So I arrived with my support team in place – Anna and Mum and Dad texting me with lovely “You’ll be grand” texts that I love him for (one before bed and one waiting when I got up in the morning!).
We waited an hour before being called. I tried chit-chat, but to be honest my heart wasn’t in it. All I was thinking is their early morning meeting is taking longer than expected.. is it me?
Anna came in with me to the appointment – Mr C and a nurse (who I’ll call Nurse C as by the sounds / looks of it you get assigned a nurse as at the end of the appointment, she gave me her card and name and number to call if I have any questions, which I thought was a lovely touch. She’s absolutely fab! A mine of information).
This time round Mr. C was all decked out in his suit. Funny how your mind goes. I was thinking he’s looking very well today and that he had a lovely smile. He asked Anna to leave while he did a wee check of the lump. Then asked her back in again.
The mad thing is (since meeting him a number of weeks back) we discovered that my aunt had organised a couple of conferences with him, all around breast cancer in young women which he told me at this meeting. I thought, “at least he knows what he’s doing”. But also thinking I love Dublin it’s just too small!
To this day, I’m not quite sure how he told me. I can’t remember the exact words, it was something along the lines of, “not good news”, or something similar. I looked at him and remember asking “what do you mean?” I think he said “It’s not a good prognosis” or the like. I asked “do you know whether it’s cancer or not at this stage?” as my head was taking a bit of time to get around what he was trying to say and he said “yes it is”. At this point, I had a burst of tears that lasted I’d say 30 seconds. The nurse produced a box of tissues, which I hadn’t seen before and I was thinking – “How did she smuggle those in without me seeing?”. Annabanana was in the same state as myself.. Tears, but very together as always.
Mr. C was very compassionate as was the nurse. But all I could say is “Tell me what we need to do. Where do we go from here?”.. Funnily enough, at this point a sense of calm came over me. I kept thinking of my poor Mum outside and if I went out and didn’t ask or have all the relevant information she’d kill me! You see always on my shoulder! So the tears dried up and he started to tell us what needed to be done.
(Well mine did, Anna made great use of the tissues beside me while holding my hand.. strongest will in the world, but it hit her pretty strong too!).
In short, it wasn’t the large fibrous lump that was the problem, it’s a small wee fella behind it 1.3cm in size that they found. If it wasn’t for the larger “no problem” lump I probably wouldn’t have found it for another 6 months to a year or more and it would have been a different conversation potentially.
So basically they’ve caught it early. Supposedly most women wouldn’t find lumps until they grow to around 2cm. At this point I was thinking, “Thanks Goodie for making them leave the sebaceous cyst in as I would probably never have known”.
They did diagrams, and all that jazz for me, explaining that they had to take a margin of error away too to ensure it all comes out.. the margin of error means they’ll take my nipple. Again all I thought was “sure my days as a topless model were probably numbered” and said to Mr. C whatever he had to take, I’m happy for him to take just get it out. He talked of nipple reconstruction, which again it’s mad how the mind works, I had thoughts of reading through a catalogue and saying “yeah, I like the look of that one”, then thinking would the nipple be permanently erect or what.. crazy what you think when someone is telling you this stuff!
They’ll remove a lymph node to check, which is standard procedure, but I’d be back in on Monday for an ultrasound to check out the lymph nodes.
I asked what’s the story re radiotherapy and chemo. He said definitely radiotherapy but didn’t think chemo but tests would be run and we’d know more when the results come back after the op. This part re the chemo didn’t actually sink in until a few days later when we met the nurse again – I walked out of the appointment thinking, only radiotherapy as that’s all I heard. So potentially 5 weeks of radiotherapy Mon-Friday, but only takes 2 mins to do…
Anyway, I remember Mr. C asking me at one point did I want to go further with information or would I prefer to hold-off until a later time, but I felt I needed to know as much as I could now (again thinking Mum will kill me!).
I asked how soon I could get back to work after the op, he just looked at me as if I had 10 heads and suggested I should take some time off. Which I concurred would be a great idea, but how much? Could I be back within 4 days? 5 days? He suggested 8 days! Are you mad?! Anyway I said we’d play it by ear, which we will.
The mad thing is I felt a funny sense of relief when he told me. There were tears for that 30 second period, then I thought, Jesus I wasn’t going mad these last few days. They said it was probably a major shock for me as most women would have some type of advance warning. But I did have some form of advance warning as my body was telling me something in the previous week as for the first time ever I couldn’t stop thinking about results, whereas normally I’d be much more laissez-faire.
Mr. C left us, but the nurse then went through what was to be expected. She was a mine of information – at first I felt she was speaking Latin as she was referring to things by their medical terms, but she eventually settled into English and she gave us loads of info. It was with the nurse that I did feel myself zone out a bit.
But we left with rough dates – ultrasound on lymph nodes Monday, operation Tuesday week; radiotherapy afterwards (who knows when).
Then to tell my Mum… Mum made it very easy for me, she was strong as always. We both managed to be very together in the corridor outside the room. We just all went through the basics, then I said I just needed to get out.. Mum suggested coffee, I suggested a cigarette. So off we went outside for a chat. I know you’ll all freak at the mention of a cigarette, but I am a smoker, plan soon to be a non-smoker, but at this point, all I wanted was a cigarette.
It’s funny, at that point I was saying with this knocking on my door, I’d best give up, Mum laughed and said “Maybe not at this very point, have your cigarette now and think about that later”. Gotta love a Mum who understands your moments of weakness! As always she was a tower of strength, but I knew it was killing her inside. She rang me later talking of Anna saying what an amazing woman she is – so strong and together and calm.. We laughed as I explained she used the most tissues during my appointment – her moment – but it’s so true.
Anna is my rock and always has been. Since the day we met, Anna is the woman who grounds me, makes me realise there are more important things in life and every day reminds me that life is great once we have each other. Don’t get me wrong – she’s Catalan which means a fiery woman, so we have lots of heated “banter”, but that’s what makes it so much fun. She’s a sensitive soul, with a massive heart and a stubborn nature, all the things I love about her! She made me realise that I’m not stubborn at all in comparison!! Lol!
It was something that hit me on Friday after being told. The first thing I thought of was our business, that we’d have to make some plans and I thought how lucky I was to have Anna. I then thought of other women I knew with breast cancer in the same industry and the support networks they had around them from husbands and partners in the business. Then all I could think of were those women out there without that network. What do they do when walking out of a room after this kind of news as it all happens so quickly? Basically within a 2 week period, you’re in for op and out for recovery. If they’ve no network in place, what happens to the business they’ve built? Got me really thinking about what we can do. I chatted about it with Carol and she was right, maybe something for the New Year to plan, but certainly something we should try to put together.
So how did we react?
We went out and drank copious amounts of alcohol with great friends and had lots of laughs. Thankfully Lori had offered to look after the restaurant that night – our first Friday off in Dublin since we opened Lola’s 18 months ago. So we‘d already lined up our “usual suspects” for a night on the town – none of whom knew I was in for tests, but all of whom I’ve known for over 20 years and are some of my closest buddies.
Before heading out we had a quick staff meeting as all our crew in Lola’s are like family and everything was happening so quick that we thought it best to talk to them face-to-face rather than them hearing rumours. And it’d look a bit strange that Vanessa & Anna who have been in the restaurant 24/7 for the last 18 months, would then be just Anna with Vanessa out for “a while” while op happening and recovery. It was a bit strange, I felt like I was standing up in an AA meeting and introducing myself.
They’ve been fantastic ever since. They’ve all pulled in around Anna and myself and have been a great support – just getting the job done to the painstaking perfection we request (or they would say demand!!). For that we’re forever grateful. (Poor Sebastian, the following Monday, offered to cook me dinner at home but I explained I was curled up in a ball on sofa still recovering from the previous Friday night! Note to self, must take him up on that again!!).
Anyway, Friday was a blast and everyone was a great support – thanks for the biggest whopper of a hangover I think I’ve ever worked with! Saturday was trialling (hangover in place).
My Darling Breast 