The C-Word (21 page)

I was quick to communicate all of that to Mr Marbles.

‘And you’re married, yes?’ he asked.

‘I am; to P,’ I answered.

‘And are you able to talk to him about any fears or difficulties?’

‘Yes. Absolutely. Yes, of course. He’s wonderful,’ I said, a little too enthusiastically.

‘Well, that’s good,’ he concluded.

‘It
is
good,’ I continued. ‘It’s better than good. It’s perfect. I want you to know how lucky I feel to be in that kind of marriage.’

Just as I didn’t want therapy to force me to deconstruct my relationships with my folks or my family or my friends, I refused to do it with my relationship with P, either. I wasn’t there for that kind of stuff – and I wanted to make it clear from the off.

‘The thing is,’ I said to Marbles, ‘I haven’t come here
because
I don’t have anyone else to talk to. I’ve got plenty of people to talk to. Honestly, aside from this cancer stuff I really am exceptionally lucky. I just don’t want those people to have to hear all of this.’

‘And why is that?’ he asked, scribbling in the notebook that was leaning on his crossed legs.

‘They’ve heard enough of my whinging.’

‘It’s not whinging,’ he said abruptly.

‘Well, whatever it is, I don’t want them to hear it. There are things I need to discuss here that I never want them to be party to. They’ve had enough heartbreak from me, and they don’t deserve any more. Plus, I couldn’t handle the guilt of offloading onto them.’

We continued to talk about the guilt I was feeling generally – about getting cancer in the first place, about the time everyone had given up to look after me, about the hopelessly defeatist things I used to say in the darkest throes of sickness – and about the disappointingly empty anticlimax of finishing chemotherapy.

‘Did you do anything to mark the end of chemo?’ asked Marbles.

‘Well we got the kitten.’ I shrugged. ‘But more than that, no. I didn’t feel it appropriate to celebrate.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, it would have been a bit like throwing a party once you’ve been released from months of being held captive: you’re ecstatic to be out, but nonetheless completely traumatised by what you’ve been through.’

‘That’s a good analogy,’ he said, and I beamed at his compliment in the same arse-licky way I would with Smiley Surgeon.

‘Besides,’ I continued, ‘it’s not over yet, is it?’

Whether or not it was really the conclusion, the goal I had
been
aiming for was not the end of chemo, but instead the last bit of reconstructive surgery the following April – the time, I assumed, at which I’d finally begin to feel like my healthy old self again. Plus, my breast cancer road began with the removal of my left boob, and my finish-line medal was the chance to get it back for good. Of course, the reality is that reconstructive surgery isn’t actually the end. In fact, where grade-three breast cancer is concerned, there is no ‘end’ to speak of. And it was really frustrating to realise that there was never going to be a clearly defined finale to punctuate that period of my life. Especially as you know how much I like to punctuate.

If you don’t count the surgery, it all starts and ends so differently (and by ‘ends’ I mean ‘fizzles out’). Life-changing and heartbreaking and terrifying and shocking and dark and disastrous as the moment is, there’s a ceremony around being told that you have breast cancer. There’s a sombre appointment in a specialist’s office with all manner of people on hand to answer your questions, hand you a tissue and bring you a cup of tea. You get sent cards, flowers, chocolates, books, toiletries, DVDs, magazines, poems, soft toys (if cancer has an upside, surely this is it). You have a seemingly endless stream of visitors. You become the topic of conversation in the offices and pubs and kitchens and inboxes and Facebook walls that you’re suddenly absent from. And it’s the weirdest thing. Nothing is more disconcerting. But there’s no doubting that it all marks a definite, no-question, breast-cancer-begins-here starting point.

So, by that token, wouldn’t it be only fair to have a breast-cancer-ends-here moment? A moment when you can make happier calls and send I’m-free emails and get more flowers and receive celebratory ‘you beat The Bullshit’ cards? But I
think
we’ve already established that nothing about cancer is fair. Cancer is an attention-seeking, party-pooping bitch. It takes over. It takes your hair, your confidence, your social life, your immune system, your figure (the least it could do is make you thin, for fuck’s sake), your energy, your taste buds, your sense of smell, your sex life. And just when you think it’s done as much as it possibly can, it takes away your chance to celebrate the end of it all.

Once you’ve had cancer, no medical professional will ever say the words ‘cancer free’ to you. You’re too much of a risk, and they’d be opening themselves up to a world of trouble if it turned out that the cancer was sneakily plotting a return, as it often does. That’s why the word ‘remission’ comes in so handy. And so, pitifully few cancer experiences end neatly with a concern-free CT scan or a clear set of test results or a finish-it-off bit of surgery, as I pretended mine would. There’s a lifetime of tablets, appointments, tests, scans, mammograms. And while it’s hugely comforting that the NHS doesn’t just spit you back out as soon as you’ve had the necessary treatment, it does seem like a case of once a cancer patient, always a cancer patient.

I like a clear finish, not a fade-out (it’s the reason I’ve always preferred ‘Please Please Me’ to ‘Love Me Do’). I appreciate a wrap-up; a good, old-fashioned full stop. Loose ends don’t sit well with me. But this fade-out was, I had to concede, another thing that I simply had no control over. I couldn’t create a false conclusion to The Bullshit just to satisfy my need for closure. Some things, I guess, aren’t meant to reach a proper finale (hell, there’s never a final episode of
Coronation Street
and that’s never bothered me). I was still determined to punctuate the passing of those strange few months, mind. It just looked like that chapter would have to finish with … instead of.

CHAPTER 23

To boldly go

Something weird happened yesterday. Either I had my radiotherapy planning appointment or I was abducted by aliens. For an actually-pretty-serious hospital appointment, I found this one the most entertaining yet. It was like a cross between
Star Trek
and the ‘Cartman Gets an Anal Probe’ episode of
South Park
. Except instead of a satellite up my jacksie, I’ve been given three very questionable-looking tattoos on my chest. I’d tell you that they’re preferable to an anal probe but actually I’m not so sure, given that I now look like someone’s been playing dot-to-dot in my cleavage with a blue biro.

The rest of the planning appointment was much more space age, thankfully. You gown up and lie topless on a black leather bed (not as S&M as it sounds, I assure you) in the middle of a huge, futuristic room that could easily have dual use as a recording studio on the
Starship Enterprise
. Then the radiographer versions of Captain Kirk and Uhura come out from behind the mixing desk to press buttons on a bunch of different computers that whirr around your body before fixing you into an unnatural position (again, not in a kinky way) that you’ve got to stay in for the next fifty minutes, and for each subsequent twenty-minute
radiotherapy
session. And who’d have thought that years of cheesy discos could prepare you for such an event? Because, for the next six weeks, you’ll be able to find me on a hospital bed doing a stationary version of the ‘YMCA’. Actually it’s more like the YM. Y with the left arm, M with the right. (And it’s a good job, really – I’ve always found C and A to be the trickier parts of the dance.)

So there you lie, unable to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of the situation because the
Enterprise
crew has warned you not to move. And considering the intricate, no-margin-for-error measuring they’re having to do to make sure the rays will always target the right area, I guess it’s fair enough. It was all rulers, angles and trigonometry, with all kinds of crew members looking serious, shouting out numbers and talking to each other in a complicated, technical language (Klingon, perhaps?).

Now don’t get me wrong, they’re very lovely, but the radiotherapy staff are completely different to the chemo crowd. The ‘therapy’ part of each treatment fools you into thinking that the two must somehow be linked, when actually they’re at opposite ends of the cancer stratosphere. In chemo, you can have a bit of a giggle with the nurses while they’re hooking you up to your drip. But radiotherapy seems to be that bit more serious – more of an exact science – so joking about with the staff (while you’re lying on the bed, at least) is a bit like knocking the back of Steve Davis’s snooker cue when he’s about to pot the black for the World Championship.

Anyway, after the acid-trip of hospital appointments, we’re finally all systems go for radiotherapy to begin a week on Monday. And, this Friday aside, I don’t have to go back to the hospital until then. Result or what? I fear I’ll get withdrawal symptoms and start showing up there out of habit. And get this – later this week, I’m even getting the chance to dust off my glad rags to go to an awards do with work. I know! An actual
night
out! (Is it just me, or are things beginning to look up?) Thankfully there’s still one dress in my wardrobe I can fit into. Quite a busty little number, as it goes. I’m secretly hoping someone will pull me to one side and say, ‘Excuse me, love, but you’ve got a biro mark in your cleavage.’

*

WITH CHEMO OUT
of the way, and my health steadily improving before radiotherapy kick-off, there opened a small window in which I could enjoy my mini-break from The Bullshit. And, after five months of enforced sobriety and cancer-captivity, a couple of long-scheduled nights out proved beautiful timing. The first was a yearly industry awards ceremony at which my company had arranged two tables. Anticipating what a big deal this otherwise-standard night would be for me, my boss Kath kept me posted for at least a week with daily emails on what everyone else from the office would be wearing, and arranged a car to collect me on the night.

‘How are you feeling about this, then?’ she asked on the way over.

I bit my lip and furrowed my brow. ‘Nervous. Really nervous.’

‘Nothing to be nervous about,’ quipped Kath. ‘You know how lovely everyone is, and they’re all really looking forward to seeing you.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But the wig. I know a lot of them saw it that day when I came into the office, but you know what it’s like at these things – everyone looking across tables to seek out their ex-colleagues and gawp at who’s wearing what and who’s put on weight and all that. I just hope I don’t see anyone I know, is all.’

‘Well, I’ve put you next to Keith,’ she assured me. ‘And he’s on strict instructions to take you under his wing and look after you.’

‘Ah! Nice one!’ I exclaimed, perking up – Keith being the office Good Guy, and the perfect colleague to be sat next to at these occasions.

‘Mind you, by “looking after you” he’ll probably take that as his cue to get you roaring drunk.’

‘Ha, well it won’t take much,’ I said. ‘Better keep an eye on me, eh?’

Inside the venue, I walked tentatively over to the corner commandeered by our company, tottering precariously on patent heels as though I were four and trying on my mum’s stilettos for the first time. Keith immediately bounded over. ‘Lynchy!’ he roared, his arms wide open as if The Fonz had just walked into the room. ‘You look ace. Come here!’ And he grabbed me for a hug so tight I feared my wig would get irretrievably caught in his watch strap. ‘Ayy, Sarah, look who it is!’ he said, turning to our equally chirpy colleague and pulling her in for a group hug. ‘It’s Lynchy! She’s back in the fold!’

I appreciated Keith’s enthusiasm, and how it seemed to be spreading to everyone else in our corner. People rubbed my shoulders and slapped me on the back and fibbed about how well I looked, and – in light of having read about Sgt Pepper on my blog – a colleague handed me a gift of a cat-shaped doorstop. I should have known that this lovely lot would make me feel instantly comfortable. Nobody talked about cancer, nobody looked at me funny, nobody avoided me … it was just a normal work night out with the usual banter and the usual silliness.

‘See?’ said Sarah. ‘Nothing’s changed!’

‘And ain’t it brilliant?’ I replied.

Having been shortlisted for an award a few months previous (i.e., back when I had hair), I had been asked to provide the organisers with a photo of myself for them to display on the big screen when the nominees were announced. ‘I know I wouldn’t ordinarily be saying this,’ I whispered to Keith during the ceremony, ‘but I really really don’t want to win tonight.’

‘Photo?’ he enquired, bang on the money.

‘Exactly,’ I confirmed. ‘Nobody’ll believe it’s me.’

‘Aw, give over, Lynchy,’ he said, elbowing me. ‘I’m still going to whoop at your name when it’s read out, though.’ And so he did, loudly and proudly, along with everyone else on our two tables, followed by a token ‘bahh’ when another nominee’s name was announced as the award winner. I made a ‘phew’ gesture across the table and, this time at least, I meant it.

The following week saw the wedding of our good friends Sally and Ivan, at which I squeezed myself into some control underwear and stuck on some false eyelashes for a night of self-conscious dancing with the very unself-conscious Busby and her beau, Guy. Having just begun my daily five years’ worth of Tamoxifen, the hormone-therapy drug designed to limit my body’s ability to produce oestrogen, I was immediately suffering from the menopausal side effect of hot flushes, and spent much of the evening running to the loos to fan myself with my wig and run my pressure points under cold water. Busby and I had earlier devised a covert system of checking that my eyelashes weren’t being sweated off so when, as the night drew to a close, she began wildly waving her hands past her eyes on the dancefloor, I understood that she wasn’t, in fact, doing her best impression of Mia Wallace at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, but instead making me aware that my eyelashes
were
dangerously close to falling into a Hitler-style moustache.