The C-Word by Lisa Lynch Page A

perfect for parties. Now, that’s not a distant-second-place existence. I LOVE the thought of that life with P. (Jeez, I love the thought of
any
life with P. Stick us in a hut in Hull and we’d still have a good time.) And, even during the bleakest moments of The Bullshit, P would tell me that he felt exactly the same about our alternative future.
    But, in that peculiar time of everybody treating me like a china doll, it was difficult to figure out when people were being honest, or avoiding the tricky stuff and instead telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. Even P. I’d bring up my concerns in as breezy a way as I could manage, and every time he’d bat them away like flies around his beer glass.
    ‘Don’t be so daft,’ he’d protest, stroking my lovely long hair. ‘You’ve got a gorgeous face – and that’s not going to change, is it?’
    ‘But what about the other stuff?’ I’d ask. ‘I’m not the wife you bargained for. Your life’s hardly turning out the way you thought it would, is it?’
    Then he’d dissolve my line of reasoning in an instant, the way only he can. ‘You mean
our
life,’ he’d say, locking his fingers with mine. ‘We’re in this together, remember?’
    And I’d smile. And shut up. Because you just can’t argue with that.

CHAPTER 9
    The science bit
    Let the games commence! I’ve been at the hospital all afternoon and have come out with so much new info that I feel like I’ve had a crash course in another language. The next time you get a difficult cancer question at the pub quiz, consider me your phone-a-friend.
    Aware that today marked the entry point to phase two of The Bullshit, I made the emancipatory move of ditching my mastectomy bra for the first time, and proudly wore my wonky chest in a favourite top and bust-skimming pendant necklace with jeans and my I-can-take-anything-on-provided-it-doesn’t-mean-walking-far wedges. Cancer may take my hair, but it’ll never take my fashion sense.
    I tottered precariously into the hospital and was handed a pristine-looking file with my name on it that had to accompany me up to a different floor. Being a nosy cow, I had a good look through it while waiting for the lift: it was divided into neat, currently empty sections like ‘histology’, ‘chemotherapy reports’ and ‘radiotherapy reports’. As the lift doors opened onto my floor, I noticed two things: (1) not everyone’s files were so pristine (apparently cancer treatment takes it out on you
and
your folder), and (2) I was the youngest person in the waiting room by about, ooh, a hundred years. My wedges were wasted on this lot.
    After the routine up-the-nose MRSA test, in came The Cavalry, aka the curly-haired professor and his absolutely stunning second-in-command (she’ll be a great help when I’m in full George Dawes mode – couldn’t they have found me a troll-like consultant instead?). And they were both brilliant: the perfect mix of straight-talking without the scariness and empathetic without the head-tilting.
    Curly Professor explained that, whatever the results of my CT scan, it would have no bearing on the chemotherapy I’d be having. Whether or not it actually revealed any further spread, he told me that it was best to assume that there
would
be cancer cells elsewhere in my body (thanks to so many lymph nodes being involved), which, oddly, came as quite a comfort. I had been completely cacking it before my scan (which is as close to the World’s Biggest Understatement as you’re likely to get), but hearing this did a lot to ease my worry. There’s huge relief in knowing that, whatever the scan reveals, I’ll be having the right treatment to zap the arse off it anyway.
    All that said, my oncologists’ serious looks made everything feel all too real. I wanted to stop them mid-flow and say, ‘Hang on, now, let me get this right. I’ve got
breast cancer
? And you’re about to give me
chemotherapy
? That’s pretty fucking hardcore, no?’ Up to