The Choice

by Bernadette Bohan

  ‘Hello, Bernadette,’ said the oncologist. We were on first-name terms. ‘You know the routine.’ I certainly did. In a few moments I was lying on the familiar couch, praying silently as he checked my entire body. Ger was sitting biting his lip. It was very quiet.

  ‘You’re fine,’ the oncologist said eventually. ‘Everything looks grand: I can’t find any sign that the cancer is presenting. You can get dressed.’

  It had been raining that morning but it started to clear as we drove back to Malahide, where we lived. The roads were wet and the fields we passed all had a clean, just-washed look. We were both enormously relieved that I was – so far – doing well, but I felt a growing sense of more than relief. Suddenly I felt clear headed and positive. I decided to follow the obstetrician’s advice and enjoy my pregnancy. I wasn’t going to get anywhere by worrying – it wasn’t going to help me, it wasn’t going to help my family and it certainly would not help the baby. It was time to stop fighting it and trust that God would show me the way.

  That evening we told Sarah I was expecting. ‘Oh, Mammy! I’m going to be a big sister! That’s so exciting!’ she yelled with glee and rushed outside to tell Richard who was as usual kicking a ball around the back garden. As we listened to their animated chattering (‘It’s going to be a boy’; ‘No it’s not, it’s going to be a girl!’) we got caught up in their delight.

  ‘I really believe this is going to be fine,’ I stated confidently. ‘Today I have made a conscious decision not to worry any more. This baby is a gift from God and I am determined to enjoy my pregnancy, not live in fear every minute.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Gerard happily, uncorking a bottle. We joined the children in the garden, and from that moment on I refused to allow myself to be afraid. Every time the worry popped into my mind, as it did from time to time, I deliberately shut it down.

  I went on to have an uneventful pregnancy. I grew bigger with each passing month, and grew too in my sense of joy and fulfilment. I went to the hospital each month for the double whammy of obstetrician/oncologist, and although I never got used to the stark contrast between the light and hope of one department and the fear and coldness of the other, I kept telling myself that God was looking after me and this was all part of His plan.

  It was thrilling for me to feel the baby’s first squirming, wriggling movements around the eighteenth week, and I’ll never forget taking both the children to the twenty-week scan. The look on their faces when they saw the cloudy outline of their new brother or sister and listened to the soft whooshing of the blood flow will stay with me for ever. The obstetrician spent a long time pointing out the fingers and toes, and we could even make out the profile of the face.

  ‘It’s waving at us,’ giggled Sarah, as the baby moved slightly at the pressure from the scanning wand.

  ‘That’s my brother,’ said Richard.

  ‘I’m convinced it’s a boy,’ I said conversationally to the obstetrician. She gave me an old-fashioned look, from which I guessed that Richard wouldn’t be getting his footballer after all. I would have to tell him before the birth. In fact I broke it to him later. ‘That’s OK, Mum,’ he said. ‘Girls can play football too.’

  I became calmer and more serene in the final months, practising yoga and meditation techniques that seemed to give me inner strength and helped make me more accepting of anything that was to happen. The deep breathing gave me time to think and be myself. This was going to be my last baby, I knew that for certain. She would be like me, the youngest of the family. I remember having vivid dreams at the end of my pregnancy, particularly about my own childhood. Leafing through some old photo albums of Richard and Sarah as young children I remembered how sweet they had been to each other in those days, and I longed for the day when we would have another little one amongst us.

  Everything I did at that stage was focussed on the coming birth. My world became smaller and quieter. I took down Richard’s cradle from the attic, which I had been keeping for his children, and washed and ironed the tiny sheets and cellular blankets. With it I found two little sleepsuits of his that I couldn’t part with when I had my big clear-out after my miscarriage. I would have to buy some more, I realized, and Sarah would just love to come shopping with me. ‘It will be like having a real live doll,’ I promised her.

  ‘I’m astonished,’ said my oncologist one afternoon late into my pregnancy, just after another routine check with the obstetrician. I was due to give birth in a month’s time. ‘You have confounded my expectations – you are as healthy a patient as I have ever seen. Well done.’ That was praise indeed from him.

  ‘What are we going to call the baby?’ asked Sarah one morning, and we all laughed to think we hadn’t got any names decided on, even though my due date was coming up fast. The children drew up a list of names, and Ger and I scanned baby-name books for inspiration. None of us could agree on any names we liked, until one evening when we were sitting watching the credits roll up after a film. ‘Julie,’ I read. ‘That’s nice.’ Everyone nodded. So Julie it was.

  Because of my age, the doctor decided to induce me six days early, so unlike the other children who had arrived at very unsociable hours, Julie’s birth was very civilized. We left Sarah and Richard with Ger’s mother and ‘checked in’ at the hospital at 8am. They broke my waters, and having been told things would take some hours to get moving, Ger nipped off to a meeting. When he returned a few hours later we walked around a little, hoping that would speed the process up. At midday we rang the kids to let them know nothing had happened yet. Finally, Julie was born at 5.20 that afternoon. The midwife handed me a mewling bundle.

  ‘She looks Chinese!’ I gasped.

  ‘She’d better not be or there’ll be a steward’s enquiry,’ said Ger.

  I looked down at my tiny newborn baby girl who was already staring at me with dark eyes. ‘Hello, Julie,’ I murmured. ‘I’m your Mummy. I’ve been waiting to meet you for ages!’ She looked strong – she would be a fighter, like me. I knew she was going to be fine.

  That evening the kids turned up with their Granny, Anne. Sarah was chatting away about a gift someone had sent for Julie, but Richard just stared at her silently, totally overwhelmed. I could see this was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to him, and little did he know then how much she would come to mean to him. Baby Julie was and is the joy of all our lives. To anyone else of course she is just a normal kid, but to us she is a little miracle. Richard and Sarah now look after her like parents, watching out for her and caring for her. On the day she was born I thought I would burst with happiness, but each day of her life she has made me even happier. Julie has filled a part of me that I thought I had lost.

  So it wasn’t poor Bernadette after all. It was blessed, lucky Bernadette. I had been given my longed-for third child: my family was complete, my world was whole and the future looked wonderful.

  Chapter Eleven

  Stress

  People always ask me if stress causes cancer. There is so much written these days about stress, stress hormones, stressful life events, and all the different ways of dealing with stress. I’m not a medical person so I couldn’t really say if stress actually causes cancer, but I do know this much. When you are stressed you stop looking after yourself properly. You miss meals, you forget to drink enough water, you don’t sleep properly, you have no time to exercise, you may keep yourself going with sugary snacks, alcohol and cigarettes, perhaps even drugs. And when you stop looking after yourself you are looking for trouble.

  We are jumping five years on in my story. Richard was seventeen, Sarah was fifteen and Julie was five, so life was busy as it is for any parent with two children in secondary school and one starting junior school – not to mention George, our boisterous Labrador. I was always on the go, with very little time for myself, but that was the life I had chosen, and it was very much what I wanted. I never forgot that I had been given the gift of more time with them, the chance to see them grow up, and I thanked God every da
y for this. Of course it was exhausting and difficult at times, but so rewarding to watch them develop and change and to be able to relate to them on different levels. They are all so different but all such gorgeous kids, and really give me very little trouble. Of course the rascals now get up to all the usual teenage carry-on – staying out late, playing loud music, random sulks. But one of the things I appreciate the most is that I feel they talk to me – they really open up about what is upsetting them and what they are excited about. When I was growing up I had secrets from my parents, and they had secrets from me. Ger and I have tried very hard to be open and honest with our children so that they not only are straight and honest with us, but trust us to be straight with them.

  I felt fortunate to have such easy-going kids, and I could not imagine how women with more complicated lives coped. Yet despite this, and despite being fairly health-conscious even in those days, I tended to grab food on the run and simply did not spend much time taking care of myself. The kids came first, no question, and my needs were always the last on the list. Like many mothers I was cook, chauffeur, nurse, homework-supervisor, cleaner, confidante and sergeant-major all rolled into one. I also made their clothes and did the same for friends, which kept me awake into the small hours. When I look back at this period now, I think it was far more stressful than I realized. I had no idea what problems I might be storing up for myself.

  Then two things happened that took me way off the stress scale.

  Like many women in their forties I was also partly responsible for my ageing mother, who at this stage was suffering from mild dementia but was adamant she wanted to stay in her own home. To facilitate this, my sister Aquinas – who lived close to her – went to see her every day. My brother Frank sometimes stopped for the night with her, and I would drive thirty miles each week to visit her. Then one day the phone rang. It was Aquinas.

  ‘It’s Mum. She’s had a stroke.’

  I suppose when your parent is old you expect to hear news like this all the time, but nevertheless it was a shock.

  ‘Jesus, Aquinas, how bad is it?’

  ‘It’s only mild, they say, but she’s in hospital. I can’t cope with her any more on my own – I’m going to need help from the rest of you.’

  Poor Aquinas was worn ragged with all the caring she did, and I knew she needed help, so I drove up to the hospital and back every second day. It wasn’t easy to arrange all this, but by this time Richard and Sarah were old enough to babysit Julie if I wasn’t around. ‘I’m sorry, you two,’ I’d say. ‘You’re on duty again this afternoon. I need to go and visit Granny.’

  Fortunately my mother recovered, but was unable to live alone after this. It was decided that she would move in with Aquinas. Again, in order to help my sister, I offered to have her to stay with me for the first few days, so I drove her back to our house on the Friday night. As I was installing her in the spare room, Sarah appeared.

  ‘I’ve got a headache, Mum.’

  ‘Have you? Have a little rest. I expect you’ll feel better later. Did you have a tough day at school?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

  The next day I left Mum in Richard’s care while I went shopping for some things she needed. Sarah had a Saturday job in the local newsagent’s and I popped in to say hello.

  ‘Ooh, my cheek feels numb,’ she commented, rubbing her face. ‘And so does my arm.’

  ‘Numb? What do you think caused that?’ I asked, a little absentmindedly, as I checked over my shopping list.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s like when you have been to the dentist.’

  Not another of Sarah’s aches and pains, I sighed to myself. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another: I couldn’t keep up with these small but rather regular teenage problems, and I usually found they disappeared in time if I ignored them.

  ‘I expect you’ll feel better later. See you this evening – make sure you’re home in time for dinner.’

  Ger was away on business and I had a hard time dealing with everything that weekend. Nothing I did for my mother was quite right, and I was trying my best to keep an even temper. Julie was making a racket on her recorder, Richard was having trouble with his Geography coursework, and Sarah was still complaining of a headache.

  On Monday after school she said it was worse. ‘Perhaps you’re brewing up ’flu or something,’ I suggested. ‘Why don’t you lie on the couch and have a rest?’ That way, I thought, she’d be one fewer problem for me to deal with.

  On Tuesday she took the day off school. I took my mother back to Aquinas, then drove straight to the airport to fetch Ger. When we got back, there was Sarah, looking pale and tired.

  ‘I don’t think I can bear this headache much longer.’ This was one problem that clearly was not going to go away. Suddenly I was worried.

  ‘Right. Sit down and tell me exactly how you feel.’

  ‘Both my cheeks are numb, and I have a splitting headache.’ A small worm of fear crept into my mind. Numbness. A headache that doesn’t go.

  ‘OK, Sarah, get in the car. I’m taking you to hospital.’ I grabbed her coat, bundled her into the car and rushed to Casualty. They immediately gave her a brain scan.

  A brain scan? Sweet Jesus what have I done? The poor lassie has been trying to tell me something for days now and I have been ignoring her! I felt like the worst mother in the entire universe. ‘God, I’m sorry Sarah. I should have brought you here days ago.’

  ‘It’s OK, Mum. Don’t worry.’ Very gently, I took her into the waiting area and sat down with my arms around her. We sat like that for a very long time, and she eventually fell asleep with her head on my lap. All sorts of unimaginable horrors were running through my mind as I drifted in and out of sleep, trying to stay alert for Sarah but achingly tired, praying all the while to God that she was going to be all right. While she slept I rang Ger to let him know what was happening. He came in around four in the morning to relieve me.

  ‘You go home, Bernie. You need to get some sleep.’

  ‘Sleep? There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep until I know what’s up with Sarah.’

  We waited together for the results of the scan to come and for a doctor to tell us what was wrong. Finally a nurse appeared.

  ‘I can’t tell you anything yet, but we are definitely admitting her.’ She took us up to a ward, and Sarah was laid in a curtained-off bed. We tried not to jump to any conclusions, but I knew from Ger’s face that his thoughts were as dark as mine. We hung around waiting, waiting, waiting. When Sarah woke up I told her I would pop home, have a wash and collect her nightclothes. ‘OK, Mum. Don’t be long.’

  I drove like a madwoman, praying out loud, only just able to see the road through my hot tears. Dear God, please don’t do this to her. Don’t let her suffer, she’s only a kid.

  I got home just after breakfast. Julie, who was just learning to write, was painstakingly making a little Get Well card for Sarah. Richard was clearing away breakfast.

  ‘How is she, Mum?’ he asked. I knew he was dreadfully worried. Only the previous day Richard and Sarah had been hurling insults at each other. Now, when the chips were down, I saw how deeply he cared for her.

  ‘We don’t know yet, they’ve done some tests and will be keeping her in for a bit. Could you take Julie to school for me?’ Julie ran over with her card, which was sticky with glue and sequins.

  ‘Can’t I come with you now so I can give it to Sarah?’

  ‘Well, why don’t we let it dry first? You have a lovely day at school, then perhaps we’ll take it to her later if she’s still in hospital.’

  I grabbed a few things for Sarah, kissed them both goodbye, and rushed out of the house. When I got back to Sarah she told me the surgeon had already done his rounds. Shit, I’d missed him. Ger had gone to work to cancel his arrangements for the day.

  ‘Mum, he said I have a cyst on my brain.’ She said it in a matter-of-fact voice but her eyes were scared.

  ‘What?’ I almost screamed. What did that mean, and w
hat were they doing giving this news to a fifteen-year-old on her own?

  ‘It’s not serious, really – it’s OK. They are going to monitor me.’

  ‘That’s grand. I’ll just see if I can find the doctor.’ I couldn’t help it, my eyes filled with tears, and I turned so Sarah would not see.

  The neurosurgeon, when I had tracked him down, was not quite as positive with me as he had been with Sarah. He told me it was definitely a lump, but he did not know exactly what it was. She would need to stay in for more tests.

  Later, in the ward, Sarah lay on the metal bed surrounded by three senior surgeons. The big guns. They planned a series of tests for her – CT scans, MRI scans and others I had never heard of. One of the machines broke down, so the waiting was more drawn-out than it should have been. In all, she was in hospital for nine days, and I was by her side as much as I could. I swear to God there is nothing in this world worse than having a sick child. Every protective instinct in your body is focussed on making them better, on taking care of them as you have from the moment they were conceived, but when they are in hospital your power to do this is taken away from you. All your love, your hopes, your prayers – all contract into this one hospital room, this one small bed. I remembered children I had met in the other hospital where I had been treated for the lymphoma – children with white faces and dull eyes. I remembered how even if they were smiling, playing with toys or doing something apparently normal, they seemed marked out as different, tragic. I wondered if any of them were still living. Now I understood how their parents felt, why they seemed to wander around the corridors as if sleep-walking. Why they showered their children with gifts and sweets. And I wondered if there was a cancer ‘gene’ I had passed on to my child. Was this a brain tumour?