I took her hand, rubbing gently between mine, trying to pass on some of my body warmth. ‘Are you in any pain, have you noticed anything different?’ Her answers could direct me.
Mute, she nodded, eyes appealing to me for something. Help, reassurance, God, anything to comfort her.
‘Tell me where it hurts.’
She pointed to her right upper quadrant. Liver. That would explain slight yellowness in her eyes and skin.
‘Anywhere else?’
She indicated her right breast. My heart pounded heavily again. Shit, even through her bra I could see a problem.
‘Okay, love. Sorry, but you’ll have to take off your bra.’
We’d seen each other in the raw as teenagers trying on clothes, and now, while circumstances had changed, we weren’t embarrassed by our bodies. She complied willingly. Her willingness to put her trust in me nearly undid me again. Without her clothes I was shocked. I’d seen this sort of underweight body before on an eating disorders ward, but more often I’d seen this sort of weight loss on cancer patients.
Cancer patients in their last few months or weeks of life.
Shona’s bedroom was nice and warm, but Bianca was still cold. In fact, her hands were icy cold. I hauled a spare quilt off a chair and covered Bianca’s lower half. Back with my kit, Shona scurried around, anxious to do something, plumping a pillow under Bianca’s head, putting the tissue box next to Bianca’s hand.
‘Okay, are you ready for this?’ She nodded. ‘Sorry, the stethoscope’s cold.’ I listened carefully to her chest and, although her breathing was fast and shallow, her lungs sounded clear. Her heart rate was fast, but I had no baseline to go on.
‘Do you know your usual pulse rate?’ I asked her.
She nodded. ‘About seventy-five a minute.’
Surprised, I blinked. Most people don’t know their resting pulse rate. Bianca, it seemed, could still surprise me. However, her heartbeat, at ninety-nine beats per minute wasn’t her norm. Given the circumstances of this meeting, it could just be nerves. I didn’t think so. Her body was fighting something. Her blood pressure was low, both sitting and standing. Her temperature was below normal at thirty-six Celsius.
I clapped my hands together, warming them again. ‘If you’re still okay with all this, I’m going to examine your abdomen and breasts now.’
A quick nod, not quite meeting my eyes.
‘Are you okay with Shona being here?’
Shona paused, ready to leap out of the room. Bianca hesitated before nodding.
Kneeling next to the bed, hands gentle, but firm, I went inch by inch over her abdomen, nodding to myself as I felt the hardness of a mass over her liver area. A mass that shouldn’t be there. She winced as I went back over the area, assessing the size. I moved on, leaving her right breast until last. The left breast seemed fine to me. No lumps, no swelling, no pain. Reluctant now, I moved to her right breast. She had a substantial lump close to her armpit, running down and under her breast, with the classic dimpling of late stage cancer leading up into her armpit and bicep area. Everywhere I probed was painful. Bianca faced away from me, maybe from embarrassment, but maybe she didn’t want to see what my face revealed.
Her symptoms shouted cancer, but she needed a professional diagnosis. The primary might be her liver or her breast, or it could be somewhere unknown. That her cancer had metastasized was just as certain. She could have as much as six months or as little as six weeks, I didn’t know. In fact, most doctors, even with the visual proof of MRIs, ultrasounds, mammograms and pathology, wouldn’t be able to tell a patient how long they have, because every patient is different; some fight, some don’t and whether a person fights or not doesn’t always affect the outcome. It’s simply terminal no matter which way you slice the pie.
‘You can get dressed now, Bianca.’ I knelt back, face grim. Shona, perched on the edge of her bed, face anxious, while Bianca turned away from us both and pulled on her clothes in a corner of the room.
Resolute, she squared her shoulders and came and sat on the bed, still beautiful, but very, very scared.
‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ Her lips quivered and she clasped her hands together to stop them shaking.
I looked her square in the eye. ‘I can’t pretend it looks good, Bianca, but I can’t diagnose you. You must see a doctor for an opinion.’ As I’d examined her I’d been wondering one thing: where the hell was Eddie in all this? Why hadn’t he noticed her breast lump? Why had she come to me and, and why wasn’t Eddie racing her off to a doctor?
Bianca took a deep breath, calming herself, and another and another, until she stopped shaking. ‘Okay.’
‘Have you talked to Eddie about this?’
She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual.’
‘But surely,’ I waved at her breast, ‘he’s noticed when you’re...,’ God, how to say this? ‘You know, when you’re making love?’
She cleared her throat, gaze flinching away from mine. ‘Um, we haven’t had sex for over six weeks.’
My eyes widened, surprise robbing me of speech. I mean, Bianca loves sex, or at least I thought she did. And, let’s face it, it’s one of the reasons Eddie left me – he’d told me what she had to offer was a damn sight sexier than what I had to offer. Shona looking just as surprised, stayed silent. It wasn’t our business what happened in their sex life.
Bianca looked at us both with a wry smile. ‘I’m not just about sex, despite what you both think.’
‘Sorry, Bianca.’ We both said it at the same time and exchanged a rueful smile. Bianca just nodded. She knew what we’d thought.
‘Just so you know, I’ve been bleeding a lot since Timmy’s birth, and it’s uncomfortable to, you know, feel sexy, when sex actually hurts a bit.’ She said the last bit in a rush, crossing her arms defensively.
My face stiffened. Bloody hell, she should have stopped bleeding weeks ago. My thoughts leaped back – Timmy was born in mid-September and, generally speaking, post-partum bleeding lasted about six weeks.
‘How many weeks old is Timmy?’ Oh God, poor little mite, he mightn’t have a mummy for much longer.
‘He’s nearly fourteen weeks old now.’ Her face suffused with love for a moment, before anxiety returned.
My heart melted. Bianca, whatever her faults, loved her little boy.
‘What color is the blood you’re losing?’ She looked confused, so I clarified. ‘Is it normal period type bleeding, or is it darker? Does it flow normally, or is it spotting? Does it smell normal?’
Embarrassing questions, I know, but suddenly the picture looked even darker than I’d thought.
She ducked her chin, squirming a bit. ‘It’s darker than usual and, um, oh God, this is really embarrassing, but it’s a bit like clots and it doesn’t smell too good.’ Her pale cheeks glowed twin spots of bright red. ‘Is that bad?’
I didn’t answer. The answer was yes. Worries about my skills surfaced. She needed a battery of tests I couldn’t give her. But I could do something. I pulled my bag over and pulled out my cell phone, scrolling through numbers.
‘You must see a doctor.’ I called Helen, my GP. Bianca needed to see someone. Right now. Terse, I snapped the receptionist to attention and made an urgent appointment for midday, an hour away. Bianca, white as a sheet, accepted the urgency.
Thank God the surgery had opened on a public holiday.
‘You’ll be seeing my own GP. Her name’s Dr Helen Foster. Don’t be put off by her manner, she’s brisk and thorough and an excellent doctor. Just be honest with her and tell her everything. And another thing, Eddie needs to go with you.’ I stated this as fact. ‘No ifs or buts, he needs to know what’s going on. No secrets. Where is he right now? Because I’m taking you to the clinic and he should meet you there.’
‘He’s at the gym. He doesn’t take his phone with him.’
There was definite bitterness in her tone. Not my business. He needed to get here in a hurry.
I nodde
d at Shona. ‘Get Martin to collect him from the gym. Tell him it’s urgent.’
She nodded and sped off.
‘Right, Bianca, before we leave, tell me what’s going on between you and Eddie. I don’t need the gory details. I just need to know if he’s going to support you through this.’ I was gentle, but this was too important to ignore.
‘Oh, Rose, you know what he’s like, don’t you?’ she wailed. ‘He’s not that great at taking responsibility for his actions.’
Actually, I wasn’t sure I did know this, because it certainly seemed like he had shouldered responsibility for getting Bianca pregnant. But anyway.
‘Well, he can’t shirk this, Bianca. How is he with Timmy?’
Her face softened again. ‘He’s great, he adores him. He carries him round the house, pointing to things, telling him what things are, even though he’s far too young to understand. He loves giving him his bottle and taking him for long walks in the big pram we have.’ She grimaced. ‘But he hates changing diapers. God, so do I, but you can’t leave a baby in a dirty diaper, can you? That’s just gross, poor little lamb. So, I do the diapers. I do the laundry and cleaning as well. He wasn’t too good at that with you, either, was he?’
Some things don’t change, I suppose. I shook my head. ‘No, he was fine until we got married, then it’s like I was his mum, cleaning up after him. We had arguments about it. I suppose he told you that, huh?’
‘Yeah. He told me. I thought he’d be different with me. And he was, at first. I’d get in from work and he’d have dinner ready for me, make me put my feet up, made me cups of tea. But as soon as I stopped working before Timmy came, everything was up to me and that wasn’t so much fun, cos I was sick nearly all the way through my pregnancy. Maybe I was already sick?’ She looked at me questioningly.
‘Maybe.’ I was non-committal, but the answer was yes. And the pregnancy would have been a huge burden on her system, too. I wondered why nothing had been picked up on her routine obstetrics visits. How awful that her pregnancy could well have masked all her other symptoms, just because no-one thought to look beyond the toll of a baby on the body.
‘When did you first notice the lump in your breast?’ Was her cancer – if that’s what this was – particularly aggressive? Why hadn’t Eddie noticed it? He was a breast man, after all. More than legs or bums, he, like most men, preferred breasts before other body parts.
‘Let me think. About two months ago, I think. Yes, it was when I tried on a bra from before I got pregnant. It pinched under my right arm. I had a good feel then, but just thought it was one of those things you get after you’ve had a baby, especially as the sister at the baby clinic said lumpy breasts were normal if you don’t breastfeed. She didn’t like me, thought I was unnatural not to be feeding Timmy.’
Oh God. Didn’t the bloody woman examine her? Lazy bitch! Judgmental bitch. I could just picture some sourpuss old goat, dismissing Bianca, thinking her common as muck and preferring to deal with the women who did things her way. I’d come across a few older midwives who had preferences for their ‘girls’, those who followed their orders, whether it suited the mum or not. Old school and unwilling to give new mums-to-be suggestions that might clash with their outdated thinking.
Shona returned at that moment. ‘Martin’s off to the gym. He’s going to call when he’s found Eddie.’
She had Timmy in her arms. Martin had been babysitting.
I looked at Bianca. ‘Do you mind?’ I waved my arm at Timmy.
She shook her head, smiling. ‘He doesn’t mind strangers.’
I moved closer, but made no attempt to take him from Shona. Gently, and I admit it, a little envious, I stroked his cheek and cooed at him, his charming little face breaking into a huge gummy grin, his eyes watching me without fear.
‘He’s utterly adorable. He looks like both of you.’
‘I know, right? I did something good, didn’t I?’
Poor Bianca. That one statement told me a wealth of information about her. She pretty much still hated herself, still needed validation for even existing and, sadly, could only think of me to turn to in her desperation, instead of her husband.
I nodded, turning back to her. ‘You’re so lucky. Not every baby’s as charming as your son.’ I drew a deep breath. ‘Time to go.’
She kissed her son, smiling through her tears. ‘Thanks, Shona. Take care of my darling boy, I’ll try to be home soon.’
There wasn’t a chance she’d be home soon, and Shona could see it in my face.
The drive to the medical practice was uneventful. My mind was bursting with questions and, unfortunately, with answers – there was so much I knew she needed to know, but it wasn’t my place to tell her. All the tests she was about to face would take every bit of her strength. And Eddie’s. I hoped Martin had found him.
It was bang on twelve when we rushed through the doors and into the warmth of the surgery.
‘Hi, Rose.’ Reba, working on reception today, greeted us, eyes curious. ‘You must be the new Mrs Gallagher,’ she said tactlessly, turning to Bianca. ‘Rose says you haven’t been here before, so I’ll just get you to fill out some paperwork. Okay?’
We sat together as Bianca filled out basic paperwork with a trembling hand. I handed it back to Reba.
‘Doctor’s running a bit late, but I’ve popped Mrs Gallagher ahead of some of the others. You said it was urgent?’ Reba’s eyes burst with questions, none of which I would answer. I had no doubt she wondered why I was here with my ex-husband’s new wife.
‘I think so.’
It wouldn’t be long before Reba could read from the doctor’s notes, if she was nosy, what was going on. I trusted her to be discreet.
Just as well Helen was running late, because Eddie still hadn’t arrived half an hour later. Familiar bubbles of frustration flitted through me and I thanked God I was no longer married to him. Still, I didn’t want to be the one going in with Bianca to see Helen. She needed her husband. We sat silently, holding hands, protected from the falling snow outside, cocooned in our own private hell, surrounded by other patients in varying stages of coughs and colds, the TV blaring some vacuous daytime rubbish.
Shona called to let us know Martin had manhandled Eddie out of the gym and was on his way. Eddie raced into the surgery thirty minutes later, his face a mixture of consternation and anger.
‘What’s going on?’ He glared from me to Bianca, not missing that I was holding his wife’s hand.
‘I’m really sick, Eddie.’ Bianca sounded lost, her eyes lifted to him hopefully. I could almost hear her thoughts – pleading with him to help her, to make her better. To tell her everything would be okay.
His face changed to confusion and disbelief. Wisely, I stayed silent, but when he turned to me for explanation I just nodded agreement.
‘She’s very sick, Eddie. I’m sorry.’ I meant it, too. I was deeply sorry for them both. Their world was about to be shattered.
Helen called her in at that moment, relieving me of any further explanation.
‘Please wait.’ Bianca clutched my hand as she stood up.
I nodded once, head bowed, as they headed in to Helen’s room, Eddie’s arm around his wife. With Bianca’s request I couldn’t leave now, much as I wanted to. There was nothing more I could do for them.
They were closeted with Helen for nearly an hour. I knew what was going on from the flurry of activity as Helen darted in and out twice and phone calls were made and emergency protocols put in place.
Halfway through the process I asked Reba for a quiet place to make calls. Shona first.
‘Hi, hon.’ I said, tone flat. ‘An emergency bed’s being organized for Bianca at the hospital.’ I gave her details. ‘She’ll want to want to know how Timmy’s going.’
‘Oh God, this is such shite!’ Shona was crying. She snuffled a bit before pulling herself together. ‘Tell her Timmy’s fine. He’s had his bottle, two diaper changes and now he’s fast asleep surrounded by pillows on the floor,
so he’s safe and can’t fall off anything.’
‘Good, thanks. Listen, Shona – I think you need to take him home. Everything he needs is in his own home. I’ll get the keys for her car from Bianca when they come out. It’s going to be hours before Eddie gets home. I don’t think Bianca will be home,’ I hesitated, grief rising through me, ‘not for the foreseeable future.’ I choked on the last part.
‘Oh, honey, are you okay?’ she wailed.
I shook my head dazedly. ‘No, of course not, but it’s much worse for them.’ Breathing deeply, I asked, ‘listen, do you think Martin could take them from here to the hospital? I don’t think Eddie’s going to be up to driving when they come out.’
‘Just a sec.’
I heard voices murmuring and then Martin was on the line.
‘Of course. Anything at all. Just ask. God, Rose, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.’ He sounded flabbergasted.
‘I know. Thanks Martin. I think they’ll be out any minute and a friendly face is probably really needed right now.’
‘Gotcha. See you soon.’
It was another half an hour before Eddie and Bianca emerged, both white-faced and shell-shocked. Martin had been with me for about fifteen minutes and he stood awkwardly as they approached. He and Eddie hadn’t been in contact since Eddie had left me, but that didn’t matter now. Bighearted Aussie that he was, he just wrapped them both in a hug as soon as Helen finished giving last minute instructions to them both.
Helen was as sharp as a tack. She looked from me to Martin, assessed the situation and summed it up. ‘Very good. You’re driving?’
Martin nodded.
‘Very well. A cool head is needed right now.’ She waited while I took Bianca’s keys, hugged both of them goodbye, then Helen gave me a brief jerk of her head. Heavy-hearted, I followed her into her room.
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