I was becoming an expert observer of surgeons’ hands. Greg’s were confidence-enhancing with their short fingers and freckles on the backs. A compact man, he was boyish and, for a surgeon, outgoing. With his pale complexion and reddish hair, he could’ve been a Highland piper in a previous life. I liked and trusted him almost immediately.
Mastectomy plus reconstruction – I was told – would involve three surgeons and several assistants, six to eight hours under the knife and a recovery period of three months (assuming the patient was a twenty-year-old Olympian with an incredibly high pain threshold, I thought later). Greg would leave a scar the shape of a smile stretching across my abdomen from one hip to the other, cut conveniently low so I could still wear a bikini. As if.
At the same time he planned to simultaneously perform a reduction on the left breast so the new pair would match. Scarring around the breasts would be artfully concealed.
My optimism wavered. What Greg was proposing wasn’t a renovation so much as a full body refit. Putting myself through all that would be the equivalent of simultaneously bungee jumping, climbing Everest and playing in the World Cup Rugby final.
‘We live in a breast-obsessed society,’ said Greg.
Rubbish, I thought. Driving home, I stopped at some traffic lights and saw a sculpture I’d never noticed before. It was constructed entirely of concrete breasts.
A DVD about breast reconstruction lay on the kitchen table. I wasn’t keen to examine its contents. Apparently the reconstructive surgery would take longer to recover from than the mastectomy itself. Still, even though I’m no Pamela Anderson I didn’t fancy running around like an Amazon for the rest of my days.
Watching the DVD with Philip, I emitted involuntary yelps. How could those women talk so brightly about the massive scarring on their bodies?
Maybe I’d give reconstruction the swerve. But then I remembered a friend describing how shattered she’d felt waking up after her mastectomy to see a vast empty space where her breast had been. Reconstruction might be a physical hurdle, but it could spare some psychological trauma.
Getting three surgeons to show up in the same operating theatre at the same time was like arranging for Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie and Queen Elizabeth II to attend the same charity event. The medics shuffled their diaries around and found a date to suit them all in three weeks’ time. It felt like forever.
Preparation
It’s what’s inside that counts
Two nights after Ned’s visit, the phone rang close to midnight. Answering it, I was relieved to hear Lydia’s voice, though it was a bad line that made her sound as if she was in a submarine.
She apologised for the lack of contact, explaining that it was the rainy season and the phone line to the monastery had been down. The impersonal cheer I heard in her voice left me cold.
Like a wounded lover, I held back on information and waited for her to ask. Yes, I was fine, but not really. There were long silences. I told her about Ned’s visit. Oh yes, she said offhandedly. She’d email him some time.
A parrot squawked in the background. The monastery really was in some kind of jungle. With little enthusiasm I asked what she’d been up to.
Meditating, she said, then went on to tell me that the monk and nuns had conducted a ceremony for me in a cave. There’d been chanting. Special, she said.
It sounded like a touching scene, intriguing even, but anger quickly flared. ‘So they know I’m sick?’ I asked. ‘Don’t they think you should be here right now with your family?’
Silence again. ‘I don’t know what they think,’ she replied.
Though I wanted to understand, to be reasonable, I still felt too raw. ‘I’m sick and you’re not here,’ I said quietly. Silence.
If only she could say it once. The word I longed to hear – Mum.
‘You don’t love me!’ I wailed, sounding wretched and deranged.
The Sri Lankan parrot screeched. I couldn’t gauge her response. Was she impatient, resentful . . . or weeping?
‘I do. I really do,’ she said after interminable silence. The line crackled and went dead.
The phone rang often during the three weeks leading up to surgery. My sister Mary and Ginny in New Zealand. Julie my yoga teacher and numerous others phoned. Lydia’s calls were less frequent. Either the lines were down or she was too busy attending ceremonies.
I tried to concentrate on upbeat diversions, like helping Rob and Chantelle prepare for their wedding. The big day was just five months away.
They’d chosen a wonderful venue: an old convent in the country town of Daylesford, an hour and a half’s drive from Melbourne. The tiny chapel oozed a blend of romance and spirituality. A few steps away from the chapel, the reception area opened on to balconies with views of silver-green hills nudging a vast sky. Eucalyptus on the breeze added a touch of air freshener.
They’d also booked a photographer and band, and a celebrant had been found, though she kept forgetting their names. However, organising these things turned out to be just the first tier of sorting out the Modern Wedding.
I’d had no idea there was such a thing as wedding cake emporiums until I found myself wandering through a grotto of gateaux with Rob and Chantelle. For those who considered gilded flowers too restrained, there were cakes smothered in ostrich feathers and sequins. Rob announced it wasn’t how a cake looked but how it tasted that mattered. The shop assistant asked if he’d like a tasting and presented him with a plate of what looked like plastic cubes.
‘This isn’t cake!’ he muttered, munching one thoughtfully. ‘It’s not even made with real eggs. Let’s get out of here.’
I was impressed by Chantelle’s pragmatic approach to weddings. Instead of ordering a multi-thousand dollar gown from a boutique, she’d found a designer who worked from home. She’d then treated her mother and me to glimpses of tasteful fabric samples in subtle pink. Crystals and pearls were on the agenda. She had an aversion to veils. With her dark hair, peachy complexion and vivid blue eyes, she was going to look stunning.
Like every straight man alive, Rob was proving himself a shopping bore. In every wedding-related shop we’d dragged him into he acted as if we were holding him hostage. But I enjoyed the outings. Every mother wants her son to have a beautiful wedding, and nobody deserved one more than Rob.
In between times, I was preparing for the surgery physically and emotionally. Finding 100 per cent cotton nighties that didn’t resemble something a granny might expire in proved impossible. I ended up buying three in shades of blue, inappropriately frilly, and a pair of navy slippers decorated with dachshunds. The shop assistant asked if I was going away somewhere. Yes, hospital, I replied, getting evil pleasure out of watching her smile fade.
Appointments were made to see Jodie the hairdresser, the psychologist (why not?) and David, a friend blessed with exceptional flair in furnishings. Our bedroom was too stark to feel sick in. The bedside tables bore circular scars from thousands of morning cups of tea. If I was going to be incarcerated there for weeks, it might as well be jollied up.
Not that David was feeling particularly happy, his partner having traded him in for a younger model and run off to Perth.
‘I want to end it all!’ he moaned as he flicked through his curtain samples. ‘I’m going to jump off Westgate Bridge. But only if there’s media to cover it.’
Fortunately, a shattered heart had no effect on David’s taste – which was impeccable as ever. He found two bedside tables, one tall and pale, the other compact and deliberately distressed by some Asian workhouse slave, no doubt.
Beautifully mismatched, the tables made a perfect pair – like all the best relationships. With new lamps and semi translucent curtains (off white, fine Italian lawn) I kidded myself the bedroom was going to be stylish and new-smelling enough to make me look forward to the months ahead.