The only thing I knew I definitely could do was pray, so I prayed then like never before. In the days of waiting, it made me feel as if I was able to do something small for her. And I made a desperate bargain: Take me, God. Don’t take Sarah. Make her well and do what you want to me. I can handle it. I know I can cope, I’ve done it before. She’s too young for this. If someone has to suffer let it be me. Take me in exchange for her. Take me.
Ger dropped in on his way to work each morning, and after I had taken Julie to school I went and sat by her bedside all day. Later in the day I would pick Julie up again, then the both of us would go and chat with her until it was time for Julie to go home to bed. It broke my heart to see her lying there so scared, waiting for yet another test, but we did our utmost to keep her spirits up. Somehow word spread around the village, neighbours and friends called in non-stop to see how she was doing, and it seemed to me as if every kid in Malahide came to visit her in the ward. She even celebrated her sixteenth birthday there, with helium balloons, two cakes and more presents than she had ever received. I realized all her friends thought she was dying.
I was worried that having a party in the hospital would disturb the older patients, but they were so accepting.
‘No, love, let her be. She’s life in the ward. It does us good to see her.’ They were more than accepting. These thin, wasted souls yearned for the invigorating energy of young people. They loved Sarah, I could see. And she had them wrapped around her little finger.
Happily, Sarah’s headaches gradually disappeared, and she presented no new signs. Then finally we were given the results of all the tests.
‘Mrs Bohan, your daughter has an arachnoid cyst on the left anterior wall of her brain. It is possibly left over from the embryonic stage, but in any event because of the location we have decided not to remove it – unless in the future she becomes severely affected by it.’
‘Oh, thank you so much!’ I shook the hand of the neurosurgeon who gave us the news. ‘That’s wonderful news.’ Sarah was beaming.
‘Do you need to see her back again for check-ups or anything?’
‘Yes, we’ll need to see her every four months or so, and of course you should come in immediately if there are any problems.’
Naturally I was overwhelmed with relief, but at the same time knew this would now be a constant worry: I would always be on the look out for new signs of trouble, and I would certainly never ignore any of her headaches again.
‘WELLCOM HOM SARAH!!!’ read the banner on our front door. Julie was thrilled to have her big sister back, and that night we had a little celebration at home.
‘Mum, Dad, can I have another birthday party now I’m back home?’ she asked. ‘That wasn’t really a proper party in the hospital.’
‘Of course you can,’ we smiled, knowing that at that moment we would have given her the sun, the moon and the stars.
As I sank into bed that night I thanked God fervently for answering my prayers and keeping her safe and well.
One month later I discovered a lump in my own breast.
Chapter Twelve
Every Woman’s Nightmare
‘It can’t be,’ I said to myself as I felt under my arm for the hundredth time. It was – I had to admit – a definite lump, around two centimetres in diameter. Gerard was at work and the children were at school – there was no one to ask, no one to tell me I was imagining it, no one to make me feel normal. There it was again – hardish, rather sore. Nasty lumps aren’t meant to be sore, but my lymphoma had been sore so what did that prove? I sat on the bed to think. I had been cancer-free for twelve years, and after five years you are considered ‘cured’, so it seemed unlikely that this was a tumour. (I did not know then that I had a far greater chance of developing cancer again than someone who had never had cancer.) I thought of the million times I had checked myself over the past twelve years – usually in the bath or shower, when I was alone with myself. I was assiduous – I would check not just my breasts and groin but every single part of me. When you have had cancer you live with it and the possibility of its return every day of your life. Yet I was shocked at finding this lump. I felt it again and frowned. Perhaps I had pulled a muscle at the gym. Perhaps it was part of the lumpiness I often felt before a period. Whatever it was, I did not like it.
‘Ger, would you come up here?’ I called, as soon as I heard his key in the door that evening. The children were asleep and he was late home. I’d thought of nothing else all afternoon.
‘What is it?’ he asked, sensing the urgency in my voice.
‘I’ve found a lump …’ he was by my side in a trice, ‘here.’ He felt it, and nodded.
‘Hmm. I see what you mean. Look, of course you’re worried, anyone would be, with your history,’ he tried to reassure me. ‘But I’m sure it’s nothing – you couldn’t be unlucky enough to get hit a second time. Put it out of your mind until you can get it checked out.’
‘I’ll wait until my period comes to see if it goes away – it might just be the time of the month.’
‘OK, but don’t mess around, Bernie. Don’t wait too long.’
A few days later I saw my GP, who got on the phone instantly. He discovered that my usual oncologist was on holiday at that time, so he booked me in for an appointment with another specialist.
This doctor was young and fresh-faced. He smiled nervously as he examined me. I ought to be the nervous one, I thought.
‘I think I’ll just do a needle biopsy,’ he said. ‘It’s a simple procedure in which I remove a few cells from the lump and send them off to the lab for analysis.’ I was surprised that he could do it then and there, but pleased that the first step was being taken this quickly. I felt a deep stab of pain as the needle went in – after all the injections and tests I had had before, this one felt particularly sore, perhaps because the needle was going into one of the softest, most personal parts of my body. I shut my eyes and pretended I wasn’t there. As he transferred the contents of the syringe to a slide he carried on talking.
‘The results of a test like this aren’t always conclusive, so don’t be surprised if we call you back for a further test, what we call a core biopsy.’
‘Should I be worried? I’m about to go on holiday for two weeks.’
‘Oh no, we won’t get the results until next Tuesday anyway, and if we need to book you in for another test that can wait until your return. Are you going somewhere nice?’
I explained that we were going to Fuerte Ventura, in the Canaries. We hadn’t had a holiday for some time and although Richard couldn’t come with us – he was going off to Greece with his friends later in August – the girls were really excited. He asked me how old the children were, and then he told me that he had been two years ago with his girlfriend and had had a wonderful time surfing – the waves were superb.
‘I don’t expect I’ll be doing much of that! In fact I don’t know how I’m going to relax at all with this hanging over me.’
‘Try and put it out of your mind and give us a call when you get back. Have a lovely holiday – and don’t spend it worrying.’
Yet it was with a heavy heart that I set off on that year’s family holiday. Not that I was normally the superstitious kind, but there did seem to be an awful parallel with that other holiday twelve years ago when we discovered the first lump. It was June again, we were off to the Canary Islands again, and Julie was now just about the same age as Sarah had been then. Surely, surely, this could not be happening all over again?
Sensible, practical Gerard wouldn’t hear of this ‘déjà vu’ talk – and he did his best to keep up all our spirits that fortnight.
He couldn’t stop me from phoning the hospital, though, on the Tuesday I knew the test results would be in. I made the call from a café near our beach, and it was a bad line. It took the hospital some time to put me through to the doctor, and I could barely hear his voice.
‘Mrs Bohan? Yes, we have your results here – but as I predicted we are going to hav
e to get you back in again for the core biopsy.’ I froze. What did this mean? The pips went and I fumbled in my shorts’ pocket for more coins, dropping some on the floor in my hurry.
‘Are you still there?’ he was shouting, but faint.
‘What is it? Is it the cancer back?’ I made myself say the words.
‘Look, it is standard practice; it doesn’t mean there is anything sinister there. We’ll see you at the end of the month. Don’t worry.’ I put the phone down: I was running out of coins and he wasn’t going to tell me what I wanted to hear. Making my way slowly back to where the others were waiting on the beach, I wondered what to tell them. I desperately needed to talk about this, but I didn’t want to ruin their holiday. I didn’t want to ruin mine either – perhaps it was just a routine test, after all. Spotting them in the distance I increased my pace and jogged off to join them.
When I reached them, panting, Gerard raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘Well?’
I shrugged my shoulders and said simply: ‘I have to go back.’ He wrapped me in his arms right there, in the middle of the beach, and said, ‘It doesn’t mean anything – yet. Try not to let it get to you. Whatever happens, we’re all together and we all love you.’
Later that day I was lying on a beach towel while Sarah put sun cream on my back. She and I were good companions that holiday – Julie and Ger were always off rushing in and out of the waves and building castles with great moats for the sea to swallow. Julie was an active, happy little girl and adored playing games with her Dad. Sarah was sixteen and just entering that stage when girls turn into women and start to gain at least a veneer of understanding of how the adult world works. She loved hearing stories from my childhood, about her aunts and uncles, and about how I met Gerard. She was just beginning to go out with boys herself and was fascinated by other people’s relationships, so in a way it was a bit like having a girlfriend on holiday with me.
But that afternoon I could think of nothing but the lump, and my conversation with the doctor, and what might follow a core biopsy. I was loath to burden Sarah with too much knowledge, but perhaps there was a way I could prepare her gently.
‘Sarah, pet, do you have any memory of when I was sick all those years ago?’
‘Yes, sort of. I remember you couldn’t walk very well and you got fat. I know you had cancer of the something. But you took some tablets and got well again, didn’t you?’
‘I did, yes. But I have another lump now and I’m worried. I don’t know what I’ll do if the cancer has returned.’
She turned her big green eyes on me, and they were full of love and understanding. ‘Don’t worry, Mum, everything will be all right. Really it will.’ She sounded so grown-up, so confident, so reassuring. I desperately wanted to believe her.
As it turned out, everything was far from all right.
On our return from the Canaries I was called in for a mammogram – apparently they wanted to explore every avenue before my oncologist returned. Gerard was busy that day and could not get out of work, so I asked my friend Grace to come with me. Grace is one of my best friends and was a fantastic support during the months ahead – whatever was happening she and I always managed to have a good bit of craic together. Having a mammogram is an extraordinary experience, quite unlike a normal X-ray where you lie prone on a table. Standing next to the machine, I had to lean forward and put as much of my breast as I could onto a glass plate, and it was then squashed as flat as a pancake by another hard plate. I have small breasts and this was not an easy manoeuvre.
‘The compression may cause some discomfort,’ advised the radiographer as she saw me wince. Discomfort, I thought, that weasel word again.
‘It is important for us to obtain maximum compression in order to achieve good resolution on the mammograms. Otherwise we may miss small lesions.’ Fair enough, I grimaced, but hurry up. Was I imagining it, or was the breast with the lump sorer than the other one?
The X-ray pictures were developed immediately and were examined by the radiographer. As I got dressed I looked at the pictures on the screen. I could make out a distinct lump but it did not seem to be connected to anything – perhaps it was just a cyst.
‘What do you think?’ I asked her.
‘Oh, I only take the pictures. You’ll have to talk to your doctor about what they mean. My job is to make sure they’re not blurred. I’ll pass them along to the radiologist who will send a report to your surgeon. I expect you’ll hear from him with the results in a few days.’
I was making the children their breakfast a few days later when the phone rang. It was my oncologist’s secretary. He was still on holiday but his office was in charge of my notes.
‘Hello, Claire,’ I said, instantly on my guard. ‘What’s the news?’
‘We’d like you to go to the public hospital this morning for the results of your mammogram and to have the core biopsy.’
‘Why do I need to go to that hospital? Can’t I wait until he is back from holiday?’
‘Well, there’s no need to keep you waiting for him. I’m sure you want to get the results as soon as possible.’ She was giving nothing away, but I was heartened by her positive, sunny tone.
There was no time to organize a babysitter for Julie that morning – but I called Gerard and thankfully he was able to come with us to the hospital and had arranged to keep the rest of the day free. We agreed to meet outside, and I was pleased to see him arrive early despite the Dublin traffic. As we walked into the hospital Ger asked me how I was feeling.
‘Fine, actually. I think they have been extra-careful with me because of my history. Having a core biopsy is routine, and I couldn’t see anything suspicious on the X-ray. Maybe I’m wrong, but Claire sounded quite jolly this morning – I know her so well I’m sure I would have picked up on any problems.’ Julie was running ahead down the corridor, looking into all the open doors. We were out of breath when we eventually reached the unfamiliar waiting room.
‘Let’s have a barbecue tonight,’ said Ger after we had announced ourselves to the receptionist.
‘Yes, let’s do that. We’ll shop at Superquinn on the way back.’
‘OK, and can we stop off at the garden centre? I’d like to get some plants and start on the far left corner in the garden. And I need some bits at the hardware shop.’ We chatted for a while about our other plans for the day – it was unusual for us to have a whole day together and it would be good to get all the various little household jobs done.
‘I wish they’d hurry up. I want to get on,’ grumbled Gerard after nearly an hour. ‘Look at all these other people waiting.’ At least Julie was unconcerned about the wait, watching the tropical fish in a tank in the corner of the room.
Finally my name was called. I left Gerard with Julie and went in alone. It was a surgeon I didn’t recognize, with a nurse behind him fiddling with some needles and stuff. I sat down and looked at him expectantly. He was shuffling his papers.
‘Mrs Bohan, from the tests we have done so far I can make a conclusive diagnosis.’ He paused. I noticed he did not meet my eyes – a classic warning sign. ‘There is no easy way to say this. You have breast cancer.’ My heart stopped. They must have made a mistake.
‘Are you sure? Have you mixed up the tests? Can I see the notes?’
‘I’m afraid I am sure. These are definitely your results. I am in no doubt, looking at the needle biopsy results and the mammogram. I’m sorry.’
I did not know what to say. I couldn’t believe it, simply could not take the information in. I had had cancer once before, and now I was being told I had it again. No! I screamed inside. It can’t be happening again. To get this news once was bad, but twice! Sweet Jesus, this was too cruel for words. I suddenly felt cold, and started to shiver all over. The nurse handed me a blanket and tucked it around me.
‘Will I get your husband for you?’ she asked kindly.
‘No, he’s with my little girl. She’s only five – we can’t leave her on her own.’ I turned to the
surgeon and tried to gather my thoughts. ‘What happens next?’
‘Well, er, the breast will come off, along with the lymph glands, after which you will have radiation and chemo. Then we may remove some of the muscle from your back to reconstruct the breast. You won’t have a nipple.’ I wasn’t taking this in. It sounded horrendous, drastic. I couldn’t understand why my back would be involved – it was bad enough taking my breast, but to cut into my back? A terrible image of a carved-out back and a sliced-off breast flashed through my mind. This couldn’t be happening. This on top of the terrible destruction sure to be wreaked by the cancer.
I pulled my top back on and walked outside. I was having trouble breathing. Ger told me afterwards he knew something was very wrong as soon as he saw me – I was deathly pale. Standing against a door, I motioned to him to come over. Julie was playing happily on the floor with some toys. The door I was leaning against swung open and I almost fell over. It was the gents’ toilets. Ger grabbed hold of me. I shook my head in despair.
‘It’s back.’ I blurted out. ‘The cancer is back.’
The Choice Page 8
