Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (11 page)

The drain is
quite annoying and not merely because the wound is starting to heal. I can feel
the piece of tube inside me every time I move. I keep forgetting I have the silly
thing attached to my body. I get up and walk off without it and it drags along
behind me like a disgruntled puppy on a lead. Yesterday, Brendan took me for a
quiet lunch at our favourite café and I forgot to put it under the table out of
the way. A woman almost went flying when she slipped on it and was about to
give me a piece of her mind until she saw what it was she’d tripped on. After
that, she simply looked at me with pity. Which sort of made me feel, for once,
like I do have something wrong with me. It’s still unbelievable that I have
cancer.

*****

So today is
the day, the appendage can be removed. Alleluia! Despite waking this morning
with a headache that could explode bricks and a fear I’m getting an infection
in the wound site, I can’t wait to get into Dr. Downer’s rooms and have her
take the drain away. I’ll drag myself there on my hands and knees if I have to.

By ten
o’clock, Brendan and I are in the car. We reverse out of the driveway and
Brendan stops two minutes down the road to get us coffee. He’s still
experiencing something of a coffee machine operation crisis at home and has said
that until I’m back on my feet he’s going to get our local barista to make the
coffee instead.

“Can you get
water too?” I beg. “And Panadol?” Because despite the fact that I’ve already
taken two of the strongest painkillers known to man, my head is still feeling
like someone is using a jackhammer inside it.

Brendan hops
out of the car, and returns what seems like a week later, carrying a tray with
two coffees, a bottle of water and a packet of Panadol. We stow the coffees in
the cup holder, I pop the foil on a couple more pills and Brendan pulls back into
the traffic as we continue the journey to the doctor’s.

As we drive,
I have a sip of water — for some reason I can’t stomach the smell of that
coffee — I lay against the reclined seat, eyes closed trying to get past
the overwhelming feeling of nausea that’s engulfing me. Then suddenly, I spring
upright.

“Stop,” I
squeal. “Pull over! Now! Quick!”

“What? Now?”
Brendan looks at me like I’ve lost my marbles. He’s calmly sipping his mocha
and tapping a finger on the steering wheel in time with the song on the radio.

“I’m going
to be sick. Pull over!”

Brendan
glances sideways at me. I think he senses I’m not joking, that time is of the
essence and, with what is probably the image of vomit spraying over his leather
seats in mind, he wrenches the car into the car park of the local fire station
faster than the speed of light. The tyres screech to a halt. I’m not sure what
the protocol is for dropping wheelies in a fire station but he’s done it anyway.
A cloud of dust has flown up behind us and is settling over the freshly
detailed car but Brendan’s not saying a thing. His face is grim and he’s
pressing his lips together.

Fumbling, I
open the car door. I run to the landscaped garden and release the contents of
my stomach over a bed of pretty yellow Kangaroo Paws. And as I’m wondering how
this could happen without a scrap of warning, I feel it. My wound bursts. Yes,
pus begins to seep from under the dressing. It’s trickling down my torso and soaking
into my top and I can’t do anything about it because I’m trying to hold my hair
back with one hand and keep my drain out of the way with the other.

Then, as I’m
attempting to put myself back in order, I spy a group of firemen. Big, burly,
handsome firemen. They’re standing in a row, arms folded, gawking at me over
the balcony of the firehouse. Under normal circumstances, I might have been
graced with a wolf whistle but they simply look stunned. I suppose it’s not
every day they see a woman throwing up in their garden. Repeatedly.

“Sorry,” I
call feebly up at them. “It was either all over your garden or all over me.”

“Are you
okay?” one of them calls back.

“Nothing a
bullet to the head won’t fix,” I quip and stagger back to the car.

The vomiting
continues in intermittent bursts all the way to the doctor’s. The bouts
coincide perfectly with my attempts to sip my water and by the time we get
there Brendan has swerved to miss a truck, pulled over in the emergency lane of
the freeway — because it was obviously an emergency — and copped
abuse from a number of passing motorists because he’s doing less than the speed
limit. He’s too afraid that doing over eighty kilometres an hour will set my
stomach off again. He’s trying to preserve his interiors. He’s also stopped to
dress my wound twice, with dressings he bought from the chemist on his second stop
there today.

Finally, he parks
the car outside Dr. Downer’s rooms.

“We’re
here,” he says, looking as relieved as I feel. This has been an epic journey
for a trip that was only ten kilometres, if that.

As I enter
the packed waiting room and make my way to the reception desk, a collective
gasp of horror emanates from the chairs around me, so I put on my jolliest
face. I know I look a fright. I do not need these people to confirm it.

“’Morning,
June.”

“What on
earth happened to you?” asks the receptionist, barely hiding her shock. My carefully
styled outfit is nothing more than a bedraggled mess. My shoes are covered in
vomit, my hair smells like spew and my top, which has dried pus down one side,
has stuck to my body. Not to mention my face looks like one of the zombies from
Michael Jackson’s
Thriller
video.

“I had an
argument with my wound. I think the wound is winning.” I give her a wan smile.

“Why didn’t
you cancel, love? You look like death warmed up.”

And served
on toast, I think.

“I want the
drain out.”

“Your GP
could have seen to it.”

Yeah, if I
wait till September.

I shrug. “I
didn’t look like this when I left home and once we were on the way, there was too
much traffic to turn around. Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion a doctor’s
rooms are where I’m meant to be right about now.”

She looks
sympathetic. “I think you might be right. Can I get you a glass of water?”

“Only if you
want me to throw up on your carpet.”

“That bad,
huh?”

I nod sadly.
“Look, I know you’re packed and I’m early but is there any chance Dr. Downer
could squeeze me in now or at least get me a bucket while I wait. I think I’m
going to be sick again.”

The
receptionist consults her computer. Then a woman, wearing an aqua turban and a
matching drain under each arm approaches the desk. The woman has no hair and no
breasts but she has the friendliest smile I’ve ever seen. “I’m next, June,” she
says. “But let this one go first.
 
She looks like she could do with a break.”

“Are you
sure?” I could kiss her.

“Positive. I
can wait another twenty minutes. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

Gratefully,
I sag into a chair and wait my turn.

*****

“I think
I’ll admit you to hospital,” Dr. Downer says, as she’s sucking the fluid from
my wound with a big long syringe. “We need to get this infection under
control.”

I give her
my most pleading look. Hospital is the last place I want to be, I want to go
home and be with the boys and go to work and put this ordeal behind me. I can’t
take the idea of being in hospital again. “Do I have to? Please. I feel much
better now you’ve given me the Maxolon.”

I don’t
really, but at least the needle has stopped the vomiting. The two painkillers
Bev has brought over from the ward are beginning to take effect, too.

Dr. Downer turns
away to dispose of the drain she’s removed and take off her gloves. I think
she’s taken pity on me because she says, “Lay there for a bit and we’ll see how
you feel. But if you go home, I want you in here at nine in the morning so I
can drain the site again and make sure everything’s all right.”

“Of course.”
If I could jump from the bed at this stage I would, but I feel so weak I’m
lucky to smile.

Bev, who’s
still lurking, puts a hand over mine. “You’re getting a bit of colour back,”
she says. “You looked dreadful before. How long were you feeling ill for?”

“I wasn’t. I
felt fine, just a bit of a headache. Then I started throwing up.” I tell her
about our trip to the fire station and the emergency ramp and the chemist and
she lets out a loud laugh.

“Gosh,
you’ve had a rough trot.”

“I try to
create drama where I can.”

On the other
side of the curtain, I hear Brendan’s voice. “You can say that again.”

Chapter 12

Things
return to normal after the infection disaster, so I’m keen to get back to work.
Having come to the conclusion that daytime TV is as inane as it was when I was
nursing Rory, I plan to go to the shop for a few hours the next morning. It may
be that I have to admit defeat and take up residence on the couch afterwards
but I’m hopeful I can make it through a day. I’m actually feeling buoyant and
chirpy, like I’ve been given a new lease of life since that drain was removed
and the infection has begun to subside.

As with most
mornings in Perth, the sky is a clear blue, promising another warm day. Now
that I’m driving again, I drop Rory in the drive-through without a hitch. I
even give Miss Butterworth a wave; something I like to do because I know it
makes her uncomfortable. My hope is that one day she’ll wave or smile in return
but there’s about as much chance of that as there is me growing my boob back.
Still, I persist. It adds punch to the morning.

After I
collect coffee for myself and Lani, I head towards my first day at work since
my surgery. It’s also my first day of wearing the ‘cushion bra’. Until now, my
only trip out of the house was to the café and the doctor’s, so I’ve not needed
it, but if I want to rejoin society, I have to face the thing sooner rather than
later. And seeing as I have no choice in the matter, other than to be
completely lopsided, I suppose I should wear it. I might scare the customers
away otherwise.

Earlier this
morning, I looked at myself in the mirror for a good ten minutes, hoping that the
boob wouldn’t look as fake to everyone else as it appears to me. I didn’t
manage to convince myself completely. I still feel like I’m wearing a great big
cushiony sign that says, ‘Check this out!’ I am, however, getting used to the idea
that there’s a big space where my breast used to be, and while people think I’m
being brave and ‘coping’, I can say with honesty, having one breast has not
made that much difference to the way I feel about myself. Some women get quite
upset after a mastectomy. They believe their femininity has been taken away. I don’t
feel anything like that. It’s neither here, nor there, to me. The only thing I
don’t like is being lopsided. I don’t feel less of a woman because of it.

Armed with
lattes and two crumpets heaped with butter, I push the door of the shop open with
my hip. Lani’s already in. She’s been a rock this past fortnight and though
I’ve spoken to her every day on the phone, I’ve only seen her once when she
popped by the hospital. I’m hoping it’ll be quiet this morning so we can have a
good catch-up.

“Lani?” I
head for the back of the shop and dump my bag in the cupboard.

“In here.”

Lani appears
from the storeroom carrying a large pile of hats I’ve never seen before. She’s
wearing a pale blue mini kilt, black ankle boots, legwarmers and a teeny cream-coloured
angora jumper that looks remarkably like a powder puff. Around her head, she’s
knotted a pale blue bandana that’s reminiscent of a
Bananarama
film clip I used to love. The tied ends are sitting up
on top of her bald head like rabbit ears.

Bald head?

I do a
double take.

“Your hair?”
The words splutter out in a sort of hysterical squeak. I’m used to Lani’s crazy
get-up but shaving her head? What
was
she thinking? She’s balder than a baby’s bottom.

“You like
it?” She plops the hats on the table before me and gives her head a primp, like
she’s smoothing the non-existent hair. Then she turns side to side so I can
admire it from every angle.

“I… uh… it’s
very unusual. You look so different.”

“I thought
it might make you feel better. You know, doing it together.”

Oh no, she’s
shaved her head to cheer me up.

“But I’m fine.
Everything’s getting back to normal.”

Lani walks
over to the table and pulls her coffee from the tray. She points to one of the
crumpets. “Mine?”

“Yep.”

After she
swallows, she says, “I know you’re fine, this is for when you lose your hair
from the chemo. If we’re both bald you won’t feel so self-conscious.”

I put my
coffee down and wrap my arms around her. I feel a splodge of butter from her
crumpet drip onto my top but I ignore it and kiss her apricot blushed cheek.