tit. Then it crept into my lymph system. But it’s out now. It’s gone. He’s got rid of it. So yes, it’s a bigger deal than you thought it was, but has it really made any difference? Did you even know what lymph nodes were before all of this? Would you be able to draw them in a game of Pictionary? No. So what the hell can they have been doing that’s so vital to your well-being? Come on, now, people live perfectly long and fulfilled lives without a kidney, and you know what they’re for. So what’s a few lymph nodes between friends?’ I dare say the industrial-strength painkillers helped with my sober reasoning, and Mum’s relaxed insistence that it didn’t matter to the outcome as long as the nodes had been removed freaked me out more for her enforced calmness than the news itself.
I appreciate that this is yet another stoically British way of looking at things, but, really, when the worst has happened, what does another setback matter? It’s like getting soaked in the rain on your way home and then stepping in a puddle. Yes, it’s a pisser, but can you really be arsed getting that worked up about it? I spoke about this with Ant recently, after which she likened me to one of those battleaxes that French and Saunders used to play – chopping off a finger by accident and feeding it to the dog, then slicing off another when the other dog looked hungry. ‘Ah well, love, what’s another finger?’ she mocked.
The thing is, in the series of mini-battles that characterised my first few days in hospital, to me, the grade-three reality of my cancer was just another hurdle to jump. In the situation I found myself – with even sitting up straight or drinking a cup of tea seeming like a huge deal – all sense of perspective was launching itself out of my fourth-floor window.
For example, the day I managed to put on my pyjamas was a huge deal to me. This sounds pretty daft now I see it written down, but at the time, with the pain in my chest and back that I couldn’t precisely locate and the stiffness that prevented me from moving my left arm properly, even bending my elbow to reach inside my pyjama sleeve was quite the achievement. (Not least because they won the prize for The World’s Least Attractive Sleepwear. I’d only let Mum buy them because it made her feel better.) It was so much of an achievement, in fact, that it became the first in a series of triumphant cancer-milestone photos sent via media message from my mum to my brother, in which I’m giving him yet another middle finger. It’s not your average family album, granted, but it’s cherished nonetheless. (‘There’s Lisa in hospital, giving Jamie the middle finger. That’s Lisa again, with the first meal she ate after chemo, giving Jamie the middle finger. And there’s Lisa in her headscarf, giving Jamie the middle finger …’)
Another goal was achieved the first time I walked down the ward corridor. Actually, waddled is a more accurate description. In fact, my first few steps were as far removed from a confident catwalk strut as you’re likely to get, thanks to a baggier-on-the-left pyjama top and my having to shuffle about with a bag of drainage tubes on one side and a bag of piss on the other (Mulberry eat your heart out). You’d think it would have been the hospital-issue handbags that would have embarrassed me the most, and yet, when I spotted Tills and her husband Si at the other end of the corridor, my strange combination of joy at seeing them and shame at them seeing me was more down to my grandma-chic spotty pyjamas than the bottle of urine in my right hand.
But the biggest fence to jump came in an even more unsavoury form – and equally unsavoury surroundings: the toilet. The cancer, I was just about getting my head around. But the constipation? Shit! (Or no shit, as the case may be.) Sheesh, those leaflets they hand over on diagnosis should read, ‘Welcome to breast cancer. Leave your vanity at the door and let’s crack on,
I appreciate that this is yet another stoically British way of looking at things, but, really, when the worst has happened, what does another setback matter? It’s like getting soaked in the rain on your way home and then stepping in a puddle. Yes, it’s a pisser, but can you really be arsed getting that worked up about it? I spoke about this with Ant recently, after which she likened me to one of those battleaxes that French and Saunders used to play – chopping off a finger by accident and feeding it to the dog, then slicing off another when the other dog looked hungry. ‘Ah well, love, what’s another finger?’ she mocked.
The thing is, in the series of mini-battles that characterised my first few days in hospital, to me, the grade-three reality of my cancer was just another hurdle to jump. In the situation I found myself – with even sitting up straight or drinking a cup of tea seeming like a huge deal – all sense of perspective was launching itself out of my fourth-floor window.
For example, the day I managed to put on my pyjamas was a huge deal to me. This sounds pretty daft now I see it written down, but at the time, with the pain in my chest and back that I couldn’t precisely locate and the stiffness that prevented me from moving my left arm properly, even bending my elbow to reach inside my pyjama sleeve was quite the achievement. (Not least because they won the prize for The World’s Least Attractive Sleepwear. I’d only let Mum buy them because it made her feel better.) It was so much of an achievement, in fact, that it became the first in a series of triumphant cancer-milestone photos sent via media message from my mum to my brother, in which I’m giving him yet another middle finger. It’s not your average family album, granted, but it’s cherished nonetheless. (‘There’s Lisa in hospital, giving Jamie the middle finger. That’s Lisa again, with the first meal she ate after chemo, giving Jamie the middle finger. And there’s Lisa in her headscarf, giving Jamie the middle finger …’)
Another goal was achieved the first time I walked down the ward corridor. Actually, waddled is a more accurate description. In fact, my first few steps were as far removed from a confident catwalk strut as you’re likely to get, thanks to a baggier-on-the-left pyjama top and my having to shuffle about with a bag of drainage tubes on one side and a bag of piss on the other (Mulberry eat your heart out). You’d think it would have been the hospital-issue handbags that would have embarrassed me the most, and yet, when I spotted Tills and her husband Si at the other end of the corridor, my strange combination of joy at seeing them and shame at them seeing me was more down to my grandma-chic spotty pyjamas than the bottle of urine in my right hand.
But the biggest fence to jump came in an even more unsavoury form – and equally unsavoury surroundings: the toilet. The cancer, I was just about getting my head around. But the constipation? Shit! (Or no shit, as the case may be.) Sheesh, those leaflets they hand over on diagnosis should read, ‘Welcome to breast cancer. Leave your vanity at the door and let’s crack on,
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