Hannah’s Choice
A daughter’s love for life. The mother who let her make the hardest decision of all.
Hannah & Kirsty Jones
To all the staff on the paediatric ward at Hereford County Hospital
Table of Contents
CHAPTER THREE Not Ours to Keep
CHAPTER FOUR Look for the Love
CHAPTER SIX Live the Life You Love
CHAPTER SEVEN Everyone is Equal
CHAPTER EIGHT The Right to Choose
CHAPTER TEN Know Your Strength
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Gift of Life
CHAPTER TWELVE A New Beginning
Hannah
So what are the really important things you need to know about me? Well, first there’s the fact that if I ever have a boyfriend I want him to look like Zac Efron. At the moment, though, I don’t want a boyfriend. My friend Simone has one called Tiago and we’ve nicknamed them Barbie and Ken. But I’m not interested because I don’t want anyone tagging onto me. I’ve got more important things to do.
Simone is one of my school friends and the others are Laura, Becky, Kelcea, Brigitta and Zoe. They’re all nutters and we’re always in touch, even though I don’t see them much because at the moment I’m not well enough to go to school a lot of the time. When I’m at home, though, they message me to find out how I am or to tell me what’s happening because there’s usually something going on – like when two of them once stopped speaking and I just wanted to bang their heads together. But I had to wait until I got back to school and by then they’d made up again. Mostly, though, we all get on really well and do girly stuff like trying out makeup on each other or having sleepovers. Once I stayed up until 11 p.m. on a school night and felt like a zombie the next day.
Then there’s my family. First off is my dad Andrew, who’s forty-three and really big and round so you get better cuddles. Mostly he smiles and is always winding me up by making jokes. But sometimes he blows his top when he gets angry and shouts the house down so we have to leave him alone until Mum speaks to him and puts him on the right path again. That doesn’t happen often, though, because he’s usually in a good mood. He’s a really nice dad.
My mum Kirsty is forty-two. Small with long red hair, she has twinkly eyes and loves horses almost as much as she loves my brother, sisters and I. She’s a really good mum and on the days I’m feeling well we’ll do things like bake cakes and biscuits. But if I’m feeling tired we’ll stay quiet and she’ll sometimes even go to the shop to get me juice and magazines. The best thing she did recently, though, was deciding to have a week when we didn’t answer the phone. Our house can get really busy sometimes and I just wanted it all to slow down because I felt so tired. That was when Mum took the phone off the hook and I really enjoyed it.
Then there are my younger brother and sisters. First comes Oli, who’s twelve and will hit you if he’s in a bad mood. But if he’s in a good one he’ll help you get past the really hard levels on your Nintendo DS – sitting there for ages working out how to get past obstacles or putting in cheat codes if he can’t – which I really like. Mostly Oli is quiet and shy but he’s chatty with me when he wants to be.
Next comes Lucy, who’s ten. She’s outgoing, always wants to beat everyone to be the best and is almost as horse-mad as Mum. In fact she’s so good at show jumping that she’s hoping to go to the Olympics some day. She goes away a lot because she competes in shows at weekends and I miss her because I can’t go. There’s no heating in the horse trailer and I’d get too cold if I did, which isn’t good when your heart is bad.
But when Lucy is at home we talk about horses all the time – sitting and looking at pony magazines and deciding which ones we’d buy if we had loads of money – and I love it when I do get to go to shows with her because we eat loads of burgers. I’ve tried riding myself but I’m scared of heights and have a weak ankle which isn’t a good combination to have on a horse.
Finally there’s Phoebe, who’s four and wild. Mum sometimes says she could swear she was given the wrong baby at hospital because Phoebe will run round the house again and again and never get tired. She goes at fifty miles an hour – banging the lounge doors so you know where she is – which is amazing because when she was born she weighed less than two bags of sugar and now you couldn’t miss her. Phoebe also loves riding, but while most girls her age have a leading rein she doesn’t have one because she’s so brave. She’ll always put up a good fight with me but she’s kind too and will share her chocolates or give me a one pence piece which she thinks is a lot of money.
Then there are our animals, and there are lots of those. We’ve got a dog called Ted, a cat called Tails McFluff, some goldfish (although Tails ate some of them once) and ponies called Roxie, Buddy and Mr Minty for Mum, Lucy and Phoebe to ride. We also have chickens for eggs but aren’t allowed to play with them because we put one on the trampoline in the garden once and laughed as it bounced up before flying away. Mum really told us off so we knew we couldn’t do that again.
Then there’s me. I’m thirteen and I don’t spend nearly so much time running around as Oli, Lucy and Phoebe because I’ve got a bad heart and get tired easily. That’s why I only go to hospital school in the mornings and then come home at lunchtime to rest. I also spend a lot of time in bed because I pick up any little infection going like colds or stomach upsets which can get really boring because when I feel really ill my energy goes and all I can do is lie quietly.
But when I get well I get busy again, although I call it ‘lazy busy’ because