Dropped Threads 2 (11 page)

In mothering her, I felt mothered in a way that I hadn’t since I was a small child. Even though I never had the cathartic conversation that I longed for, I felt content that everything I had wanted to say and hear was conveyed through touch.

To me, the hiking snapshot is one of two photographs that bridge the great tragedies of my mother’s life: her brothers’ drowning and her own early death from breast cancer. I saw the other picture for the first time the night my mother died. We were huddled in my father’s study, sipping Scotch, after returning from the hospital for the final time. Having made the essential phone calls to family and friends, we were sitting there feeling numb, wondering what to do next, when my father suddenly left the room and returned with a photograph that he handed silently to my sisters and me.

Unlike the snapshots in the Black Magic box, this was a glossy eight-by-ten portrait by a professional photographer. My mother was wearing a white mink derby hat and a rose-coloured wool paisley dress. She had a Mona Lisa smile on her face and a sleeping child in her lap.

Perhaps by showing it to us, my father was trying to erase her shrunken, frozen image from our minds. Perhaps he was reminding himself of her beauty. Nobody looking at that picture could guess that my mother was terminally ill or that the smile and the smashing fur hat were female armour.

My father had taught physics at McGill for decades, and my mother, a faculty wife to the core, was determined that night to attend the installation of the new principal, even though a bone scan had just produced alarming results.

As the festivities wore on, she must have become exhausted and quietly found a chair. There, she was discovered by the youngest of the principal’s five children, a sleepy little girl looking for a nest. She crawled into my mother’s lap, fell asleep, and a press photographer snapped the picture. The child of a relative stranger, that anonymous little girl, is now an icon in my family’s mythology. Each of us has a copy of that photograph prominently displayed. I am looking at mine even now.

That little girl sensed something maternal and comforting about my mother. By crawling, uninvited, into a stranger’s lap, she unlocked a warmth and a refuge. And that is what I had also done in my mother’s hospital room. I broke through the silence in those hours that I left my own family behind and sat by her bedside, holding her hand, knowing she didn’t have the strength or the will to resist.

There is no photograph to record it, but somehow I don’t need one.

Inside
                    Talking

Barbara Defago

May 26, 2000

I am sitting in the dark with a stranger, a man. He seems nice, and for some reason I’m feeling sorry for him. Should we turn on the lights? I ask, even though the subject of our meeting seems better left in the dark. He apologizes, saying he’s so used to the dark that he hadn’t noticed we were in it. He is an expert, and he has come to give me some news. I know what he’s going to say just because he’s here. I think about him going home to his family on this Friday night and hope that what he has to say to me won’t remain with him when he leaves this windowless room.

There are some cases, he starts out, where we know for sure that there’s nothing wrong. This is not my case he’s referring to, I think. A cyst is a cyst, he says. If I had a cyst, he wouldn’t be here. He’s warming up now. Then there are other cases. I am one of the others. The man, this doctor, shifts his position from leaning against the desk, arms folded, to sitting on the edge, a bit like Humpty Dumpty with a firm grip. I uncross my right leg and cross my left leg, adjusting the blue gown to thoroughly obscure any hint of breasts. My position in this little chair with wheels is lower than his. I probably look hunched over, protecting myself. I want to bolt but stay, nodding uh-huh, uh-huh as he continues. Sometimes we’re suspicious, and in about 50 percent of those cases it turns out to be okay. This is also not my case. Then there are other cases that are more than suspicious. In those situations we might be 75 percent sure but could still be proven wrong. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I know what’s coming. This is when I’m feeling sorry for him. The odd time we’re very sure—99 percent sure. Which of those cases am I? A voice has just asked the question I don’t want answered. It sounds like my voice, but I haven’t felt the words coming out. I want my sweater that isn’t here and instead wrap myself in my arms. Very sure, he says. Uh-huh, I say. For a split second the room falls away. No desk. No machines. No chair. His eyes are keeping me from falling. I turn my head away just a little and the room comes back. You have breast cancer, he says.

My life is now divided. The past will become
before
and the present and future will be
after
. The four words from this stranger on this day in May in the year 2000 have formed a black vertical mark on the line that is my life. I can see the length of the line to the left only.

June 30, 2000

Morning. Last night as I cruised the hallways attached to fluid on a pole, my chest felt like a gunshot wound—how I imagine one would feel, that is. But today it’s more comfortable underneath all the gauze. I’m up. I’m on my feet. Ready to go. Nothing wrong with me. Bet they’ve never seen anything like this. I’m a bloody medical marvel, I am. I wait until seven to call home. When are you coming to get me? I ask. Charlene, yesterdays admissions nurse, is just starting her workday. Hi, how are you doing today? What time did you wake up? She has stopped at her office door to converse with me. Her face is one big smile. This hospital is a warm, cozy place. Oh hi, I say. I woke up around six, I think. No, no, I mean yesterday, after your surgery. I don’t know the answer and I’m concerned about why she’s asking. Did something go wrong with the anaesthetic? Did they give me too much? Did they have to give me a jump-start to get me back to the land of the living? I do recall the anaesthetist accompanying a post-op patient back to the ward late last night. I was on one of my forays down the hall. He hesitated and looked at me a second time, then smiled and waved. I remember noticing. Maybe he was relieved to see me walking around instead of brain-dead after what I’d put them through yesterday. I say none of this to Charlene. Good luck, she says, ending our conversation.

I head back to my one-night room, stopping briefly to help a co-patient manoeuvre herself and her equipment into the bathroom. My roommate sits stiffly on the edge of her bed, gowned, protecting her chest from whatever might be flying around in the air. She is tiny—looks like a child to me—but tells me she’s forty-seven. Her mother has come from Hong Kong to look after her. When did you have your surgery? she asks tentatively. Yesterday? Me too. How come you’re up and walking around so well? She’s crying now.

Afternoon. I am home from the hospital with my drain pinned to the oversize front-buttoned blouse I have borrowed from my mother. I’m a little less bulky. Dr. D., the surgeon, popped in this a.m. to remove some of the bandages. For the long weekend, she said. I wasn’t sure what she thought I might be planning. My underarm yells at me if I forget it’s wounded and reach out for something. Can’t baby myself, though. It’s important to exercise to prevent lymphoedema or Big Arm, as some people call it. Dr. D. phones to say the preliminary report on the nodes looks good, in spite of the fact that one had felt suspicious.
We love her
. A nurse will visit every day to check on my drainage. I haven’t looked at my left breast yet, or what remains of it.

July 12, 2000

If my breasts were sisters, one would be the good sister, the other the bad. She’s out there letting her presence be known, misbehaving. Good sister is diminutive and well mannered, my left breast has rebelled against the surgical assault by becoming larger, in spite of the great hunks of flesh removed—perhaps the bad sister isn’t taking this lying down. Today we all troop into the surgeon’s office for the first post-op visit. Lift your arm, turn this way, both arms…. The surgeon has a student doctor with her, hopes I don’t mind. Of course I don’t. I’m happy to offer anything in the way of learning experience. This girl is cute, looks about fifteen, as a lot of people do these days. The surgeon leaves momentarily. This woman literally runs around her office in jogging pants and Nikes. Breast cancer is giving her a lot of business. I chit-chat with the student as I’m sitting on the table with my breasts hanging out. I might be imagining some discomfort on her part, but not taking any chances, I ask a few questions about her education, in a motherly sort of way, trying to ignore my own nakedness.

The surgeon returns and aspirates some fluid from the swollen area in my armpit. Doesn’t seem to make too much difference. She’s pretty happy with her work, smiling as she examines her sewing. And now what I’ve been waiting for—the pathology report. It will tell me everything I don’t know yet: how bad it is; how far it’s spread; how long I have to live; if there’s any point in further treatment. All that stuff. My fear is that my cancer is like nothing anybody has ever seen before. I imagine the pathologist calling across the lab,
Holy shit, Norm, come and have a look at this. What the hell?

Apparently, only surgical queries will be addressed here. Every one of the players in my drama has his or her thing. And this player is in a bit of a hurry. I heard the key words in the pathology report. Nodes negative. Good. “Invasive” was there in some context, even though not lymphatic or vascular. Hmm. Narrow margins. Not good, from what I’ve read in the books on cancer, but the expert tells me she’s not concerned about that. But I’m worried about all those bad cells left behind, escaping as we speak. She tells me I have something known as atypical ductal hyperplasia. I think that means breast tissue reproducing itself at an abnormal rate. You’d never know it from the outside. She says they’ve learned that women with this kind of tissue are more likely to develop breast cancer. Seems to me like a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing. This could or could not be the only cancer I get. I ask for a copy of the report. Later I will attempt to dissect the language.

My husband and daughter are nearly jumping for joy. Hurray. The nodes are negative. A few months ago they didn’t know I had nodes. Now we’re ecstatic they’re negative. Trying not to dampen their enthusiasm, I say, Hang on a second. Yes, this is good, but this alien, which has hopefully left the premises, had me by the throat in no time. It’s very sneaky. Complacency on my part could be an invitation for ambush. We can’t claim victory yet.

September 2000

This is radiation month. Every day, Monday to Friday. They have a great system here at the cancer clinic. Patients don’t have to think about a thing. They schedule all your appointments, including a weekly visit with the radiation oncologist. For now, my life has been taken out of my hands, and that suits me fine.

On arrival each day, I wait with the other patients, usually not for very long, until they call my name. Radiation is like an X-ray, but not really—maybe somewhere between an X-ray and atomic bomb fallout. I’m alone in a sealed room while the treatment takes place. The heavy door shuts with a bang as the technicians hustle out. Outside they turn switches and dials as they scrutinize me on the screen. These few minutes somehow manage to consume my whole day. There is no pain, but for me it’s the mental part. I worry that I might move even a millimetre and get radiated in places that shouldn’t be. I even worry about breathing too vigorously. I try not to think about what these invisible rays are doing inside my body. Breaking up remnants of bad tissue? What about the healthy stuff near by? Another cancer survivor told me that radiation is a malevolent force that continues to work away inside your body long after the treatments are over. The target area is very close to my heart.

I’ve gotten to know the technicians pretty well, under the circumstances. I see the same four in combinations of two each day. Three women and one man. They smile and ask me how I am. Good, I say. I bare my breasts to them with the same lack of modesty I felt when I gave birth to my daughter twenty-two years ago. They line me up on the table, matching ink lines on my chest with lines of light emitted from the machine or somewhere. I’m not really sure exactly what is going on since I can only look straight up at the ceiling. They repeat numbers to each other and make adjustments to the table and my body. Don’t try to help, just let us move you, they say. There is a TV screen in this room. I see my name on it. There is music in this room. Something by Tina Turner. Who, I wonder, is in charge of selecting the music to accompany a radiation treatment?

My thoughts bump into one another, fall apart and pile up again. I try to focus on the music or count the number of petals on the ornamental cherry trees in the poster on the ceiling; instead, I listen to the discordant chant of my breathing and the erratic rhythm of my heartbeat. Some days I relent and take half a milligram of a sedative on the way here. Usually my daughter Ashley comes with me, even though I’ve said I’m quite okay to drive myself. It’s nice to have the company. She’s decided not to go on a trip this summer, doesn’t think she’d have a very good time, considering … my condition. She wants to be with me, she says. Not that you need to be looked after or anything like that, she adds. She’s my child and she would make it all better for me, if she could. My husband, Nick, has taken some time off work. I think they call it compassionate leave. He accompanies me to some appointments, usually asking more questions than I would like. I always talk to him about that later. Sometimes I’m cranky. I say things like, Next time be quiet, or, If you don’t mind I’d prefer to do my own talking. Sometimes I remind him that certain questions are to be asked of certain people at certain times and I’m the only one who can determine all these things with any degree of certainty. My dad drives in with me too. We talk a lot in the car, mainly about this thing I’m going through. He never says it out loud, but I know he’s terrified that his daughter could die before him. I cannot tell him otherwise. Some things are too painful for us to talk about. This cancer business has taken over. I cry a lot, but mainly in private. Mood is black, skin is burnt. I am exhausted already and only halfway through this leg of the journey.