The C-Word (17 page)

In reality, depression is something that is stuck, rigidly, in your mind (or your soul or your body, I don’t know), that shows its face only when you allow it. Not that you consciously allow it. It senses when you’re vulnerable and lacking the compulsion to keep it hidden, and surprises you with a mini mental breakdown in the middle of
Deal or No Deal
. It makes it impossible to do all the little things that show the world you’re okay: laughing at a joke, winking at
your
husband, tapping along to a tune, enjoying a cup of tea, idly singing to yourself as you get dressed. It presents you head-on with all the worries you try so hard not to think about: that the treatment’s not working and you might be dying; whether you’ll make it through the night; whether or not you can trust your family to pick a decent song to play at your funeral; whether you’ve got time left to listen to all the favourite albums you’ve not heard for ages … The worries get more and more ridiculous as they come, and it’s the trivial ones that panic you the most.

And then, as the panic reaches its peak, it all implodes in your head and you’re left with a bleak, grey nothingness and uncontrollable weeping that makes you tell your dad – the one person you most want to keep up the front for – that you’ve got no fight left in you and that you haven’t got the energy to go on. And then you feel even worse for letting him hear it, and it leaves you not just with chapped, raw, painful eyes from all the crying, but a gut full of guilt from letting your favourite people in the world hear all the stuff you’ve tried so damned hard to keep from them. You go from a strong-on-the-outside, brave-faced girl to a consumed, cloaked, troubled mess with a dark side to rival Anakin.

All of it – all the blogging, all the banal things I talked about, every stupid sentence I said that didn’t reveal what was underneath, every time I set the Sky+ for
Coronation Street
, every smile I’d offer and joke I’d crack and ‘I’m fine’ answer I’d give – ALL of it was a gargantuan effort I was making not to let the dark stuff surface. Because it was there all the time. Cancer forces you to act. And soon the acting becomes the reality, because you’re so bloody determined to put out the right signals, come across a certain way and get the better of the stuff that could ruin it all for you. It was
the
role of my life: my Hannibal Lecter, my Don Corleone, my Scarlett O’Hara. And it was exhausting. But I was going to have to pull it out of the bag once more for the sake of my beloved brother. And I don’t think I could have done it for anyone else.

CHAPTER 18

Pull out the stopper

Ooh, it’s all go in here. Morning suits hanging from every curtain rail, hat boxes out in the spare room, marks on the carpet from new shoes being worn in, and me and Mum look like we’ve been dipped in gravy after getting a spray-tan. Oh, and a certain kid brother of mine is sitting beside me with a grin the size of a banana (let’s see if he’s still smiling at me tomorrow when he realises who fed his best man all those stories).

I’m equally smiley. Fancy me having a social life again, eh? I’m starting to forget what it was like to be out among people, acting daft and putting the world to rights over a G&T. The other night I spent longer than I care to admit trying to remember every detail about my favourite London pub, wondering whether they’ve cranked up the log fire yet, if the flush in the toilet on the left has been fixed, and whether the colder weather has forced my drinking buddies to move from the benches outside to the rickety stools in the bar. Classic withdrawal symptoms, I imagine. But I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m being left out of a brilliant social scene and loads of gossip and good times that I’ll never be able to catch up on.

Those very same drinking buddies met up at the pub in question on Friday night and, by heck, was I narked. My mate Lil sensed as much and, the moment she got back home, updated her Facebook status with: ‘Lil had a great time at the pub but really missed Mac.’ Much as I appreciated Lil’s efforts to make me feel better, I’d had a whole evening of sofa-bound boredom to work myself up by then. I knew full well how ridiculous it was to get so wound up, and tried to console myself with thoughts that my mates weren’t, in fact, having a blinding time without me but had instead been plotting to make and sell charity T-shirts with ‘Save Mac’ on them, and debating which bands they could get to play at Mac Aid. But of course they bloody weren’t. They were drinking dodgy wine, slagging off
X Factor
contestants for their transparently insincere tears (I’m telling you, I could sob my way to the final of that thing next year) and eating endless bags of crisps, the carefree gits. It’s not like I think the world should stop turning just because I’ve got breast cancer. But the least everyone could do is put their social lives on hold until I’m better, no? So, in typical worked-up and overly sarcastic fashion, I retaliated with my own Facebook update: ‘Lisa thinks you lot are a bunch of bastards for going to the pub without her. Can’t you wait till she’s beaten cancer, you impatient sods?’

*

‘LISA, IT’S AMAZING,’
said my beautician as she aimed a spray-tanning gun at my tits.

‘Told you you’d be impressed,’ said Mum. ‘And I told
you
there’d be nothing to worry about,’ she added, turning to me.

‘Really? You reckon?’ I asked, still unsure as to whether it was smoke or St Tropez that was being blown up my ass.

‘Honestly, darling, I’ve seen a hundred mastectomies doing this job – and that’s one of the best I’ve sprayed.’

‘Well, I’ll be sure to tell my surgeon,’ I said through pursed lips as I tried not to breathe in the orange fumes.

The thought of my pre-wedding spray-tan had been worrying me for days. Up to this point, the only people who’d seen my cancer-ravaged boob were Smiley Surgeon, Always-Right Breast Nurse, P and those who’d helped me change my dressings, and I wasn’t ready to show it off to anyone else. But, having been to the hospital a couple of days previous for Smiley Surgeon to inflate my currently empty tissue-expanding implant, things were finally looking up on the tit front. Because now, I had boobs –
plural
.

I’d been pretty nervous about turning up to see Smiley Surgeon in case he said I was still too swollen to have my implant inflated – aside from anything else, I’d have had an odd-looking, baggy side to the strapless dress I had planned to wear at Jamie’s wedding, and visions of my prosthesis shooting out across the dance floor weren’t doing much to help. Thankfully, he gave me the go-ahead and pulled out the bike bump (disappointingly, it was more of a huge-needle-and-saline-drip combo) so that I could finally, FINALLY, get rid of the Mastectomy Bra From Hell and my comedy sponge tit (honk honk). It wasn’t my old boob, granted, but, in clothes at least, it looked every bit as good. It was round and soft and symmetrical and even a little bit bouncy and, were it not for the fact that I was still singular in the nipple department, it would have been perfect. But even that was due to be rectified a few months down the line in a fascinating process whereby the existing nipple-circle would be twisted into a point, then tattooed to match its non-identical twin. For the meantime, though, I had a fabulous cleavage to enjoy and, after weeks on end of a
serious
case of the Victor Meldrews, I was damn well going to appreciate it.

Sucking up the worries of how Jamie’s wedding guests would react to seeing the cancer-crafted new me (some of whom I hadn’t seen since my own wedding – the day on which I looked better than I ever have), I instead set to the remainder of my pre-wedding beauty routine: a long bath, painting my toenails, combing my wig on its stand, face pack, expensive moisturiser … What I hadn’t bargained for, however, as I ran cotton wool pads over my eyes, was my eyelashes finally giving up the ghost and, with expert comedy timing, dropping out in one blink. I laughed into the cotton wool. Of course they’d fallen out. Waiting until the morning after the wedding just wouldn’t have been The Bullshit’s way.

Thankfully I was left with four or five stragglers on each lid, onto which we managed to glue emergency false lashes the following morning. Not that lash-gate was the end of my wedding-day cancer-calamities, of course. Minutes before the ceremony, Mum suddenly gestured to my head. ‘Christ, Lis, your ears,’ she said, panic-stricken. ‘Sort your ears out! They’re poking out of your wig!’

‘Oh for f—,’ I held back the expletive, given the occasion. ‘I can’t pull my wig off
here
,’ I said, tutting like a wounded teenager and turning to Dad. ‘We’re on the front
rowww
; there’s all these
peeeople
!’

‘Right, come here,’ said Dad, leading me off by the elbow to a door to our right and closing it behind us as quietly as the heavy oak would allow.

‘Yess, a mirror,’ I squeaked, ripping off my hat and wig in one movement and starting the process of concealing my baldness all over again – this time with my ears tucked away. ‘Will that do?’

‘Perfect,’ said Dad.

‘What if it happens during my reading?’

‘It won’t happen during your reading, you’ll be fine.’

‘But if it does, right, just point to your ear or something, okay?’

‘Okay, stoopid,’ he agreed, leading me back out into the ceremony with seconds to spare before Leanne appeared at the top of the aisle, all glittery and gorgeous, like a tiny ballerina inside a musical jewellery box.

In the run-up to the wedding, I was concerned about more than just the physical aspect of how I’d feel – and look – on the big day. P and I had got hitched in the same venue, and I fretted that being there again would upset me, in the same way that looking back at our wedding photos makes us realise how little we knew about our future (and thank God we didn’t). But, in fact, none of those things even occurred to me on the day, because the wedding was king; rightfully reigning supreme from Wedding March to first dance. So spectacular was the day that every so often I even forgot I’d got cancer – and that’s
damn
high praise.

Missing lashes and wonky wig aside, the important thing was that, for the first time in months, the occasion wasn’t about me. Yes, people wanted to ask how I was and tell me they were pleased to see me and lie about how well I looked, but this wasn’t my day, so I kept the cancer-talk to a brusque minimum and instead set about the business of being sister of the groom.

And what a groom. Right before my eyes, my kid brother became a man. A confident man; an impressive man; a charming man; a wish-he-was-your-own-brother man. And, thankfully, the kind of man who’d twirl his sister round the dance floor and not take offence when he realised who’d given his best man all those incriminating photocopies.

Seeing Jamie and Leanne get hitched was the prize I’d had my eye on from day one. Every step of The Bullshit up to this point had been geared towards me not just making it there, but having a bloody good time too (mission accomplished). And so, in a way, it felt like the completion of Phase One – now that Jamie and Leanne had become husband and wife, it didn’t just mark a new chapter for them, but one for me, too.

Emotional as it was (not least after a few G&Ts), I tried my best not to cry off my false eyelashes – and I did well until Jamie’s speech. The speeches are the thing that always get me at any wedding – but this one, of course, was that bit more special. Little git that he is, Jamie really went to town on the emotion, pulling on heart strings like a bell-ringer at St Paul’s Cathedral. He said how grateful he was to be marrying into such a lovely family, how stunning the bridesmaids looked, and told how our family had fast become Leanne’s fan club – not least Nan and Grandad who, we all knew, would have loved to have been present to witness their union. He told his new wife how he knew from so early on in their relationship that he just
had
to marry her, and promised her mum that he’d always look after her little girl.

And then, to my surprise, he turned to me. ‘Sis,’ he said, ‘thank you for simply being you. The interest you’ve shown in this wedding when you’ve had so much more to deal with means the world to us both.’ Leanne nodded along, looking at me with beautiful, happy, tear-filled eyes as mine welled up in tandem. ‘And we just want you to know,’ he continued as he cried, ‘that as happy as we feel today, we know that we’ll be even happier when you get the all clear.’

Well, that did it. I was ruined. And as soon as I could take my eyes off my extraordinary brother – which, admittedly,
was
a wee while – I realised that everyone else in the room was ruined, too. There were tissues coming out of every handbag; wet sleeves on every morning suit. But I don’t think it was out of sympathy, or sadness at my situation. For me, at least, it was sheer pride in Jamie – wonderful, selfless Jamie who, on the happiest day of his life, had not only refused to allow the shitty, shitty timing of my cancer nightmare to ruin his wedding, but had been so gracious as to acknowledge its presence in such a considerate, compassionate way. Cancer didn’t deserve that kind of special treatment. Not even his mid-chemo big sister deserved that kind of special treatment. Nothing that carried even a fraction of negativity had the right to encroach on his and Leanne’s wedding, and nobody would have batted a false eyelash if he’d avoided the subject. And yet here we all were, crying off our carefully applied make-up and not giving a stuff.

With our chests puffed out in pride for each other, Jamie and I took our cue to call a halt to the soppy stuff and, mopping up smudged eye-liner and wiping away a plastic eyelash with my tissue, I shook my head in his direction. ‘You bastard,’ I mouthed, to the retort of a middle-finger salute from my brilliant, brilliant brother.

CHAPTER 19

Something changed

A whole week and no blogging. Well, I think that speaks volumes about how this last chemo cycle has been treating me. Except that it doesn’t, really. Not even Shakespeare could explain what it’s been like, so instead I’ll tell you in a far less eloquent way: it’s been fucking horrendous.

My brain has done me the favour of making it impossible to remember just
how
horrific I’ve felt these past few days, but know this (and know it good): it
was
horrific. And while I might not remember enough to tell you about every pain and symptom and effect, I do remember enough to tell you that I just don’t think I can go through it again.