The C-Word Read online

  ‘You bastard,’ I said, nudging her with my shoulder. ‘Don’t you know I’ve got cancer?’

  CHAPTER 4

  The longest day

  It’s summer solstice, the longest day of the year. I’ve been up for little over an hour and already I know that this is the bleakest, lowest, blackest, most miserable day of my life.

  Last night I sent my parents back up the motorway, thinking that P & I needed time alone. And it turns out we do need it, but actually with the safety of knowing that they’re around too, fussing in the background. We’re heading up to theirs as soon as I’ve published this blog post.

  Today I’m struggling to locate my fighting force. I literally cannot cope. I’ve probably said that sentence some time before – perhaps after the deaths of my dear Nan and Grandad … revising for my A levels … just before the play-off final … or when I discovered my boyfriend in bed with his ex. Whenever I’ve said it before, it wasn’t true. I did cope then. Right now I’m just not.

  I find myself actually looking forward to surgery next week. I WANT THIS THING OUT OF ME. Cut me open, take my nipple, take the lot, scar me right up. Just get. it. out.

  As terrifying as it seemed yesterday, right now I want to be in chemo, feeling like shit and losing my lovely long hair. ANYTHING must be better than being in the midst of this dark, pathetic, can’t-do-anything-about-it bullshit. But my hair and my tit can go now, and the sooner the better, because that’ll mean that something’s getting fixed.

  *

  HAVING GONE TO bed giggling the night before, it’s probably no surprise that the reality came back to bite us on the ass the following morning. And boy, did it hurt. Our Saturday-morning routine normally involves the kind of duvet-based fun that my nineteen-year-old self would have rolled her eyes at: tea and toast in bed, newspapers, Saturday Kitchen on the telly and a cheeky bit of T-Rex before going shopping for that night’s dinner ingredients. It’s a lovely little custom – morning glory at its finest – and P and I are unapologetic about it being our favourite moment of the week. This Saturday, however, was different. Just as you wake up the first time after learning of a loved one’s death, the devastating reminder of my invasive tumour shook us awake, trespassing on our marital bed, not even allowing us that blissful split-second of ignorance before the horrible weight of reality crushes you beneath its iron duvet. It was as though cancer was punishing us for not appreciating its gravity the night before.

  I cried immediately after waking. ‘I don’t want to do this,’ I whimpered into P’s naked shoulder. ‘I don’t think I can.’ I looked up to see his beautiful face wet with tears.

  ‘But you must,’ he croaked. ‘You must. You must. You must. You must …’ He wept more with every command and I realised for the first time that it wasn’t just me who’d had this diagnosis – it was us: Me and P. Team Lynch. We were always ready to catch whatever was thrown our way. But this? This wasn’t a gas bill or a gazumped flat or even another miscarriage. This had the potential to ruin it all. To put an end to me and P. To cut short our flawless marriage to a mere eighteen months. We howled loudly and messily into one another’s pillows, grasping onto each other’s bare skin as though letting go would mean admitting defeat so soon.

  I threw back the sheets and staggered into the living room, hanging my head out of the window for air as though suffocated by the grief that was swallowing up our bedroom. Early-morning June sun peeped cheerily around the clouds, seemingly sticking its middle finger up at me and my life-endangering problems. The curtain rail wobbled precariously as I angrily swept the drapes back shut, furiously declaring to the world outside, ‘This is the worst moment of my life.’

  Look what it had done to us. Look what it was doing to our Saturday-morning routine. How fucking dare it. And look what it was yet to do – bursting our newlywed bubble, stealing a necessary part of my body then ruining what was left, forcing awful memories upon us, robbing us of our optimism. But most of all, this was supposed to be our time. How dare this thing encroach on our perfect, perfect time?

  The fumes of our shattered morning left us unable to breathe. We had to get out. Throwing what we could into a holdall, we joined the travelling weekenders on the M40, tearing up the motorway to a place where, at least, there’d be someone to make us tea and run us a bath – the simple tasks we were suddenly incapable of doing. Mum and Dad were at the door to meet us, with Jamie and his fiancée Leanne two sheepish steps behind; all four of them doing what they could to disguise red eyes.

  ‘I’m doing dinner tonight,’ said Jamie.

  ‘As if you hadn’t suffered enough,’ added Dad, his characteristic teasing concealing a broken heart. Jamie and Leanne pushed everyone aside to envelop me with hugs; the kind of hugs that last a few seconds too long; the kind of hugs that suggest they’re worried they might lose you.

  ‘Meh,’ I said, rubbing each of them on a shoulder by way of both comforting them and playing down the situation’s seriousness. ‘This is all going to be fine. Now, who’s making me a brew?’

  In another conversation I hadn’t been party to, a plan of attack had clearly been agreed to keep this night as jovial as possible. Jamie was his usual hilarious self, turning Jamie Oliver to make chicken skewers and batting away Mum’s interferences with a sarcasm that suggested she never used her kitchen herself. Leanne talked about her forthcoming nuptials, making bets on whether she or Jamie would come off worst from the hen/stag weekends. I suggested that, since I’d be bald for their ceremony, perhaps I should go for some laughs and give my reading in a funny accent, too.

  We ate our chicken and reminisced about childhood memories. Of Jamie entering a talent show as a Michael Jackson impersonator, then collapsing into tears when he took the stage. Of the many mornings at Nan and Grandad’s house, making tents beneath clothes horses, creating crazy golf courses in the garden and picking trodden-in Play-Doh out of the carpet. And of the time Mum left me on the potty to answer a phone call, only to wonder where I’d got the chocolate that was smeared around my mouth when she returned. Leanne’s eyes almost burst out of her head; she was the only person in the room who hadn’t previously been aware of my filthy secret. Ordinarily I’d be in bits about such an admission, but on that day my folks got away with it. Because, even if it took the revelation of my shit-eating, this was as good an example as any of my wonderful family’s ability to crack a joke in any situation – and, by ’eck, was I grateful.

  CHAPTER 5

  New balls, please

  The day before a mastectomy ought to be nervy and fretful and can’t-eat-anything worrying. But I’ve never been one for doing things the right way around. Instead, I’ve spent the day before my mastectomy staring at Rafael Nadal’s arse.

  A particularly canny ex-boss with friends in all the right places had clearly anticipated that Mastectomy Eve had the potential to be a horribly squeaky-bum day, and thus wangled two front-row, number-one-court Wimbledon tickets for P and I, as a means of taking our minds off tomorrow’s boob-removal. And what a terrific distraction it proved to be.

  By ‘it’, of course, I mean Rafa’s beautiful behind. Round, honed, perfectly peachy. You could sink your teeth into it. If you’d spotted me on the TV coverage, you’d have noticed that mine was the only transfixed head not following the ball from one side of court to the other. I became almost as obsessed with Rafa’s bottom as I have recently with other people’s boobs. I’m not ogling them, mind you – it’s research. (And girls, that’s the one time in your life when you can believe that line.) It was bound to happen. With all the chest-talk of late, I’ve quickly become a mammary meister. But seriously – when it comes to my new-look chest, will I be the Elephant Woman?

  I worked myself up into a panic about that yesterday, while P and I snogged our way round London on an open-top bus (his tactic to divert my attention from tomorrow’s inevitable). Will he still fancy me after the mastectomy (man, I hate that word), when I’m all stitched and swollen and unnatural-feeling and san
s nipple? And, more to the bloody point, will he still fancy me when I’m pale and hairless, and bloated from the steroids? So lovely is P that he’s offered to shave his head when my hair falls out. But I’ve told him not to – he’s so darned handsome it’ll ruin his looks, and I like him the way he is. And how ridiculous is that, eh?

  *

  ‘IF ONE MORE person tells me to be strong,’ said P on the morning of my mastectomy as we drove to the fertility clinic, ‘I’m going to use what little is left of my strength to strangle the motherfucker.’ I giggled, relieved that we were somehow able to turn our situation into an in-joke, just for us. But P’s frustration was bang on the money. All we’d heard for the past few days was ‘be strong’, ‘hang in there’, ‘stay positive’, ‘you can do it’ … and to say it was doing our heads in was as much of an understatement as saying that I’d rather not lose my hair.

  Once the initial shock settles in (which is a fib in itself, since it never really settles in) people’s reactions naturally turn from stunned to helpful. But there are, of course, varying degrees of helpful. To me, helpful was being sent books and magazines and DVDs. Helpful was being given front-row tickets to Wimbledon. Helpful was not being treated any differently; not being looked at with a tilted head; not being thought of as a patient. (To this day, I still inflict death-stares on anyone who dares show purposeful concern about how I’m feeling. Even a simple ‘are you all right, love?’ has me itching to exact revenge with an evil Jedi mind trick.) And helpful was definitely not urging me to ‘stay positive’ (as though I hadn’t considered that option already), and meeting my cancer news with the baffling ‘I’m sure you won’t let it beat you’. (‘You’re sure? Because, I’ve got to admit, I’m on the fence.’)

  But therein lies The Trouble With Cancer #1: however well-meaning or frustrating or enlightening or pointless or thoughtful their words may be, nothing anyone says can change the fact that you’ve got cancer. I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful bitch here – even ‘don’t let it beat you’ is better than saying nothing at all. And by no means am I suggesting that I’ve got a perfect record in reacting to other people’s shitty news. I mean, who does know what to say in those situations? As a teenager, I took a call from my then boyfriend’s mum to tell me the horrible news that his dad had died. I didn’t know what to say. I said I couldn’t believe it. I said I was sorry. And then, inexplicably, I asked if she needed any milk. Because the correct reaction to someone’s husband dying is, of course, ‘Shit, what if she can’t make a brew?’

  And so, you see, I’m the last person to be giving a lecture on the right way to react to bad news. Which brings me on to The Trouble With Cancer #2: the answer to what’s best to say is, of course, different for everyone. Some people might want to be ignored. Some may want fawning sympathy (‘poor you, must be awful’). Some might prefer outright anger (‘I can’t fucking believe this is happening to you’). But what did I want? Well, of all the messages I received, anything that was quietly understanding (‘love you, thinking of you, no need to reply’), funny (‘don’t worry, sis, I’ll visit you on the weekends … well, as long as Derby aren’t playing at home’) or put gossip above cancer (‘someone just told me that Cher gets her arse vacuumed’) pretty much hit the spot.

  But of all of the reactions to my bullshit news, my favourite by far was from an ex-colleague. ‘Breast cancer?’ he said, stunned. ‘That’s awful … you’ve got such magnificent breasts.’ (Applause.)

  ‘And they’ll be magnificent again,’ I told him, more for my own benefit than his. Because, much as I’d convinced myself that losing a boob was nothing on losing my hair (which is faintly ridiculous, when you think about it), I’d have been lying if I’d said that I was anything less than terrified about the removal of my beautiful left tit.

  The days prior to my op had thankfully been so filled with activity that I’d barely had time to fart, let alone reflect on what I was set to lose. But after waking up that morning to a breakfast of tears instead of toast, followed by brave face instead of bran flakes, it had suddenly become all too real. Before pulling on my black-and-white checked dress (I didn’t think colourful florals were appropriate for such an occasion), I stood topless in front of my bedroom mirror. ‘So this is it, then,’ I whispered to my favourite boob. ‘It’s time for you to go.’ And, fumbling with numb fingers to button up my outfit, that was the last I saw of my left tit. I didn’t look down while my surgeon drew on his pre-op markings. I didn’t catch a peek from the corner of my eye when changing into my hospital gown. I left it behind right there and then, as though waving it off on a station platform without turning back as the train pulled away.

  ‘Bloody hell, this is posh,’ said P as we pulled up outside the front door of the grand, Victorian fertility clinic on Harley Street. The surgeon who’d diagnosed me had referred us here, assuring us that the expert we were about to see was our best chance of helping us freeze my eggs before chemo blasted them into obliteration. Uncomfortable in such imposing surroundings, we did our best to disguise our northern accents when checking in with the receptionist, minding our p’s and q’s and sitting up straight in the oak-panelled waiting room that looked more like a private school headmaster’s office than a holding room for fertility-challenged couples.

  ‘You must be Mr and Mrs Lynch,’ said the Egg Man (which wasn’t difficult to deduce, given that we were the only people in the waiting room). We nodded, following him into another equally impressive room and listening intently as he explained that time was of the essence, and that our best shot at gathering suitable eggs would be for me to have a course of hormones to boost their production. ‘But all of this is hypothetical right now,’ explained the Egg Man, looking up from a desk so huge you could have played snooker on it. ‘It all depends on what the professor learns about the nature of your tumour later on today.’

  P furrowed his brow to match mine. ‘Sorry, um, I’m not – we’re not …’ he began, in a purposeful, alien voice that disguised his Liverpool roots. (The question in his head, I assumed, was, ‘What the frig are you on about, la?’)

  ‘Depending on the histology results, the professor may decide, for instance, that it’s safe to delay your chemotherapy by a few weeks in order to have this course of hormones,’ continued the Egg Man, unconsciously marking dots on his notepad with a Biro. ‘That’s assuming the tumour is only where we believe it to be. And then there’s the matter of whether or not the tumour is hormone receptive. If so, it might not be sensible to pump you full of oestrogen if that’s what’s caused the problem in the first place.’

  ‘Well, no,’ I agreed. ‘So, then – let me get this straight. If my cancer is oestrogen receptive, I shouldn’t have the hormone treatment. And if it isn’t, we can go ahead with it.’

  ‘Provided the tumour is only where we believe it to be,’ he repeated.

  ‘Well, yes. Right,’ I said, superstitiously tapping his wooden desk. ‘And how will you find this out?’ I asked, more concerned about inter-hospital administration than the actual histology report.

  ‘The professor will ring me with the result.’

  ‘That’s okay then,’ I concluded, satisfied that the critical details of my tumour weren’t being sent to him via carrier pigeon or telepathy or somesuch.

  ‘I can’t think about any of that shit right now,’ I said to P as we made our way from the fertility clinic to the hospital. ‘There’s just no room in my head.’

  He moved his hand from around my waist to the small of my back – as he did on the day of my diagnosis, as he always does when trying to protect me – and said, ‘That’s fine, babe. One thing at a time, eh?’ I grabbed his hand tightly as we walked up the ramp to the hospital entrance, wheeling behind us the suitcase that we’d normally take on romantic weekend escapes.

  Before showing me to my room, my professor’s nurse introduced me to the sister on my ward. ‘This is Lisa,’ she said. ‘She’s here for her mastectomy.’

  A frown appeared over
the top of her spectacles as Sister looked suspiciously from my face to my bust, as though we might have been having her on about the breast cancer. I knew the look in her eye. The ‘but she’s so young’ look. I’d later come to see that same look in the oncology clinic and the chemo room and the wig shop. ‘Oh,’ she said, devoid of emotion. ‘I see.’

  Clocking the potential awkwardness of the situation, my nurse quickly led me away, changing the subject with talk of how, prior to my op, she’d be accompanying me and Prof – I loved how she called him ‘Prof’ – to a clinic round the corner so that I could be injected with the radioactive dye that would determine whether the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes (known in the trade as a ‘sentinel node biopsy’, fact-fans).

  ‘So how are you feeling?’ Prof asked, as the three of us climbed into a people carrier that was parked outside the front of the hospital.

  ‘Oh, y’know.’ I grinned. ‘I’m fine. Great.’ I smiled a little wider, wondering whether it was the dread that was forcing me into being so cheery, or the fact that this man was about to remove from my body the tumour that was threatening to see me off before I’d even hit thirty. Probably the latter, I figured. (Hell, if you can’t be nice to the man who’s about to save your life, you’ve got to wonder whether your life is worth saving at all.) ‘How’s your week been, anyway?’ I asked, keen both to force normal conversation and to suck up to my surgeon. ‘Have you been working every day?’

  ‘Oh, not every day,’ he said. ‘I had a day at Wimbledon this week.’

  ‘Ooh! Me too! I went yesterday!’ I squealed. ‘Who did you see?’

  ‘Ladies.’ He paused. ‘I can’t understand why they grunt like that,’ he said, as I basked in the appreciation of being able to enjoy a chat about grunting tennis players immediately before the most worrying event of my life. ‘There really is no anatomical reason why they need to do it,’ he continued. ‘It’s off-putting, don’t you think?’