The Last Goodbye (28 page)

We went up to visit Aoife, Noel pushing the wheelchair. I needed to be close to her.

The special care nurses said she was doing very well. She was breathing by herself now which was great for her prematurity but she was being fed through a tube until her sucking reflex developed some more. We watched her stretch out her little body, arching her tiny back and straightening her skinny arms above her head. I reached into her little world and gently stroked the soft skin on her hand and the downy skin of her arm.
Metastases, secondaries, chemo
– the words kept playing on a loop inside my head. I didn’t understand most of what he had said, only that it definitely was cancer and it had spread. And judging by his reaction it wasn’t looking good.

“You’re strong, Eva – you will beat this,” Noel whispered to me as we both stared in at our tiny baby daughter. “There is no way, after all you’ve done to get Aoife here safely, I’ll let you be taken away from us – no way. You’re like Aoife, you’re a fighter.”

“I hope you’re right, Noel, I really do.” The tears started up again.

He leant over me in the wheelchair and pulled my head in against his chest as if he could protect me there.

“Is everything okay here?” It was the special care nurse.

I pulled back from Noel’s chest and wiped my eyes.

“Yes – sorry, we’re going now.”

Noel wheeled me back down to the ward and helped me back onto the bed. Even that short activity had left me exhausted.

“We have to tell the kids,” Noel said.

“But they already know.”

“C’mon, Eva – they haven’t got a clue how serious it all is. They need to be told. If things get . . . worse . . . well, it will come as an awful shock to them.”

“Not yet, Noel – can we just wait and see how the chemo goes – there’s no point in worrying them unnecessarily. They’ve been through a lot lately.”

He sighed heavily. “All right, it’s your decision,” he said, putting his hands up in the air.

Noel brought the children and Mam in to see me the next day. They all wanted to see the baby and I felt awful telling them that they weren’t allowed into the special care unit. So instead they sat on various chairs around the bed.

After a few minutes I could see the boredom starting to kick in again. Seán asked me when I was coming home and I said soon. I could see Noel’s disapproving look from the corner of my eye. Kate sat there sullenly, with her Walkman on that she had got for Christmas last year. The music could be heard buzzing through the headphones so it must have been blaring. She had dark eye make-up on, thick-pencilled eyeliner and charcoal eye shadow – if I didn’t know her and just saw her in the street, I would find her intimidating. The contrast was harsh against her blonde hair and pale skin but I said nothing. I asked Noel to bring them all down to the coffee shop for a bit – he knew that I wanted to talk to Mam on my own. I could see the kids were delighted. They were fed up of this place. I couldn’t blame them – I was too.

“How are you feeling today, love?”

“Still sore and tender. I managed to walk a bit earlier on but I was knackered before I even got out of the room.”

“Well, take it easy now, do you hear me?”

“I just want to get Aoife and myself out of this place.”

“Well, you’ll both be able to come home soon.”

“I have cancer, Mam.”

“Ah no, Eva, no!” She pressed her fingers into my hands. It hurt.

I nodded and then I couldn’t help it, tears filled my eyes and started spilling down my face.

Her first reaction was to start praying and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it would take a lot more than prayers to cure me now.

I asked her to keep an eye on Kate. I knew she was a typical teenager feigning indifference but I also knew her well enough to know that she was finding this whole thing very hard.

I just needed to get well enough to be allowed home to get everything back on track again. Noel was doing a great job but he was being pulled in ten different directions between coming in to visit me, worrying about our new baby, keeping the three of them at home out of trouble during the summer holidays and then trying to run the farm so we could keep a roof over our heads.

Mam said another prayer before she left and blessed me with her rosary beads.

Chapter 39

The surgery had taken a lot out of me. I felt weaker than I had felt since the whole ordeal started. My body no longer had to support a baby, part of the tumour had been removed yet I felt at my lowest. I hadn’t expected that. Doctor O’Keeffe told me that he wouldn’t start the chemo until my blood counts had improved and I was a bit stronger. The time passed very slowly, the days were long as I waited in limbo until I could start my treatment to fight the disease.

I would go up and sit with Aoife and marvel at how much modern medicine can do for tiny babies. She was growing much stronger and I was allowed to hold her now and I would spend hours cuddling her in my arms. And I missed the kids desperately. It just felt like one hurdle after another. I worked hard at trying to get my body stronger. I would eat small amounts of food and sleep whenever I could – I didn’t have much else to do anyway.

After I had started my first round of chemo, Doctor O’Keeffe said there was no point in keeping me in hospital any more. I was delighted to be allowed go home after weeks of being on St Brigid’s ward. I would still be in and out of the hospital every day to see Aoife but she was nearly at a weight where they would let her come home with us soon. I willed her to keep growing strong. I just wanted to get some normality back into our lives. I felt if we could just get her home then everything would be so much better – no more driving to the hospital and back, nearly an hour each way, over bouncy bog roads.

I told Noel not to tell the kids that I was coming home because I wanted to surprise them. As soon as I got in the door though, I realised that things had changed drastically with Kate. She hadn’t been in to see me in two weeks. Her heavy eye make-up was only the start of it. She walked into the kitchen with a nose ring and nearly had a heart attack when she saw me in the room.

“What are
you
doing here?” she asked.

“Well, thanks for the nice welcome home!” I said sarcastically. “What’s that thing in your nose? I told you that you weren’t allowed to get one of those.”

“You can’t just come home after weeks away and start giving me orders.” She was angry and I knew she was taking it out on me.

“Oh yes, I can, Kate, I’m your mother. I may not have been around for the last few weeks but this is still my house and my rules apply.”

“‘
My house and my rules!
’” she mimicked.

I was only just home and I didn’t want to ruin it by getting into a fight with her so I let it go.

Seán and Patrick came running into the room and over to me and gave me big hugs.

“Where’s Baby Aoife?” Patrick asked.

“She’s still in hospital but she should be home very soon. She’s thriving now. She’s even taking her feeds by mouth, would you believe!”

“You won’t be going back there then, Mam, will you?” Patrick asked.

“No, love, that’s it now.”

Noel glared at me.

“How can you lie to them like that?” he said after the boys had gone off outside to play football.

“I didn’t lie.”

“You haven’t told them the truth! For all you know you might very well need to go back in. It’s not fair to only give them half the picture, Eva.”

“Ah stop Noel, I’m only home – I don’t want to fight with you. You never told me about Kate getting her nose pierced!”

“I know, I said I’d wait till you were home. She just came home with it last week – she never even bothered to ask.”

“She has some cheek, that one.”

“Now don’t be getting yourself stressed out about Kate, it’s not good for you. You heard what Doctor O’Keeffe said – you have to take it easy now.”

We were allowed to take Aoife home a few weeks later. She was still so tiny – she wouldn’t even have been due yet. We bundled her up for her first journey home. The cool autumn air had started to creep in. Leaves were falling from the trees, gathering in huge rusty piles begging to be jumped in. It was September so the kids were gone back to school and it was a relief to have order and routine back in our lives once again.

Kate and Aidan were still going strong. He would walk her home after school. She had managed to persuade her dad to let her go to a concert in Galway with him. I wasn’t happy about it but she wasn’t listening to me at the moment. It was like she was punishing me for my absence over recent weeks.

I continued going back to the hospital for my weekly chemo sessions. It was gruelling and exhausting and, even with the anti-nausea medication, Noel would have to pull over on the road sometimes to let me be sick into the ditch. My throat was raw from vomiting. It was tiring at the best of times having a newborn in the house. I knew that already because I’d had three of them, but doing it while going through chemotherapy was in a different league altogether. I would hear Aoife crying in the cot beside me at night and I wouldn’t have the energy to get out of bed to see to her. Noel was great and he took over most of the night feeds and Mam came over every day to help me out while Noel was out in the fields. I didn’t want to worry them but I wasn’t feeling any better, I was still in a lot of pain and I was having trouble catching my breath – the littlest thing would leave me breathless as if I had run a race. I would have to go into the bed and lie down and when I would wake up again half the day would be gone. My hair had started falling out after the second session – great big clumps of it came away in my hand one morning as I was brushing my hair. It was frightening. I immediately stopped brushing because I was afraid that I was making it worse but, even if I didn’t go near it, another bit would fall out. I’d find it on my shoulder or some on the floor. I would put my hand up and feel a huge bald patch on my scalp. I put on a headscarf and felt utterly ridiculous – it was like it spelled out ‘cancer victim’. There was no way I would go out in public with it on me. When Kate had seen it she started to laugh and then I had laughed too.

“You should at least get a wig, Mam.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right, love.”

Although I hadn’t exactly told Kate I had cancer, she knew I was having chemo. I’m not sure whether she understood what it actually meant. I had warned her that I might start losing my hair. I never thought I’d say I was happy to lose my hair but it was a relief to laugh with my daughter again – it had broken the ice between us.

I was trying to stay positive about the whole ordeal. I was due to have my last session the following week and then it would be back for the moment of truth where Doctor O’Keeffe would do another scan to see if it had worked.

Chapter 40

“So what do I do now?”

Doctor O’Keeffe had just delivered more bad news. The blood tests and scans had both shown that the chemo hadn’t worked like he had hoped and there wasn’t much more they could do for me. The cancer was too widespread. Noel was sobbing like a baby in the chair beside me but I was too stunned to do anything except somehow on autopilot to reach across to find his hand. He grabbed onto it as if he was holding on for dear life. As if by holding onto me tightly, he might be able to stop me from leaving his world.

“I’m afraid we’ve reached the end of the road, Eva – there isn’t any more we can do for you. I’m truly sorry.”

I tried to digest what he was saying. “So that’s it? This is the end?”

“I’m sorry, Eva, the prognosis isn’t good.”

“Please say you’ve got it wrong, please? This can’t be happening?” Noel was saying.

“How long have I got?” It seemed as though someone else was asking these questions, not me.

“I would expect four to six weeks.”

I felt as though I was winded. Four to six weeks!

“I see.”

I didn’t expect it to come that quickly. It was an awful thing to be told you had such a short time left. The shock felt as though it had sucked my breath away and I couldn’t breathe. My first reaction was panic – panic for all the things that I still needed to do. Panic because I wouldn’t be there to watch my children growing up, all their milestones and big occasions. Patrick would be making his confirmation next year. And Aoife wouldn’t even remember me. I started hyperventilating and somewhere on the periphery I could hear Noel saying “No, this can’t be happening. This isn’t happening. Someone has made a mistake!” over and over again. And I wished he would stop. He was still squeezing the life out of my hand.

“How’s your pain, Eva? Are you managing okay?” Doctor O’Keeffe asked me.

I nodded because I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Well, I’m sure you’d rather be at home at this time but if it gets worse I can refer you to a hospice for palliative care. Don’t suffer unnecessarily, Eva – we can give you pain relief to help you through it.”