Page 2 of While I’m Still Here

Excellent.

“So,” I say as I lick my lips because my mouth is dry. “So, just to clarify again. Definitely have breast cancer?”

“Yes.”

Cancer.

Six letters.

Seems rather inadequate if you ask me. The word should be enormous, like so big it takes several breaths to pronounce, with maybe like seventeen syllables, and possibly a trumpet fanfare so you have ample warning before someone just gives it to you. Something like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is a word so long that the doctor needs to take a sip of water halfway through, giving you ample time to realise your life has just gone to shit.

This morning, I was worried I’d forgotten to put the bins out. Twenty minutes ago, I was wondering whether I could justify buying a cup of coffee on the way home when I already have some in the cupboard.

Now I have cancer.

I wonder if the bins have been emptied yet.

Jesus Christ. I swallow. “Right.”

The doctor says something else, something about treatment and surgery. Oncology is mentioned, alongside more tests. I nod at appropriate intervals because I have to.

Nod. Smile. Occasionally say right.

Very British of me.

There should probably be tea.

I wonder if they offer tea after? Presumably there isn’t a special trolley that comes along.

Tea: milk, two sugars.

Biscuits: custard cream, always.

Malignancy: unfortunately, yes.

A laugh almost escapes me, but I bite the inside of my cheek. Not funny. Definitely not funny. Except if I don’t laugh in the next thirty seconds, then I suspect that I may start crying, and something tells me that once I start, I won’t stop.

So.

No crying.

We’re going to behave like a normal, functioning adult.

Current status:

Cancer: one tit.

Mental breakdowns: zero, but very close to having one.

Excellent.

“What happens now?”

And there it is. The joke simply… stops.

I don’t know where it goes. One second I’m thinking about cancer biscuits, and the next there is something enormous sitting on my chest that has nothing whatsoever to do with the murderous bastard currently growing inside of it.

My fingers curl around the sleeve of my jumper. I look at the woman sitting opposite me, and suddenly I don’t care about the inspiration forest behind her, or tea or the bins. Or whether I’ve made a complete tit of myself by making jokes about my tits during a cancer diagnosis. “What happens to me now?”