All Clear

My friend S and I went to the boob clinic for my 12 month check up.

A couple walked up the stairs behind us. They were, I think, in their late fifties. Their fear was palpable.

She was in exactly the same place I was a year previously - recently diagnosed, waiting for more detailed results to tell her just how bad it might be.

I desperately wanted to give her a hug, but this may have just tipped her over the edge. It's bad enough receiving a life altering or threatening diagnosis, without mad women accosting you physically on stairwells.

After a short wait I was called in for a mammogram. I can barely remember my last one - I was in shock at the time, having just been told by Mr Boob God that he was 99% certain that my lump wasn't at all benign (the 1% of uncertainty he left me was his version of breaking the news gently).

I felt very much like I was making a toasted sandwich with my boobs as the huge machine squeezed each in turn flat and x-rayed them. I fought the urge to suggest the addition of a little Worcestershire sauce.

As I was getting changed, I could see the radiographer checking and printing off my results. I tried desperately not to analyse her facial features. Likewise when, back in the waiting room, I watched her trundle down the corridor and put my envelope in Mr Boob God's in-tray.

After a wait which felt like an eternity I get the call up and he says "your mammogram was all clear." I wanted to clasp his hands and kiss them all over, but I knew just how many mammaries those hands had kneaded over the previous few hours.

He had a grope of mine, pronounced them all good and I was done.

S and I cried. Then we shopped. Then we went to the Chiltern Firehouse where I ordered a Virgin Mojito and we had the most delicious lunch.

Funnily enough, I am so used now to dealing with traumatic situations without booze that I don't miss it so much at those times. I know that a clear head is crucial in testing circumstances.

The time I really miss the booze still is when I'm celebrating.

However, fabulous food and friendship go a long way to making up for the lack of a fuzzy head.

And last night we went to a fireworks party. At the same event last year I'd felt totally disconnected. I was floating in a bubble of fear, watching all the people around me having fun.

But this time, as I watched the display surrounded by my family and some of my oldest and best friends, it felt like all those fireworks were laid on just for my benefit.

I knew that every year from now on fireworks will have a special message for me: you made it. Another year all clear. Another year to do all the things you want to do and to be with the people you love.

Hurrah, and love to you all,

SM x

The Survivors

I spent over an hour in the waiting room of the Breast Clinic yesterday (with my lovely friend, H, who'd come to hold my hand).

I realised that there were three types of ladies waiting.

1. The 'Norms'...

....with their normal breasts, and cells that divide and multiply in a normal way. They just pop in for an annual road check to 'be on the safe side', or because they have a family history.

They sit, leafing through magazines, looking much like the ladies you see in the waiting room at the dentist. Being all normal.

2. The Newbies

The newly diagnosed. They're often waiting to find out just how bad it is.

You can spend weeks being drip fed this information - how aggressive your cancer is, if it can be treated with hormonal therapies, how much boob(s) you're going to lose, and - crucially - how far it's spread.

They usually look like they've been hit by a bus. Quiet. Pale. Stunned. Not knowing what's coming up, or how they're going to cope.

3. The Survivors

An amateur could mistake A Survivor for A Norm. On the surface, they look nonchalant, relaxed, smiley. But it's a cover.

They may flick through a magazine but they're not really reading it. The words aren't going in.

They greet all the nurses by name, and ask after their children, but what they're really thinking is I hope I don't have to see you again until next year.

Under all the false bonhomie, all they want to know is am I still okay?

Eventually, they called my name. H squeezed my hand, and I swanned in, all calm elegance (I always dress up for the Cancer Clinic. Like you do for a funeral).

A charming, fatherly, antipodean squirted (thoughtfully warmed) gel all over my boobs and starts running his (what on earth do I call the thing that doesn't sound sexual?) over them.

Within just a few minutes he says "that's all absolutely fine."

"Thank you, thank you," I whispered, "I've been really worried."

"I know," he replies. "I realise that just one word can change your life."

And that moment of empathy nearly had me sobbing all over his paper sheets.

On the way out I met a lady ten years or so older than me. She had one of those wonderful faces that looks like it had a host of stories to tell. She was also skipping, and hugging her reprieve close to her heart.

We did the 'Survivor' thing of exchanging case histories, like Norms chat about the weather.

She was first diagnosed fourteen years ago, with a recurrence (of primary breast cancer, not the terminal secondary variety) four years ago.

She said "I've stopped talking about it now, because no-one really knows what it's like unless they've been there." And we smiled at each other, members of a club no-one wants to join, and I felt I'd known her forever.

And it struck me that this blog is much like the cancer clinic.

There are the 'Norms' who pop by, just to check that they are really okay. There's the Newbies, all shell shocked and not sure if they can go through it (AND YOU CAN!), and the Survivors.

(I much prefer to think of myself as a Survivor, rather than 'in remission', or 'in recovery'. Both those words give me the heebie jeebies, as the implication is that you still have some terrible underlying sickness).

And nobody knows what it's really like unless they've been there, do they?

Much as I've hated the last few days, the good thing about going through it all (on a regular basis), is it's a reminder that you have to remain grateful.

(It's not happy people who are grateful, it's grateful people who are happy).

I re-read my post from January on gratitude, and how it can transform your mental health (click here), and today I really, really am.

Grateful for all those things we so easily take for granted. For being alive. For being healthy. For being here to see my kids grow up.

I'm grateful to my friends (like H, who came with me) and family (like my brother-in-law and niece who babysat my children), and lovely Mr SM, who pretends he's supremely confident, but who I suspect has had a few wobbles over the last few days too.

And I've grateful to for all of you, for all your comments, thoughts and prayers.

Thank you.

Love SM x

P.S. If you've just come across this blog and want to read my story from when I quit booze click here. If you want to read from when I found The Lump (eight months later), then click here.