In the beginning, I used to feel my breasts all the time. I’d meet a friend and say, “I have breast cancer.” Automatically, my left hand would go to my right breast. “I’m going to lose this,” I’d say out loud, trying to prepare. But they’ve been through four babies, these breasts, they’ve been plumper than apple pie, they’ve drooped flatter than a bad joke; nothing, I told myself, could make their destruction tangible.
Now, after three months and four chemotherapy treatments, what amazes me is how little I touch them. Here I am, on a couch once again, behind a curtain, chest bare. It’s routine. I lie down, and a strange man feels my breasts - which register no sensation. They have become desensitised - a prelude to what’s ahead.
And all conducted with such propriety. Mr al-Dubaisi says, “I need to examine you,” and that is the signal for Sister Briodie, the breast care nurse with her lilting Irish voice, to pull the curtains, leaving the surgeon and my husband where they are, one either side of the desk. Like a handmaiden, Sister Briodie helps me disrobe.
I never see how she indicates to Mr al-Dubaisi to join us, but he doesn’t once come in until my top is off and I am lying flat on the couch, as if the act of getting undressed is most private of all. He lays his hands flat, feeling his way along the breasts like a blind man might, as if his fingers give him information his eyes might miss, and all the while a gentle Irishwoman looks on.
A hundred thoughts circle. I’m really stressed, I hear myself thinking. I need to do some yoga. So happy my son’s settled so brilliantly into kindergarten. Realise how unhappy one of my daughters was in her reception year - that miserable teacher. These sentences run on a loop, while automatically I do what Mr al-Dubaisi asks: “Lift your arms, please; press your hands into your waist.”
This is the final consultation before the mastectomy. Mr al-Dubaisi is pleased. He can’t feel the lymph node any more, and there is no change to the lump. He retires from the curtained chamber, and Sister Briodie hands me my clothes, not something anybody has ever done for me as an adult.
Back at the desk, I remember to ask to see a photo of what the scar will look like. Mr al-Dubaisi says it will be flat, the scar going laterally across. He says he’ll use the same scar to reach under the arm, to the lymph nodes.
I’ve had two weeks to think this over, to decide to proceed with the mastectomy, or have further chemotherapy instead. During the fortnight we went to Israel, where Anthony’s oldest son is emigrating, we saw my somewhat detached parents, who said things such as, “Nobody is more concerned than we are,” and, “It doesn’t seem fair to ask you to make the decision about whether to have more chemotherapy before the surgery,” shaking puzzled heads.
But in the end, there wasn’t a great decision to make. It was easy. I didn’t want to leave the trial; I want this illness to have some point, and contributing in however tiny a way to research seems to give it some reason. And more, if I put it off any longer, I couldn’t face it at all.
“How long will I need to be in hospital?” I ask. “Ten days,” the surgeon says. “A week,” I counter, old sparring partners now.
The operation will be at 4.30pm, a Friday afternoon. My three daughters will be at their father’s, and Anthony’s children will be with us this weekend, so our son won’t be without siblings at home.
I have to have a blood test before the operation. I hate blood tests. I cry. As we leave I rattle off a list of errands at Anthony, stuff that must be done this minute, nine, 10 random things, paint samples, pants for the toddler, milk, bread, broad beans. I finish writing an interview with Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries. She’s been a splash of colour across this week - coming to my house to be interviewed, sporting pink boots, bearing flowers.
Later, there is squabbling downstairs. The 11-year-old and the 10-year-old are in full spate. “You dropped them, you pick them up.” “No, you.” And calling, “Mu-u-u-u-mmmm!”
Ragged from this illness, Anthony and I break our cardinal rule, each siding with their own child. Alarmed, They take to the couch, while we turn on one another. And so it goes, on into the night before the mastectomy.
This column appears fortnightly.
18 March 2021: this article has been edited to remove some personal information.
