau River.  We could see almost to Blenheim.

 

There was a strong wind blowing, and it was not easy to maintain ones footing at the top, so after a good look around us we started back down the hill. It did not take very long to cover the descent and we reached our campsite well before dark. Judy was asleep and seemed to be much better when she woke the next morning.

In February Judy started her secondary schooling at Bay of Islands College, living with me in my flat at Norman’s at the southern approach to Paihia, and making new friends easily in the top class in the Third Form.

 

In late March her headaches began again, and so after several in a couple of days I took her to the GP, who referred us to the Physician at Whangarei. Our appointment was with him on 1 April.

 

He took one look into Judy’s eyes and gave his verdict, which was that Judy probably had a brain tumour.  He decided, and we agreed, that she should be admitted to Whangarei Base Hospital the following Monday morning.