Visiting Time

Three o’clock finds me out on the balcony watching for my husband and son. It’s a beautifully sunny August day. I spot my boy straight away, running up from the car park, still in his football strip. His thick mass of jet-black hair always makes him easy to spot. In fact Debbie, who cuts it, says he’s a head of hair like a burst mattress.
I walk back to my bed just as he comes running onto the ward. He looks quickly at my drains, and my face, and then gives me a gentle hug. “Hi Mum.” he says, “ Dad’s just coming, he’s parking the car. Hey guess what? We won 4-2, and I got the first and the last goal. First one I volleyed from the edge of the penalty box. The second was header, and I was the smallest man on the park!”
“That’s great.” I say, “One goal’s really good, but two’s just brilliant. Here, are you thirsty? There’s some diluting juice on my locker, and the water’s fresh.”
I look at his gangly frame, and his face, still flushed from the game, and I think how out of place his youthful healthy body looks on a hospital ward.
And once again I thank God, or whatever passes for him, that it’s me who’s ill and not my child. The most devastating aspect of a cancer diagnosis is worrying about how it will affect your children. With my trait of anticipating calamity I’ve worried about most other things in life, like whether I was capable of being a good parent; the possibility of divorce given that so many marriages fail; and the risk of unemployment, especially during the Thatcher years. But I never factored in cancer. Who would?
I’m just devastated that I can’t shield my son from the inevitable consequences of my diagnosis.
My husband and sister appear on the ward. My sister is tanned and looking good and for some reason this niggles me, which is completely unfair, after all what do I expect her wear? Sackcloth and ashes?
She hands me a Marks and Spencer food parcel, which is a godsend as it means I won’t have to eat any more of the revolting hospital food. (I can’t believe how bad it is. The menu cards make things sound fairly appetising, but what actually turns up bears no relation to the descriptions; like much else these days, it seems to be of all spin and no delivery.)
We’re all chatting when I look around to see my oldest friend and her husband coming towards me. Lynne’s tiny, barely 5 foot tall. We were both that height in first year at secondary school. The reason I can remember that is because, being the smallest girls in the year, we were always weighed and measured together. Lynne never did get any taller; while I went on to achieve the final dizzying height of 5’ 4’. We were friends all through school, experimenting, or rather choking together on the odd single Woodbine, and on one occasion even bunking off school for the day. When we got caught the head blamed me, and not little Miss Butter Wouldn’t Melt, when it had all been her idea!
The men happily withdraw, as the room’s pretty crowded. Liz and my sister stay, sitting either side of my bed.
“So” Lynne says, “How are you, now that you’ve done the hard bit? ”
“I’ve been better.” I reply and tell her a little about the operation and what the drains are for, adding. “ I hope to get one of these bloody tubes out tomorrow, and maybe the other one on Tuesday, and then I’ll be able to go home. I’ll then have to wait about a week to get the pathology report, it gives the grade and stage of the cancer, which determines the type treatment I’ll get.”
Then she asks, “And what’s the pink chintz bag all about?
“Oh these are made by breast cancer survivors. You put your drain bag in it, and then walk around with it on your shoulder. Not my favourite way of being accessorised. In fact it reminds me of those awful lapbags that we had to sew in school. I just hope they launder them well after each use!
“And how come you’re looking so mmmm, shall we say, “balanced”? she asks, her voice dripping with mischief.
“Oh” I laugh, “They give you a free front fasting mastectomy bra, and a very soft, temporary prosthesis, just a piece of wadding really, for the boobless side. To tell you the truth it’s killing me. I’ll be taking it off the minute you all go! I just wanted to try and look as normal as possible, especially for Matt.”
Then we talk about our kids and other run of the mill things. (She has a daughter two years older that my son.)
And when that seam of conversation is worked out she asks if we want to hear a funny story about a woman who came back to Bob’s work following a mastectomy. My sister, who’s not spoken, and I both nod.
“Well” she starts, “While this woman was off, and she was off for ages, folk in the office started to wear designer gear to work, particularly polo shirts, and there was a lot of talk and banter about who was sporting the real McCoy and who was wearing a fake.
So this poor woman returned to work, and she’d only been in the place minutes when the boss came wandering out of his office, and stopped by her desk. Now Bob says the guy’s a complete idiot. So did he welcome her back to work, after being off for months? Of course he didn't! No, the first thing he did was to point straight at her chest and says, “Is that a fake?”
And quick as a flash she replied, “No that’s my good one, the falsie’s the other one!”

Well the room went completely quiet. Folk ducked down behind their monitors, while others pick up their phones and pretended to babble to the shop floor.

Somehow the boss managed to stutter back,“ Eh no doll, you’ve got me all wrong, it’s your top I was meaning!” and then with a face the colour of Baxters’ beetroot he bolted back into his room.
Well nobody knew what to say, but the woman just she laughed and said, “What a balloon! So much for, “How are you?” and “Welcome back!”. I knew fine he was talking about my shirt. But I also knew that you lot would all be wondering which boob it was, especially you Gary! So I thought I might as well kill to birds with the one stone.

Bob said at that everyone just cracked up, welcomed her back and then went back to work.”

The bell for the end of visiting time rings. Lynne gets up and hugs me and tells me that they’d better get a move on as they have a long drive home. She says she’ll see me again soon, and to call her whenever I feel like it – but that she won’t call me as she knows there will be times when I might be tired or just not in the mood.
After she’s gone I think about how the NHS should find a way to distil and bottle my pint sized friend. In one visit she’d cut right through all the awkwardness surrounding my illness, leaving our friendship as strong as ever.