My Mummy Wears a Wig (ebook)

Argumento de My Mummy Wears a Wig (ebook)

June 29, Thursday

It seems I am going to have to find out where Kylie Minogue bought her glamorous headscarves. I have an aggressive tumour in my right breast which will require surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, all starting in the next few weeks. Im either really calm or this hasnt sunk in yet.

I had a routine mammogram for a minor complaint called costochondritis, which is a pain that is felt in the breast but actually stems from the rib area. I had Googled my symptoms and diagnosed myself, but wanted it confirmed by a medical professional. When a blip turned up on the mammogram, the hospital staff said it was nothing to worry about. They were 99 per cent certain everything was fine. At thirty-nine years old they dont expect you to get cancer. Ho hum, that little one per cent turned out to be a malignant tumour which would have taken anything up to five years to be felt.

Everyone kept saying how lucky I was at the hospital: Helen the breast-nurse specialist who has been assigned to me, and Mr Monypenny, the lovely Consultant. Im not sure how lucky Im feeling at the moment. The two things I remember most about this morning are firstly, the state of the blinds in the examination room: they needed repairing so as I sat on the edge of the bed with my top off I was watching people get on and off the buses outside through the broken blind and, secondly, the five words I never really thought Id ever say: Am I going to die?

I was on my own for the results, not thinking they would be bad. I was calm and collected when they told me, so much so that Mr Monypenny asked if I was taking it all in then I got to the crux of it. You see, I just need to know, am I going to die?

That was easy enough to say but the next bit got me. The thing is, Ive got two small children . . . and they really need their mummy. Tears ran down my cheeks as I spoke.

Helen the nurse gave me a tissue and the student nurse sitting by her side started crying.

How old are they? Mr Monypenny asked. Two and six, I told him. My heart was fit to explode when I uttered those words. The thought that my two beautiful little boys might lose their mummy; that their small lives might be blighted by tragedy, was too much to keep inside. They had to have their mummy and their mummy had to have them.

Mr Monypenny told me I didnt have to decide anything now; I should go home and think about what he had said and choose whether I was going to have a mastectomy or a lumpectomy. Hello! The most major decision so far this morning was jam or Marmite on my toast; now I was being asked whether I wanted my breast cut off or not.

You see, I said, if the children are left with their father to look after them, their clothes would never be colour co-ordinated. They laughed and it brought a momentary release.

I rang Rhodri, my husband, who was in London working, and he kept saying, Im so sorry for you, over and over. I dont know what I expected him to say, but he was sorry and I sat outside the hospital on a glorious sunny day, wanting to be a thousand miles away.

I drank a lot of wine.0