The C-Word (9 page)

But all of those things seemed like mere details in comparison to the regrets that P could later come to have about his choice of wife. At our wedding, we’d opted for different
vows
than the usual ‘for better or worse, in sickness and in health’ (luckily). Instead, we promised to care for each other with love and friendship; to support and comfort each other through good times and through troubled times; to respect and cherish each other and to be faithful always. But, on that spectacularly beautiful day in December – a mere eighteen months previous – neither of us could have imagined that those ‘troubled times’ might come to mean all of this.

Thanks to our duo of disappointingly short pregnancies, P and I had, of course, been forced to consider a life that included just the two of us. It mostly involves us watching cricket all over the world, lots of four-poster-bed weekends away, buying a second house in Spain, always going to Glastonbury in a pimped-up camper van, and owning a ridiculously child-unfriendly Zone 1 apartment with a massive roof terrace that’s perfect for parties. Now, that’s not a distant-second-place existence. I LOVE the thought of that life with P. (Jeez, I love the thought of
any
life with P. Stick us in a hut in Hull and we’d still have a good time.) And, even during the bleakest moments of The Bullshit, P would tell me that he felt exactly the same about our alternative future.

But, in that peculiar time of everybody treating me like a china doll, it was difficult to figure out when people were being honest, or avoiding the tricky stuff and instead telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. Even P. I’d bring up my concerns in as breezy a way as I could manage, and every time he’d bat them away like flies around his beer glass.

‘Don’t be so daft,’ he’d protest, stroking my lovely long hair. ‘You’ve got a gorgeous face – and that’s not going to change, is it?’

‘But what about the other stuff?’ I’d ask. ‘I’m not the wife you bargained for. Your life’s hardly turning out the way you thought it would, is it?’

Then he’d dissolve my line of reasoning in an instant, the way only he can. ‘You mean
our
life,’ he’d say, locking his fingers with mine. ‘We’re in this together, remember?’

And I’d smile. And shut up. Because you just can’t argue with that.

CHAPTER 9

The science bit

Let the games commence! I’ve been at the hospital all afternoon and have come out with so much new info that I feel like I’ve had a crash course in another language. The next time you get a difficult cancer question at the pub quiz, consider me your phone-a-friend.

Aware that today marked the entry point to phase two of The Bullshit, I made the emancipatory move of ditching my mastectomy bra for the first time, and proudly wore my wonky chest in a favourite top and bust-skimming pendant necklace with jeans and my I-can-take-anything-on-provided-it-doesn’t-mean-walking-far wedges. Cancer may take my hair, but it’ll never take my fashion sense.

I tottered precariously into the hospital and was handed a pristine-looking file with my name on it that had to accompany me up to a different floor. Being a nosy cow, I had a good look through it while waiting for the lift: it was divided into neat, currently empty sections like ‘histology’, ‘chemotherapy reports’ and ‘radiotherapy reports’. As the lift doors opened onto my floor, I noticed two things: (1) not everyone’s files were so pristine (apparently cancer treatment takes it out on you
and
your
folder), and (2) I was the youngest person in the waiting room by about, ooh, a hundred years. My wedges were wasted on this lot.

After the routine up-the-nose MRSA test, in came The Cavalry, aka the curly-haired professor and his absolutely stunning second-in-command (she’ll be a great help when I’m in full George Dawes mode – couldn’t they have found me a troll-like consultant instead?). And they were both brilliant: the perfect mix of straight-talking without the scariness and empathetic without the head-tilting.

Curly Professor explained that, whatever the results of my CT scan, it would have no bearing on the chemotherapy I’d be having. Whether or not it actually revealed any further spread, he told me that it was best to assume that there
would
be cancer cells elsewhere in my body (thanks to so many lymph nodes being involved), which, oddly, came as quite a comfort. I had been completely cacking it before my scan (which is as close to the World’s Biggest Understatement as you’re likely to get), but hearing this did a lot to ease my worry. There’s huge relief in knowing that, whatever the scan reveals, I’ll be having the right treatment to zap the arse off it anyway.

All that said, my oncologists’ serious looks made everything feel all too real. I wanted to stop them mid-flow and say, ‘Hang on, now, let me get this right. I’ve got
breast cancer
? And you’re about to give me
chemotherapy
? That’s pretty fucking hardcore, no?’ Up to now, it seems, all of this has been a comparative blast when you take a look at the months of toxic treatment ahead. What a bastard.

So here’s the science bit: I’ll begin with three sets of three-weekly cycles of one type of chemo, then have the same number of cycles of a different type. The side-effects that Curly Professor listed didn’t exactly read like a menu of spa treatments, and Glamorous Assistant nodded along sagely
throughout
(actually, she did offer a conciliatory head-tilt at the hair-loss part, since her lovely curly locks rival even the professor’s). Curly Professor was at great pains to point out that they’d be ‘throwing everything at it’, and that, thanks to my age and health, he intended to give me strongest dose of chemo possible. Then out came reams of consent forms to further enhance his point.

In better news, though, he agreed to fix my chemo cycles so that Jamie’s wedding falls in my ‘good week’ (the third week of my cycle), so I can return the favour of dancing with him to an indie classic, and look as glamorous as is possible with no eyelashes and a wig.

Later at the hospital, there was my CT scan to keep my mind off the size of the chemo needles, and it was far more entertaining than it should have been. Lying on a moving bed in a futuristic white room while a tunnel-like machine scanned my body made me feel a bit like Kanye West in the ‘Stronger’ video (but wearing a nasty NHS gown instead of white boxer shorts). And even the injection during the scan was a bit of a giggle, thanks to its rather unusual consequences: since when has feeling like you’ve pissed yourself been an acceptable side-effect? It was the strangest thing, and pretty bloody embarrassing to boot. Just to clarify, I didn’t
actually
piss myself. It just felt like I had. I’d like to be able to tell you that I’ve never pissed myself, but there was that regrettable little accident I once had on a ski slope in my salopettes, thanks to my snail-paced snowplough not getting me to the loo on time.

I got to have a quick look around the chemo room, too. And, I’ll be honest, it was hardly soothing music, essential oils and people in fluffy white dressing gowns. But nor was it a scene from
The Exorcist
. Some poor sods looked pretty bloody poorly, but others looked like they’d just waltzed out of Selfridges. Ever keen to do things my way (or no way at all), I’ve decided not to
be
a cancer patient, but instead a mere guest who’s booked herself in for a relaxing day in the Therapy Suite. I’m going to turn up in huge sunglasses, comfy jeans, a kick-ass T-shirt and my sparkly new Converse trainers, with my Marc Jacobs tote in one hand and my iPhone in the other, and completely ignore the real reason I’m there. Ladies and gentlemen, breast cancer just got fabulous.

*

‘THAT’S NOT LIKE
you,’ said P as I stood in my knickers, straightening my hair at the foot of the four-poster bed in our magnificent hotel in the Ashdown Forest where we’d gone for our pre-chemo romantic night away. I furrowed my brow.

‘Eh? How do you mean?’

‘You. That,’ he said, sprawled across the bed reading the newspaper in his complimentary robe. ‘In your knickers. Parading around, uninhibited. Don’t get me wrong, babe, I’m enjoying it. But it’s just not like you, is all. Look, the curtains are even open.’

‘Meh, it’s only deer out there anyway.’ I shrugged, but P had a point. It wasn’t like me at all.

You see, I’ve spent as long as I can remember wishing I looked different. As a kid, I loathed my super-curly, strawberry-blonde (okay, ginger) hair. I was hardly blessed with a good set of gnashers either. In fact, that’s another huge understatement, so I’ll instead use the words of my dad, who chose his father-of-the-bride speech to announce that I had ‘teeth like Ronaldinho’. At twelve, I convinced myself that I was the hairiest girl in the second year, and threatened to ring ChildLine when Mum refused to let me shave my legs. By thirteen, I had become quite obsessed
with
the agonisingly slow rate at which my boobs were growing. (Turns out having tits isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.) By fourteen, it was all about the acne. At fifteen, I swore off short skirts on account of my wonky left knee. By sixteen, I was more concerned with the size of my arse (no change there). And ever since, it’s been everything from my enormous thighs, wobbly arms and T-shaped belly button to my cankles, fat fingers and big toenails (some funny bastard once told me they looked like satellite dishes).

So how, then, with visible surgery scars across my back and under my armpit, a deflated left tit and a circle of back-skin where my nipple should be, had my self-confidence suddenly increased to the point of going topless before a herd of wild animals? Maybe it was because I was feeling better than I had done since my op. Maybe it was the antioxidant-tastic diet recommended by Smiley Surgeon. Or maybe it was my last hurrah before chemo did its worst. Whatever the reason, as steam came off the hair I was straightening the life out of, I wished I had the chance to go back to my thirteen/fourteen/fifteen-year-old self, give her a good shake and tell her not to be so bloody self-conscious.

‘Anyway,’ I said to P as I pulled on a posh frock for our dinner that evening, ‘you ought to be making the most of my
hair
, not my body. In two days’ time, mister, you’re going to have yourself a short-haired wife.’

P leaned forward on the bed, brushing aside the sport section of his paper. ‘Well, can my long-haired wife get over here, then, so I can make the most of her before dinner?’

Every website and leaflet and message board I’d exhaustively pored over since my diagnosis had recommended that the best thing to do before chemo was to cut your hair
short
. They said it would make the hair loss less traumatic if I didn’t have to wake up to long strands on my pillow, and apparently it’d make me feel as though I was ‘regaining control’. But, on the morning of my cut, as I cried at my reflection while straightening my shoulder-blade-length hair for the last time, in control was the last thing I was feeling.

My super-supportive (even for the seemingly ridiculous hair stuff) friend Tills had planned the perfect Chemo Cut day: an antioxidant-filled lunch, the haircut and then a spot of shopping to buy something to suit my new style. On the cab ride into town, I studied every passing woman’s haircut – just as I had done with their boobs before my mastectomy. Who could carry off what style? Was it the long-haired or the short-haired women who got the most male attention? (Neither, as it goes – but apparently hot-pants can do a lot to help.)

Tills saw me through the window as I pulled up outside the café. A nanosecond’s glance at my face told her all she needed to know, but rather than pander to my nerves, she set to pointing out sexy, short styles in magazines and telling me how fabulous I’d look.

The lure of a glass of champagne was the only thing that got me over the threshold of the swanky-yet-intimidating salon at which she’d booked the appointment, but when it became clear that their head stylist instinctively knew what would suit me (and recognised that I was as nervous as Pete Doherty in a customs bust), the whole experience became more fun than fearful. My best-ever hairdressers experience, in fact.

To save me from full-on scary shortness, the hairdresser recommended a compromise of a graduated bob that was short and funky yet feminine and, frankly, fabulous. So
fabulous
, in fact, that I hurriedly emailed a bunch of my mates, asking them to join me in a pub the following night – a sneaky ploy to (a) take my mind off chemo the following day and (b) ensure they saw me looking my best before the chemo drugs rode roughshod over my appearance.

As part of my diversionary tactics in the meantime, I arranged to meet P outside our favourite local restaurant that night. Sitting on a bench outside – not our usual spot – to sip a spritzer in the sun, I watched as he walked down the hill towards me, completely oblivious that it was his wife outside the restaurant. He even reached out to open the front door, then turned left to double-take the girl beside him. ‘Oof!’ he exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘Wow, you look so young!’

‘Shall I take that as a compliment, then?’

‘Yes! Hell, yes,’ said P, getting a better look by tilting my head with his hand on my chin. ‘But bloody hell, I’m not half going to look old beside you.’

‘Not to worry, love. I’m not half going to look bald beside you.’

‘Oh shut up,’ he said, shooting me a disapproving sideways glance.

‘Shut up’ seemed to be everybody’s answer to my hair-loss gags. Not least the group of friends I met in the pub the following night. I found myself back in full-on compere mode – as I had been in the hospital after my mastectomy – being impossibly smiley, making wisecracks, giving the people what they wanted. ‘Get me while you can, folks,’ I said, wafting a hand past my new hair as though I were in a shampoo advert. ‘By the time this little lot’s fallen out, I’m never going out again.’

The new barnet went down pretty well with my mates. And by ‘pretty well’, I mean that I walked out of the pub
with
an ego the size of Texas. And by ‘walked’ I mean stumbled – my two-glass limit was more than enough to see me tipsy. (Apparently, chemo nerves + minimal alcohol = bumbling idiot.) I drunkenly waxed lyrical to P all the way home about what brilliant mates I’ve got, how I wanted my normal life back as soon as possible so I could carry on pissing about in pubs with them, how fortunate I was to be going through The Bullshit with such an amazing support network (sheesh, I must have been drunk – I said ‘support network’), and how, despite The Bullshit, I still considered myself the luckiest lass in the world. It might have sounded more impressive and heartfelt had I not followed it up with a range of comedy accents.