Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (9 page)

Brendan
comes back to the sofa and picks up a second piece of paper from beside me. It
has a heading entitled ‘Sophie’s Funeral’ and a page-long dot-pointed set of
requests. His eyes scan the page and he shakes his head again.

“I’m not
playing Bon Jovi at your funeral, Soph.”

“It’s my
funeral. If I want you to play
Have A
Nice Day
as they wheel my body away to be cremated, you’ll do it.”

“But it’s a
rock song.”

“I know. I
want people to be happy. That song makes me happy. Speaking of which, I want U2
as well.
Walk On
.
 
And P!nk,
Bad Influence
while you do the photo montage.”

“People will
laugh.”

“I want them
to. People shouldn’t cry because I’m gone. They should have a wake where
everyone stands around and remembers the funny things I did and then they get
really pissed. I do not want crying and I definitely don’t want you to sprinkle
my remains in some tacky rose garden somewhere.”

“Where will
I put you then?”

“In an urn
on the mantel. Then I can heckle you when you put the moves on a new woman.”

He looks
horrified.

“Joke.”

He takes
another look at the list. “They can’t sew your boob back on after you die.”

“Why? It's
no good to anybody but me. The surgeon’s going to sew me up anyway, so I don’t
see the difference.
 
It doesn’t
have to be neat sewing. It just needs to be there so I’m complete and look nice
in my death outfit.”

“Maybe you
should discuss that with the doctor next Thursday.”

I snatch the
piece of paper from him. “All right. I will. I might get a sensible answer from
her.”

“Hmm.”

I put the
list aside and glancing at my watch, I pick up the phone. I scrawl another item
while I wait.

Eyebrows
.

“Hello?
Anna? This is Sophie Molloy. I was wondering if you could fit me in for a full
body wax, mani-pedi and an eyebrow wax and tint before next Thursday?”

Brendan’s
mouth has hit the carpet. “You’re going to hospital, not the Oscars,” he hisses.

 
“Shhh!" I hold my hand up and turn
away so I can't see him making faces at me. "One o’clock will be great. Thanks
Anna. Yeah, see you then.” I hang up the phone and calmly scratch an item off
the list.

“Sophie.”

The only
thing I need now is luggage. I really need luggage.

“Sophie!”
Brendan snatches the remote from me and turns the TV off. I can see he’s
getting annoyed, so I try to give him my attention.

“Yes?”

“How much
have you spent? So far?”

I do a quick
tally. “Roughly eight hundred.”

“You do understand
that’s two plane tickets to Melbourne?”

“Says the
man who spent a small fortune on technology the other day.”

He gives me
the look
.

“I’m going
to hospital. I need to look my best. People are going to see me naked.”

“I’m pretty
sure they’ve seen naked people before. They won’t care if your toes aren’t
buffed."

"I know,
but I will. If I’m going to be unconscious in an operating theatre with a bunch
of people I don’t know, I won’t be giving them any excuse to talk about me,
except to say how pretty my hair is.”

My lip
starts to wobble when I hear how incredibly shallow I sound and I collapse into
Brendan’s arms. Sobbing.

“It’s okay.
I understand. You can’t control the cancer, so you’re trying to control
everything else in your life. You don’t like not being in control.”

“Are you
saying I’m a control freak?”

He pauses
for a minute, knowing that his sex life hangs in the balance here. If he says
the wrong thing, I could cut him off. For a very long time.

“I’m saying
you like to be organised and this has thrown you for a loop. You can’t
orchestrate this part of your life. You have to let the professionals do their
job.”

I understand
what he’s saying and he’s perfectly right. I am an organiser. But I like things
to be a certain way. That’s me. I reach up and peck his cheek. I feel so much
better now I know I’m not having some sort of pre-op breakdown.

“Brendan?”

“Yeah?”

“If you
don’t play Bon Jovi at my funeral, I’ll come back and haunt you while you’re
having sex.”

“That sounds
kinky.”

“Don’t bet
on it.”

Chapter 8

It’s
Thursday afternoon. I’ve been admitted to hospital. I don’t know whether I’m
scared or nervous because I don’t feel anything but numb, as if I’m floating in
a weightless capsule and everything is happening around me in muted tones. I’ve
packed my bag and prepared for any eventuality I can possibly control, but I
know this one is out of my hands. I have to trust my specialist team.

It’s lunch
when I arrive on the ward. The nurse shows me to my bed, whisks the pea green
curtain around us like it’s the Cone of Silence and nobody will ever be able to
hear what I’m in for. All the while the door to the room is wide open and the
woman in the next bed probably has a glass up to the divider. The nurse takes
my blood pressure. Then she asks me my weight and the first hurdle appears.

I haven’t
divulged my weight since I was sixteen. I do not talk about how much I weigh.
If I go on a diet I tell how much I’ve lost but not what the starting figure
was. I swallow and search my brain for a solution to this dilemma. I could lie.
But if I lie I might wake up as the surgeon is cutting off my boob. I’ve read
those horrifying stories of people waking mid-surgery. I dread becoming one of
those statistics, so I swallow my pride and mumble, “Seventy-one kilos.”

For a minute
I’m glad the nurse is so bland because Brendan’s eyeballs have almost popped
out of his head. I truly think he believed I weighed sixty kilos. But the nurse
simply jots it down along with my blood pressure, then puts wrist and ankle
bands on me like she hears bigger weights than that every day of the week.

I’m feeling
a little more nervous now so I make a joke about not being able to escape with
the wristband on and she looks at me like I have two heads. I know nurses are
trained not to show emotion yet remain empathetic but seriously? She doesn’t
even smile.

“You’re due
in Nuclear Medicine at two,” she says by way of reply. “An orderly will come to
take you.”

“In a
wheelchair?” I ask, hoping to be spared the embarrassment of being scooted
around the hospital when I’m not ill.

“Standard
procedure,” she replies. “We wouldn’t want you to escape.” There’s a hint of a
smile, but only a hint. I smile back at her and she picks up my file and
leaves.

Brendan and
I sit on the edge of the bed not speaking for a good while after that. Then I
hear a knock on the wall and Bev, the Breast Care Nurse I met at my appointment
the other day sweeps into the room. Under her arm, she’s carrying a large pink
bag like the ones you get at the supermarket, so you don’t have to use plastic
shopping bags.

“Hello darling,”
she says, like I’m her long lost sister. “I see you made it.”

“Like I had
a choice.”

Bev puts the
bag on the bed. She bustles around, not actually doing anything but telling me
this and that, asking me how I'm feeling, trying to put me at ease. She gives
me that special smile, the one I’m positive she practised in the mirror when
she was doing her nurse training. “I come bearing gifts,” she says in a
whisper. “What’s your bra size?”

Here we go
again. Clothing sizes are taboo. We do not discuss the size of things unless
they say medium. I look over her head at the curtain and silently will her to
ask me a different question.

Bev is
waiting for my reply.

“I think
that might be my cue to go and get us a coffee,” says Brendan, disappearing
faster than the White Rabbit down a hole.

“He’s a
funny one, isn’t he?” Bev remarks, watching Brendan speed out the door.

Before I can
answer she’s pulled a soft cotton bra that looks like something my grandmother
would wear, from the bag. There’s no underwire, no frills or lace but there is
an abundance of beige and some extremely sturdy looking straps, the kind that could
be used as a bungee rope. It reminds me of the underwear you see in movies from
the fifties. But uglier.

Bev holds
the bra against me. “This should be a perfect fit,” she says, trying to be
jovial. “You’ll wear this when you go home. It’s very soft. Perfect for post-surgery
and until you’re ready for a regular prosthetic bra.”

She hands me
a stuffed beige triangle and I dutifully give it a squeeze. It’s a cushion. A
bloody cushion. Nobody said I’d be substituting my boob for a cushion after
surgery. I’ll look like an idiot but at least if someone punches me in the
chest I’ll have built in protection.

“It’s
temporary,” Bev explains, as if to excuse the utter hideousness of the thing.
“After six weeks or so you can be measured for a proper prosthesis.”

I stare in
disgust as she takes the cushion from me and slides it into a hidden pocket in
the bra, showing me the finished product.
 
She’s doing her best to talk it up but it still looks like a cushion.
It’s a cushion shaped like a boob.

Then Bev
shows me the DVD and books they like to give for free to cancer patients. She
tells me about the information inside and how I should use this as my ‘go to’
book if I want to know something. I like that idea. I like to broaden my
knowledge without having to ask questions. And if I lend it to Lani, it’ll keep
her off the Breast Cancer website.

Next, Bev
says, “Whip off your shirt and we’ll test this baby out.”

I do as she asks
and before I know it, my white Bendon bra has been replaced by something from
the nunnery. (Albeit without the cushion or I would have three breasts.) I look
down at my chest and think to myself it would make a perfect form of
contraception because no woman seen wearing one of ‘these babies’ would get sex.
Ever.

Bev adjusts
the straps and stands back to admire her own skill in judging women’s bust sizes.
“Lovely.”

That's a
matter of opinion.

Bev gives
the straps a final tweak here and there. "See?"

I stare in
horror at the reflection before me in the mirror. I think I might cry. Seriously,
do women view this as acceptable post-mastectomy underwear? Because I don't and
I will not be wearing it. I’d rather look as lopsided as a three-legged dog. More
to the point I won't be paying for it either, if there's a charge. I swallow
and turn back to Bev. I can’t hurt her feelings. It’s not her fault. She didn’t
design the bra. Mother Teresa did.

"Yes.
Lovely," I reply. I take the bra off and put it back in the bag hoping it
might magically turn into something pretty by the next time I see it.

"So,
I'll see you tomorrow after your surgery," Bev says, heading for the door.
“Is there anything you need?"

"No
thanks. I'm fine."

Unless you
can give me my boob back without the cancer.

"Great.
Well, ring the bell if you do."

And she
leaves me alone. As alone as I can be with that woman in the next bed muttering
to her imaginary friends.

Chapter 9

One journey
along a narrow corridor and up a few floors and I’m lying on a narrow
examination table in a cubicle in the Nuclear Medicine Department. The room is
quiet and darkened. Neat rows of holes punctuate the pre-fab ceiling like so
many other ceilings I’ve seen lately. The curtain to the cubicle moves back and
forth in the faint breeze created as someone walks by in the hallway. It
doesn’t seem real. People with cancer look sickly and pale. They are gaunt from
weight loss and have a greyish pallor to their skin. I am none of these things.
I am simply Sophie and I want this to be over.

Brendan is
sitting in a chair on the opposite wall, sipping the cup of tea provided by the
nurse while we wait. He’s silent in his support, deep in contemplation I guess,
as he checks his emails on his phone and plays solitaire. I don’t mind that
he’s silent. Being with me is enough.

The curtain
swings back and a friendly looking doctor, who vaguely resembles the way Santa
would look after a few shots of whisky, enters the room, belly first. He
introduces himself with a handshake and a smile and begins to tell me what’s
going to happen.

"The
procedure is relatively simple," he says. "We inject radioactive dye
into the tumour and then after twenty minutes or so we pop you under the
machine and see where the dye has gone. It locates the sentinel lymph node
which will be removed during surgery.”

“What for?” I
know my voice sounds panicky and bordering on a slight case of mania but why
are they removing my lymph nodes? Is the cancer worse than the initial
diagnosis?

“We test the
nodes to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread any further. If that node is clear,
the others will be too.”

“So the cancer
hasn’t spread? There’s nothing I’m not being informed of?”

“This is
precautionary. It’s our way of determining where the cancer is. It doesn’t mean
it’s spread.”

“But what if
it has?” I ask again, sounding a hint more crazed than before.

God, what is
wrong with me? This morning I was fine; I was taking this in my stride, being
calm, getting it over with. Now I’m becoming one of those women. I want to be
strong Sophie, the one who makes jokes about cancer. If I keep this up I’ll be
ordering spinach smoothies with a side of chia seeds and giving up caffeine
before I get home. I give myself an internal slap and try to concentrate on
what he’s telling me.

“If the
cancer has begun to spread your surgeon will remove the affected nodes at the
time of surgery and instead of one drain, you’ll wake up with two. She’ll
discuss the next steps with you after you wake up.”

I nod slowly
as I attempt to take everything in but I feel like I’m back in that weightless
place again.

The doctor
holds up a needle and prepares to inject my breast with green liquid. The
needle is small. Seriously, it’s so small, a bee sting would probably be
sharper but as his hand approaches my boob, my body goes into flashback mode.
My brain is telling it this is going to be excruciating and my body responds by
sending steaming hot tears down my face. I begin to shake. I’m shaking
uncontrollably and crying like … who knows what I’m crying like.

Brendan stands
up and pulls a wad of tissues from a box on the bench. He moves to the head of
the bed and hands them to me. Even he looks worried. He’s not used to seeing me
so vulnerable. I’m the ‘in control’ one. Remember?

“Sshhh, baby,”
he says. “It’ll be all right.”

I dab at my
eyes and blow my nose. I give him a limp nod and squeeze his hand like there’s
no tomorrow. Then I turn my eyes to the doctor.

“I’m sorry.
I’m not usually a sook about needles.” I go on to explain, through my weakening
sobs, about the biopsy and resulting trauma.

The doctor
gives me an understanding smile. “It’s not overly painful, I promise. The
stinging will only occur after the dye is in and then it won’t be pain, as
such. Most women describe it as a warm sensation. Turn your head to the wall so
you won’t see when the needle goes in. That should help.”

Warm, my
bum, I think, but I do as he tells me. I’ve been on the Breast Cancer forum and
not one of those women used the word ‘warm’ in relation to this procedure. In
fact, a couple of them described it as excruciating.

Miraculously,
I manage not to faint, not even when I begin to massage my breast as instructed,
to make the dye disperse. The stinging is painful. There’s no bloody warm
sensation about it.

Two and a
half hours, three heat packs and a threat of another round of dye later, I get
back to the ward. My breast is covered in black crosses made by a permanent
marker. I look like a treasure map though there’s not many people who’d want
this kind of treasure.

“You were
gone a while,” says Bev, who has finished her shift and is heading home.

“Nothing is
ever simple in the life of Sophie Molloy,” I half joke.

“What
happened?”

“The dye
decided it didn’t want to move around my body. It liked my tumour too much.” I
didn’t mention that I’d had to sit in the hallway massaging my boob like a sex
offender for an hour and a half. Or that they had three goes at getting an
image and after the doctor informed me he’d have to inject me again I told him
I’d rather be forced to drink bleach.