UFO Info Week-End

As I am talking about the pain of stopping breast-feeding she leans forward and says You weren’t ready to stop were you?

As I am talking about the pain of stopping breast-feeding she leans forward and says, “You weren’t ready to stop, were you?” I feel like I have arrived. I have already decided that my right breast must go regardless of the results.Somehow I find my way to the Bristol Cancer Centre. There are serious implications for Abigail if we both carry the gene She will be offered a double mastectomy in her twenties I have shelved my distress about this for another time There is only so much I can deal with at the moment. It was 25 years ago and yet her distress still haunts me.My mum and I decide together to go for genetic testing. I remember returning home from school when I was 11 years old, repeatedly finding my mum slumped on the floor in tears. She had gone into hospital to have a lump removed and woke up to find herself without her right breast. The breast nurse is saying something about a reconstruction but I hardly hear her I am completely hysterical.

My lymph nodes are clear but they have found lots of pre-cancerous cells around the lump. The breast that I love so much, that has fed my two babies so well, is diseased I hear the word mastectomy I sit on the bed and go into a trance-like state. She is to become a friend and constant source of support.Returning to the clinic nine weeks after the operation causes a rising sense of panic in me. Mr Hussain says very clearly that the cancer has gone, but he also has bad news. Everyone starts to sing “Happy Birthday” and I start to cry.I wake up from the operation and smile as I see the surgeon has not made a mistake My left breast is still there I meet Joe, another breast cancer patient, on the way out We swap phone numbers. Instead, I go and sit in the children’s room and watch them sleeping. The anger dissipates and in its place is despair.The day before I am due to go in to have the tumour and lymph nodes removed is Abigail’s third birthday party The event is strangely moving and poignant.

I see my mum and dad choked and tearful when the cake is brought in. It’s bin collection day and I have a strong desire to run up and down the street kicking the bins into the road. The shock of being told I have breast cancer has subsided and in its place is blind anger.I wake up again in the middle of the night. I march up and down the corridors of the Bristol Royal Infirmary refusing to sit in the waiting areas.