The Choice by Bernadette Bohan Read Free Book Online Page B

its peak, so I was able to cope until the next dose of prednisone. The nights were the worst. My mind was still racing as it had during the first three crazy weeks, but my body was shutting down. I craved sleep because it was the only time I was pain-free, yet I would rarely drift off for longer than an hour or so at a time, so I was dropping with weariness during the day. Ger used to bandage my knees tightly before we went to bed, and I found the pressure did relieve the pain a little.
‘Why don’t you think about taking something to help you to sleep?’ Ger urged me.
‘No, I’m taking so many tablets already. I hate all these drugs – if there is something I can do without I think I should try, don’t you?’ Of course he agreed. Ger was incredibly supportive and would have done anything to try to help ease my suffering, yet he knew how strongly I always had felt about taking medication. He felt guilty for waking me in the night, for even if I did manage to drop off I would wake instantly if he turned over, coughed or snored. Eventually we had to sleep in separate rooms. This was sad for both of us – it was the only time in our lives when we have slept apart. Yet it meant that I was able to snatch perhaps one hour’s extra sleep.
‘Goodnight, sleep well,’ we would whisper to each other on the landing outside the children’s bedrooms. We would stand for a while with our arms round each other, Ger holding me so gently in order not to bruise me. I had never needed comfort and closeness more, yet I had never felt so cut off from normal human contact. I was full of bitterness. Only a few months ago I had been so happy and carefree. Now I could not imagine feeling worse.
‘God, how I hate this. I hate the drugs, I hate the pain, I hate not being able to lead a normal life. I hate moping around the house feeling useless.’
‘Just remember that these drugs are helping you,’ he would keep saying. ‘This won’t last for ever.’
‘That’s what the oncologist says,’ I responded grumpily. I was seeing him every month, and each time he would check the size of the lump, as well as checking my neck, my stomach and under my arms, for there was the constant fear that the cancer would surface elsewhere. While he did this I would fire question after question at him, desperate to understand the disease and find ways of helping myself. On one visit when I was chatting to (Gerard would say interrogating) one of the nurses she shook her head at me. ‘Books? You don’t want to go there – you will only end up frightening yourself.’ I realized years later that that was the worst piece of advice anyone ever gave me. Now, when I teach people about health I always tell them that knowledge is power – get informed, educate yourself, get some control.
The oncologist could not recommend any books either. He always said I was responding well to the treatment – the lump was shrinking – but sometimes I suspected he was just trying to make me feel better. I was to be on the drugs for several months. If I thought things couldn’t get worse, I was wrong.

Chapter Eight

 
… and the Ugly

‘T here she is,’ Richard pointed at me. ‘I told you she was fat. Look at her.’
It was true. I was parked on the sofa one afternoon watching television, trying not to put pressure on my knees. Richard, just home from school, had brought three of his friends over to see me. They all stared open-mouthed at me for a moment, then rushed out to play in the garden. I smiled ruefully to myself – I had become a freak show for my kids. I knew all these lads, and they knew me. I didn’t blame Richard for showing me to them like this – after all I was fat. It was horrific to me, but just a fact of life to him. I had changed, and there it was. Even Sarah had taken to calling me her ‘fat Mammy’.
I am short, with a