The C-Word by Lisa Lynch Read Free Book Online Page A

we pulled up outside the front door of the grand, Victorian fertility clinic on Harley Street . The surgeon who’d diagnosed me had referred us here, assuring us that the expert we were about to see was our best chance of helping us freeze my eggs before chemo blasted them into obliteration. Uncomfortable in such imposing surroundings, we did our best to disguise our northern accents when checking in with the receptionist, minding our p’s and q’s and sitting up straight in the oak-panelled waiting room that looked more like a private school headmaster’s office than a holding room for fertility-challenged couples.
    ‘You must be Mr and Mrs Lynch,’ said the Egg Man (which wasn’t difficult to deduce, given that we were the only people in the waiting room). We nodded, following him into another equally impressive room and listening intently as he explained that time was of the essence, and that our best shot at gathering suitable eggs would be for me to have a course of hormones to boost their production. ‘But all of this is hypothetical right now,’ explained the Egg Man, looking up from a desk so huge you could have played snooker on it. ‘It all depends on what the professor learns about the nature of your tumour later on today.’
    P furrowed his brow to match mine. ‘Sorry, um, I’m not – we’re not …’ he began, in a purposeful, alien voice that disguised his Liverpool roots. (The question in his head, I assumed, was, ‘What the frig are you on about, la?’)
    ‘Depending on the histology results, the professor may decide, for instance, that it’s safe to delay your chemotherapy by a few weeks in order to have this course of hormones,’ continued the Egg Man, unconsciously marking dots on his notepad with a Biro. ‘That’s assuming the tumour is only where we believe it to be. And then there’s the matter of whether or not the tumour is hormone receptive. If so, it might not be sensible to pump you full of oestrogen if that’s what’s caused the problem in the first place.’
    ‘Well, no,’ I agreed. ‘So, then – let me get this straight. If my cancer is oestrogen receptive, I shouldn’t have the hormone treatment. And if it isn’t, we can go ahead with it.’
    ‘Provided the tumour is only where we believe it to be,’ he repeated.
    ‘Well, yes. Right,’ I said, superstitiously tapping his wooden desk. ‘And how will you find this out?’ I asked, more concerned about inter-hospital administration than the actual histology report.
    ‘The professor will ring me with the result.’
    ‘That’s okay then,’ I concluded, satisfied that the critical details of my tumour weren’t being sent to him via carrier pigeon or telepathy or somesuch.
    ‘I can’t think about any of that shit right now,’ I said to P as we made our way from the fertility clinic to the hospital. ‘There’s just no room in my head.’
    He moved his hand from around my waist to the small of my back – as he did on the day of my diagnosis, as he always does when trying to protect me – and said, ‘That’s fine, babe. One thing at a time, eh?’ I grabbed his hand tightly as we walked up the ramp to the hospital entrance, wheeling behind us the suitcase that we’d normally take on romantic weekend escapes.
    Before showing me to my room, my professor’s nurse introduced me to the sister on my ward. ‘This is Lisa,’ she said. ‘She’s here for her mastectomy.’
    A frown appeared over the top of her spectacles as Sister looked suspiciously from my face to my bust, as though we might have been having her on about the breast cancer. I knew the look in her eye. The ‘but she’s so young’ look. I’d later come to see that same look in the oncology clinic and the chemo room and the wig shop. ‘Oh,’ she said, devoid of emotion. ‘I see.’
    Clocking the potential awkwardness of the situation, my nurse quickly led me away, changing the subject with talk of how, prior to my op, she’d be