Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis (36 page)

Harry Potter
blasted me into twenty-first-century celebdom. Now I’m often asked to give talks at primary schools about fame (as opposed to being short). The great thing about this is that the kids learn there are lots of little people out there and, apart from our size, we’re just like everybody else. I also hope I might inspire a physically disadvantaged child by showing them that if they believe in themselves they can achieve anything.

When I’m in the supermarket, kids sometimes can’t help but point and blurt out, “What’s that, Mummy?” Mum usually blushes and tries to look busy. If the child persists, they’re dragged away and told off, even when I try to intervene. Then they look at me like it’s
my
fault – they’re turned against little people for life.

I’m passionate about changing these attitudes, and one day I was suddenly presented with an unprecedented opportunity to do so – from a wholly unexpected quarter.

Before that, however, Sam had some rather amazing news.

“You need to sit down, Warwick,” she said as I walked in through the front door.

^a
I had my own agent, independent of Willow Management, and would only audition for roles that he sent me – that way I couldn’t be accused of nabbing all the plum roles that came into our office.

Chapter Nineteen

Luck of the Irish

Sam, Annabelle, and poorly Harrison.

 

Harrison being tube-fed by Sam.

 

Harrison had an extremely tough start to life.

 

Harrison in his “bubble,” watching me watching him.

 

The doctor gave me the look I didn’t want to see. The “I’ve-got-some-bad-news-for-you” look.

Nurses, doctors, patients, and orderlies hurried past us in a blur of white coats, scrubs, clipboards, suits, and trolleys.

“Warwick,” she said quietly, “we’re doing everything possible but your son is ill.” She paused and looked down for a moment before meeting my eyes once more. “He is
very poorly.
”

My heart shattered into a million tiny pieces. I knew only too well what those two dreaded words meant. I couldn’t believe it. For a dizzying few seconds, I was at a loss, speechless; I’d been so certain Harrison would make it.

I’d been reluctant to try for another baby after all we’d been through, but Sam was quite adamant. She wanted Annabelle to have a baby brother or sister. “Just get me pregnant, Warwick, and I’ll do the rest,” she said.

“Oh well, that’s romantic,” I replied, but I had to admit I liked the idea and I inevitably succumbed to Sam’s advances.

The next month she was pregnant.

“Goodness, you just have to look at your wife to get her pregnant, don’t you, Mr. Davis?” Professor Rodeck said with a grin.

While I turned bright red Professor Rodeck said he would repeat the same amniotic tests that he’d performed for Annabelle. We were pretty worried but the softly spoken Prof was as calm, confident, and reassuring as ever. “We’ve made even more advances since Annabelle was born. Try not to worry too much.”

Once again we had to wait for two torturous weeks until he called. “Good news, the achondroplasia gene isn’t present!”

Which meant our baby didn’t have the lethal double-dominant combination of both of our genes.

Sam sagged with relief. “Excellent.”

“Would you like to know if it’s a boy or a girl? I’m guessing if it were a boy then it would make everything just perfect.”

“I don’t want to know!” Sam said, but I think the Prof had blown the surprise in his excitement.

Sam grew steadily and had another wonderful pregnancy, rapidly reaching gigantic proportions, until eventually all she could do was eat and sleep. As her due date approached, she was again scheduled for a Caesarean section, this time performed by Ms. Steele, who – like Mr. Hackman – wouldn’t let me in her operating room.

Sam was knocked out and, after a lightning-fast operation, Harrison, who was also little, was whisked away – almost the very moment Ms. Steele lifted him out and cut him free.

I watched, still not having seen my son, as Dr. Yong and the obstetric team scrambled past me with Harrison, headed down the corridor in the direction of the intensive care unit. He wasn’t breathing, there was a problem with his lungs. I chased after them with a Polaroid camera, squeezed my way into a gap around the incubator, and leaned over the side to take a quick snap.

I stopped. Harrison was
so
tiny,
so
helpless.

But then so was I. There was nothing I could do; my son’s future was out of my hands. I came to my senses, took the picture, tried to learn what I could from the doctors and, flapping the photo dry, I rushed back to Sam. I explained that Harrison was alive but very sick.

Sam was in terrible pain and clicked the morphine doser when I showed her the picture.

“He’s just like Lloyd,” she said. “I messed up. It’s my fault.”

“Don’t be silly,” I told her. “Look, I’ll try and find out more, okay?”

Sam sighed, nodded, and passed out.

And then, five minutes later, there I was, receiving the compassionate doctor’s “we’re-doing-all-we-can” speech – the speech with the two words no parent should ever have to hear.

Very poorly
.

I forced myself to focus. Harrison was struggling because his lungs were simply too tiny. That meant his blood wasn’t being oxygenated and if his oxygen levels fell too low he’d suffer brain damage or die.

My mum, meanwhile, was waiting anxiously outside with six-year-old Annabelle, who was extremely excited about having a little brother and desperately eager to see him.

Unfortunately for Annabelle, with spectacularly bad timing, she’d just developed chickenpox, so she wasn’t allowed anywhere near the hospital. Luckily, the unit was on the ground floor so, with her nana holding her up to the window and me pointing wildly toward Harrison’s incubator, she was able to see her baby brother for the first time.

The joy, love, and amazement on her face was overwhelming – and heartbreaking, as I didn’t know whether her little brother was here to stay.

Sam, meanwhile, despite being drugged to the eyeballs and almost sawn in half by Ms. Steele, was back on her feet only twelve hours after giving birth. Together, we could only watch as Harrison fought through the night, and listen as the doctors explained how they were battling to keep him breathing. He remained dangerously ill. The doctors thought he was dying. Each time we came back into the unit all they could say was, “He’s still here.”

Five days later, he was still hanging in there and they decided to transfer him to another specialist unit, in Nottingham. He was unable to drink and so was fed milk by a syringe via a tube that went straight into his stomach.

Gradually, the days went by. Five days became a week, then ten days, then two weeks. As time went on, he was moved from Nottingham to Leicester and then back to Peterborough for different treatments. Harrison showed very slight signs of improvement but progress was agonizingly slow; we were warned that it could all change at any moment. The only way for Sam and me to cope at this time was to try and remain positive. Eventually, although he remained pretty poorly and needed to stay in the hospital, it seemed as though he’d almost managed to fight his way into the world.