Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (35 page)

Rory gets to
his feet. He has a look of bewilderment but that might be because his brain has
been bounced about inside his little head. “What are man bits, Mummy? Are they
like Choc Bits?”

Which causes us
to burst into fits of laughter. I laugh so much, in fact, I begin to cry.

Chapter 35

The next day,
due to my constant coughing from the cigarette stench of the woman in the
adjacent bed, I am wheeled down the corridor to a new room. I’m happy to leave
the crazy lady behind but I don’t think she feels the same way. On my way out
the door I hear her complaining that I’m leaving. She can’t understand it; she
was positive she asked to move rooms before I did.

I arrive in my
new room and am greeted by the welcome sound of silence. The silence lasts for
two days and is broken by the arrival of another roommate. Like me, she, too,
has been a victim of Breast Cancer. I can tell by her wig, which though very
natural looking is still obviously a wig. Maybe the staff is hoping we’ll bond.
After six days eating cardboard cereal and waiting for my friends to bring me
real coffee, I’m willing to talk to anyone.

The woman in
the bed bedside me however, has no intention of engaging in a conversation.
When her husband arrives with a bag of groceries because she can’t suffer the food,
she begins to wail and then, as she receives a phone call that she refuses to
answer, the wailing increases. She can’t possibly be dying. She’s way too vocal.

At lunch the
next day, after a night of sobbing followed by a series of long drawn out groans,
an orderly arrives to take her for an ultrasound. This is apparently cause for
concern, though Jared
—
who conveniently happens to be her surgeon
—
has told her they’re simply checking her
infection and as I sit in the silence left in her wake, I wonder at how Breast
Cancer affects people in different ways.

The woman
returns, the wailing continues well into the afternoon and is punctuated by
sniffing and nose blowing. Even a visit from the handsome Dr. Hanson to let her
know everything’s fine is not enough to make her moaning cease. He’s walked in,
winked at me on the way past my bed and imparted the news in between her bursts
of tears.

After two hours,
I can take no more, so I put my head around the curtain.

“Is everything
okay? Is there anything I can get for you?”

I know I
shouldn’t ask, because, obviously, what she’s wanted this entire time is
someone to unload on.

So I sit on the edge of
her bed with her. We drink coffee I buy from the café downstairs — not an
easy feat while carrying two drains — and eat huge slabs of Hummingbird
Cake like two old friends out for afternoon tea. The woman, Olga, tells me
about her diagnosis five months ago. In a bold and rather forward move for two
people who’ve recently met, she whips off her bra and shows me the site of her
lumpectomy and the reconstruction the size of a twenty-cent piece near her
right armpit.

That’s it? I think.
That’s what the moaning is about? She hasn’t even lost a breast.

Olga goes on to tell me
how her life is over because she’s lost her hair and bemoans my luck at still
having mine. It’s depressing listening to the way she’s speaking but at least
she’s not crying anymore and when the nurses come in to give us our medication
they smile at me. I think they think the same thing.

But it’s when Olga tells
me that she can’t bear to have her family see her this way, so she’s banned
them from visiting, I begin to think the cancer medication has left her
seriously unhinged. It’s sort of confirmed when she tells me how she had to
give up her job as an emergency nurse because she couldn’t stand people asking
her how she was.

What
is
her problem? Why does she feel she
has to shut everyone out of her life because of her cancer? I would never have
coped without the people in my life.

Then she asks me the
strangest question of all.

“How do you cope having
to give up drinking?” she says.

“What?” I’m not sure
I’ve heard her right. She has a bit of an accent.

“I love a glass of wine
with dinner. Having to give it up was a major sacrifice.”

“Why did you give it
up?” I ask.

“Olivia Newton John says
you should only put organic produce into your body. No wine, no caffeine, no
sugar.”

Is she kidding? Not that
I’m knocking what other people do to deal with their cancer but people die from
wacky alternative notions like that. You could go into serious detox giving up
everything in one go. Next she’ll be telling me you can be cured by herbs or
Wicca or something. Talk about clutching at straws. I think it might be time
for Olga to hear a few home truths.

“Ah, Olivia Newton John
is a cancer survivor, Olga. She’s not the Cancer Police. She won’t be coming to
your house anytime soon to see if your carrots are organic.”

Olga gives me a blank
gaze.

“You don’t have to give
up wine if you don’t want to. Your life can stay exactly as it was.”

“What about the ear
candling?”

Oh. My. God. I can’t
even go there.

“Listen,” I say. “I have
Breast Cancer but I’m not bloody dying and I have no intention of giving up the
good things in life. I think it’s time for you to suck it up and get over it.
So, you got cancer. So what? There’s a heap of people worse off than you. At
least you have breasts.”

I pull up my top and
show her my complete lack of cleavage and the long angry scars that cover my
chest from being cut open so many times. I show her the scar that goes from hip
to hip, the new belly button sewn into place so the old one wouldn’t be down in
my pubes. When I relate the things that have happened to me in the past year,
her face suddenly changes. It’s like for the first time, she gets it. Yes,
cancer is shit and neither of us deserve to have it, but it’s not the end of
the freakin’ world.

*****

Lani arrives after dinner
that night.
 
She’s bearing
chocolate and a smile as big as the bend in the Swan River.

“You won’t believe the
week I’ve had,” she begins.

I sit up on the bed and
cross my legs. Her excitement is infectious. “Tell. Tell.”

“You know that woman,
Jessica?”

“The t-shirt woman?”

“Yeah. Well, it turns
out she owns some big public relations firm. She’s got connections in places
even the Pope can’t get access to and she’s been telling everyone she knows
about us. I’ve been run off my feet for the last three days, at one stage there
were so many women in the shop I couldn’t find the counter. The takings have
quadrupled.”

“What are they buying?”

“Well, the bags,
firstly. They want to rent bags but a close second are those cancer t-shirts,
the ones like yours.”

Hang on. We’d agreed we
weren’t going to buy them.

“Before you get het up,”
Lani continues, “I only bought a couple of samples for people to choose from.
Then I set up an online list and took pre-paid orders. Women around Australia
have been placing orders and the eBay guy I sourced them from is giving us a
discount because I ordered in bulk. It’s like you always dreamed it would be,
Soph.”

She reaches across to
hug me and I think that I’m truly blessed.

*****

The next day,
I’m getting ready to be discharged when Jared arrives. He pulls the curtain,
enclosing us in a cabbage green cocoon and I wonder what he’s up to. There’s a
certain twinkle in his eyes and that dimple on the side of his cheek is more
pronounced than usual.

“I hear you’ve
taken up counselling,” he says, as he sits on the end of the bed next to where
I’m sorting my stuff.

Luckily, Olga
is in our shared bathroom, doing her daily ritual of an hour of cleansing,
toning and moisturising and doesn’t hear him say this.

“How did you
find out?”

“I have spies.
They’re everywhere here.”

Of course they
are. Most of the nurses are still operating under the assumption that Dr.
Handsome is in the market for a partner. They’d tell him everything.

“What did they
say?”

“Just that you
gave Olga a bit of a run for her money. Apparently, she’s been quite well
behaved since you flashed your scars in her direction.”

“Well, she was
being a sissy.”

“Did you actually
tell her to suck it up?”

“Yep. She was
doing my head in. All that wailing. I don’t have painkillers strong enough for
that nonsense.”

Jared smiles
and on the bed between us, I feel his finger caressing my finger. “I’ve been
wanting to do that since I met her. You’re an amazing woman, Sophie Molloy.”

Suddenly I feel
a bit bashful and not in the least bit amazing.

“You’re not too
bad either.”

Jared shuffles
closer. His hand moves to stroke the edge of my cheek along my jaw. His fingers
trace my lips in a most un-doctorly way. My heart begins to flutter. It’s doing
flip-flops in my chest. I hold my breath because I know he’s going to kiss me
and, this time, nothing will stop him. Nobody would dare open the curtain
without announcing their presence first. We’ve seen him when he’s angry and
it’s not a pretty sight.

His face is
close, now. His lips meet mine in a kiss that feels so natural, it’s like we’ve
done it a million times before. I don’t want him to stop. I never want him to
stop. The only problem is, he has to.
 
He’s sat on my drain tube. It’s tugging on my skin and if I don’t get
some leverage I might squeal louder than Olga.

Epilogue

Six
Months Hence

I’m packing a
bag for what I hope is my last hospital stay for the rest of my life. Tomorrow,
Dr. Clifford is giving me my nipples back. Like a good bottle of bubbles,
they’ve been on ice for a very long time, waiting for the day they’d get to
play their part in this circus that’s been my journey with Breast Cancer. Way
back in the beginning of this, I signed something that said I wanted to retain
them if I could, but now the time has come I don’t care what I get, as long as
they match. I’ve always been about matching. Two boobs, no boobs. Don’t care as
long as I’m symmetrical. I’ve joked with everyone that Dr. Clifford’s going to
Super Glue my nipples into place and it’ll be over. Lani, of course, believed
me.

“I hope Dr.
Clifford’s got a good ruler,” she said. “It’d be a bugger if you came out with
one nipple higher than the other when you can’t take them off.”

Mum was more
practical. “At least you won’t have one inny and one outy, if they’re made from
the same stock.” Like me, she likes things to match, as long as it’s not
outfits for her and Colin.

It’s been over
two years since the day I was diagnosed. In that time, I can count nine
surgeries
—
tomorrow being
the tenth and final
—
a double mastectomy, a massive infection, one failed reconstruction, one
hernia and one implant replacement because it turned out so small I looked like
I had a mosquito bite for a boob. I’ve been pumped up with saline and poked and
prodded by untold numbers of people I’ll never see again. Yet, I’m eternally
grateful to each and every one of them and as this chapter closes, I’m feeling
like I’m being cut adrift. I’m very sentimental. They’ve been a part of my life
for so long, I’m sure I’ll feel lost without them. For a little while, anyway.

I’ve had other
changes too, of course. I’ve moved house, lost a friend and gained a business
partner. The business is now doing so well on the back of Lani’s ideas with
handbag rental and the cancer t-shirts that we’ve had to hire another staff
member to handle the internet side of things. And next week, I’m to be a
speaker at a Cancer Council dinner. Me. Plain old Sophie. Jared nominated me
for the spot. After the way I handled Olga, he’s positive I can make a
difference simply by sharing my story. I have the perfect outfit picked out,
too. I’m wearing the cancer t-shirt Lani had made for me. I’ve decided the
message sums up my feelings in a way I never could. I’d love for cancer to get cancer
and die.

I zip up my
overnight bag and go into the bathroom to begin the process of waxing and
shaving that seems to have become my pre-admission ritual. As I bend over the
tub, I feel a presence behind me, a hand on my bottom.

“De-hairing are
we?”

“Yep.”

Jared slides
his arms around me and I put down the razor, turning into his embrace. He
kisses the tip of my nose. “A wise move. Those theatre staff can be brutal when
you’re unconscious.”

“I knew it!”

Brendan always said
I was being paranoid but they do pay attention to your personal grooming. Ha. I
feel quite smug, yet slightly appalled. I mean, shouldn’t they be thinking
about fixing me, not how hairy my bikini line is?