Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (16 page)

“We’ve never
needed one before,” Sue says.

“You will give
us a fashion parade, won’t you?” I hear Mum call from the other side.

Gahhhhhh. Why
can’t they go to the AFL shop or something?

“NO!”

I look at Sue,
who is attempting not to laugh, albeit unsuccessfully.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Don’t
apologise. That’s your family, I take it?” Her voice is soothing as she begins
to bustle around in the space beside me looking for a tape measure.

“How did you
guess?”

“The look of
sheer terror had something to do with it.”

“On me? Or them?”

“Them. I guess
this has been rough. Your diagnosis and everything. Cancer has a way of
changing the way we look at life and loved ones.”

“Mmm.”

And now I feel
like a cow again. I never considered it must have been hard for Mum, too. I know
I’d be distraught if Rory became ill. Maybe I’ve been too harsh? I could try to
relax a little more.

“We’re ready
for the show,” Colin bellows. “Any time you are.”

Or maybe not.

Sue wraps the
tape measure around my body. Her hands are cool and soft. Her eyes fall to the
numbers on the tape measure, then to the shape of my body but it’s not awkward
or embarrassing. She has this way of making me feel quite okay with it.

“I just wanted
a stress-free experience,” I say, feeling a sudden need to justify why I’ve
been so short with them. “I didn’t want them to come. The last couple of months
have been so surreal, I wanted to step back from it for a minute.”

“Your family
love you, they want to be close to you.”

“They don’t
have to be quite this close, do they?”

Sue puts the
tape measure down. “I’m popping out to get you a bra and prosthesis to try. You
won’t believe the difference once we remove that thing you’re wearing now, and get
a good fitting bra and prosthesis on you. Nobody will be able to tell the
difference.”

Nobody except
me.

The rest of the
fitting goes off without a hitch. I’ve come out of the fitting room with two
new bras that are lacy and make me feel nice and a nude-coloured breast form
that looks nothing like the colour of naked skin.
 
It’s made of silicone, I think, but it’s soft and has this
outer layer of gel that’s meant to stay cool against my body.
 
It also has its own suitcase, so it
doesn’t lose shape. And it’s heavy. I can’t believe my breast was that heavy
when it was attached to my body but, apparently, it was.

I go to the
counter to pay.

Sue punches a
few numbers and says, in her soft soothing voice, “That’ll be six hundred and
forty-five dollars.”

“I beg your
pardon?”

She hands me
the invoice to better help me deal with the shock. I can hardly take it from
her hand.

“Let me pay,”
says Mum.

“It’s okay,
I’ve got it.”

Before I can
open my purse, Mum pulls out her credit card and punches in the security pin.
She gives me the ‘I-win-this-time’ smile and for once, I let her. If she wants
to spend that amount of money on a fake boob, I’ll let her. If it makes her
happy, I’ll let her.

But six hundred
dollars? Cancer is bloody expensive. I know we’ll get a bit back from the
government reimbursement scheme but seriously, how do others cope when slugged
with upfront costs like this? Are they pretending to be proud Breast Cancer
survivors who walk around lopsided for their entire lives because they can’t
afford the upfront outlay?

Chapter 16

It’s a week
later. Brendan and I have been invited to a birthday party. We got invited
months ago, before the whole diagnosis thing and we haven’t seen the couple in
question since then. What with having my boob lopped off and everything, I have
been rather preoccupied.

I love parties.
In my former life, before Breast Cancer, I was the party queen. Never a party
was thrown without me being given an invitation, mostly because I manage to do
something embarrassing that makes people laugh, like slipping in a wet spot on
the dance floor or doing red wine karaoke to very forgettable 90’s pop hits.
Tonight, however, I’m not in party mode. In fact, I’d rather stay at home and
watch something trashy on TV but Brendan wants to go. And I’ll probably have
fun once we get there.

Earlier on
today, I let Mum take me shopping to buy a new top. This is usually a
guaranteed pick me up but it appears that I am so depressed that even a new
outfit won’t work. I peer at myself in the mirror and frown at the girl looking
back. I’ve spent ages on my look but something isn’t right. The top that seemed
so pretty in the shop makes me look like I’m fifty in natural light. Yes, it
covers my lack of cleavage
—
the very reason I bought it
—
but now I have it on, I find I don’t want it to. I want to get out my flimsy,
floaty tops and look like me. Tears well in my eyes and I know it’s silly to be
crying over the way I look, but I can’t help it. I feel so angry with myself
and this bloody cancer. And frustrated. I’m so frustrated by, well, everything.

Brendan pokes
his head around the bathroom door, where I’m now trying to make my hair look
exceptionally good. If my hair looks good people won’t notice the top. At least
that’s what I’ve reasoned.

“Ready?”

I nod feebly. A
tear rolls down my cheek and I dab a tissue at it so it won’t spoil my make-up.

Brendan steps
into the room. A whiff of the new cologne he’s recently started wearing wafts
between us. I’m not sure if I like his new scent. I think I’m a fan of the one
he used to wear, the one he said he was sick of and needed a change from.
Brendan moves behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. He drops a kiss on
the tip of my ear before his chin comes to rest on my shoulder. He looks
intently at my reflection in the mirror. What I want, is for him to say I look
nice. I want to see the desire in his eyes, the way it used to be. I want my
life the way it was.

“What’s up? You
okay?”

“I can’t go.”
Now, my lip is wobbling. He’s being so sweet, I just might lose it over his
shirt in a second.

“Why? You love
a party.”

“I look
ridiculous.”

His eyes travel
down to my top. “You look pretty. The colour is nice.”

“It’s
horrible.” Nothing is going to placate me, not even Brendan’s manly attempt at
sensitivity.

“Then why’d you
buy it?”

“It looked nice
in the shop.”

“Ahh, the thin
mirrors, eh?”

Brendan doesn’t
believe that shops put those thin mirrors in their change rooms to trick you
into buying stuff you’d never buy any other time. Nine times out of ten I get
home and discover what I saw as good in the shop makes me look like a heifer.

“I look like my
mother.”

“It’s not your
usual style. Why don’t you get changed? We have a couple of minutes.”

I can’t believe
the words have sprung from his mouth. Brendan, the stickler for being on time
and constant nag about me not being ready is giving me some leeway. I squint at
him in the mirror, trying to ascertain who this new loving, caring fellow is.

“I have nothing
to wear. My cute tops are too revealing.”

“I wouldn’t say
that. It’s not like you go round with your tits out, like some chicks do.”

“No. I mean,
now that I have this…” I gesture in the general area of my prosthesis, “…this thing,
they’re too low cut. You can see my bra or, if I bend, my lack of cleavage.
There’s no happy medium.”

“Don’t bend
then?” He gives me a grin and I know he’s trying to cheer me up. “What about
that one that shows your shoulder? You know the blue one with that big sleeve that
gets in my drinks? I like that.”

He’s trying to
describe the sapphire-coloured one shoulder top with the bat-wing sleeve, of
course. It’s revealing but in a very subtle way. And it makes my shoulders look
lovely. Lovely shoulders would totally negate having one boob. Plus, the
covered shoulder is on the side of my prosthesis so if I take it out and slip
it in a strapless bra, I might be able to pull it off.

 
I grin at him in the mirror. “Why didn’t
I think of that?”

Turning, I wrap
my arms around him and press myself into the strength of his chest. “Thank
you,” I whisper into his neck.

“I aim to
please. Now, get a move on. The party waits for no man and we’re already late.”

And the real
Brendan’s back.

Within five
minutes, I’ve rushed to change, attached the breast form to my chest with wide
medical tape, so it won’t pop out of the strapless bra, and redone my hair into
a low ponytail at my nape that hangs over my bare shoulder. The hideous top is lying
on the bed in a crumpled heap but I don’t care. I look in the mirror and I feel
content. Now, I am me.

I head down to
get in the car and we speed off towards Hilary and John’s place. It’s the fault
of the bloody Tamoxifen, I think as I sink into the seat, the sound of
Brendan’s voice, telling me about his day, washing over me. When Dr. Downer
gave me the script and we discussed my options, she mentioned there were
minimal side effects to taking this drug, but I think she may have underplayed
how minimal they are. Since I started, I’ve turned from a rational sane woman
to a blubbering hormonal mess. Not to mention the headaches, the bloating that
makes me the size of an excessive overeater in the space of five minutes or the
incredible urge to fart at the most inopportune moments. Sometimes, I have such
a lack of control over my bodily functions, I feel as if I’ve given myself over
to testing. I was never like this before. Still, it’s better than being dead. I
could have been that.

We arrive at
the party and wind our way through the crowd looking for the birthday boy.

“Hey.” Brendan
waves an arm at Hilary and John, who are stood in half in, half out of the
bi-fold doors, looking like they’d like to stop saying hello and go get a nice
stiff drink.

“Sophie!” Hilary
exclaims.
 
“How are you, babe?”

“Pretty good. You?
You look like you’ve lost weight.”

Hilary runs a
hand over her hip. “A couple of kilos. Chasing Weston around is a better
workout than going to the gym.”

Weston is Hilary
and John’s toddler son. Gorgeous child. Hideous name. Sounds like a biscuit.

“Well, you look
great.”

“Thanks. You
look fab, too. I can’t believe you’ve been going through this. You don’t look
sick. You look so rested.”

“Weeks of
sitting around on your bum will tend to do that.”

“Oh you!” She
gives my arm a slight punch. “You weren’t sitting around. You were recuperating.
Oh, by the way, Melinda’s here.”

Hilary knows
about my problems with Melinda. Since my operation, I managed to get hold of
her only once. She was standoffish and guarded, not her usual effusive self. It
might be good to clear the air in person. I still don’t know what I’ve done to
offend her, other than get a life threatening illness.

“Where is she?”
I ask.

“She was over
at the bar a second ago, but I can’t see her now.”

It appears
Melinda has seen me first and has gone into hiding.

Deciding to
cross that bridge later, I hand the token bottle of alcohol over to John. “Happy
birthday.”

“Cheers.” He kisses
my cheek and peeks inside the bag. “Nice. My scotch cabinet was starting to run
low.”

I feel bad. I’ve
given the most generic male present in the world because until two hours ago,
I’d completely forgotten the party was for John’s birthday. The bottle shop was
the only thing left open at five o’clock on a Saturday. It seems, along with
the other symptoms from the Tamoxifen, I’ve also started suffering from
dementia.

“It’s not
much,” I mumble by way of apology.

Waving my
apology away, Hilary takes the present and puts it on the sideboard with some
other gifts. “We’re glad you’re here. That’s gift enough for us. Now let’s go
get a bloody drink. All this smiling and being nice is making my face ache.”

A while later, I'm
standing next to Hilary and Angela in a corner of the courtyard.
 
We're drinking bubbles and giggling over
the guy standing next to us. He’s a workmate of John’s or a long lost cousin or
something. His hair is blowing in the evening breeze. The only problem is, he's
plastered it with so much hairspray it's blowing straight up like a weird sort
of Mohawk, then floating back into place across his forehead to cover his bald
spot. He’s totally clueless. He thinks we're checking him out and he's started
to puff out his chest like a Black Cockatoo searching for a mate.

Hilary turns to
me. "So, it's okay to drink when you have cancer?" Her eyes indicate
the bubbles in my glass. I'm only having a couple, having struck a deal with
Brendan to be the designated driver.