The Choice

by Bernadette Bohan

  Despite all this help and support with which I was surrounded, one terrible day I was on my own in the house when Richard walked through the door. He had been in an accident. His face was white, and he seemed to be having difficulty breathing. I was on the sofa recovering from the morning’s radiation – having struggled to get there in the first place – and quite unable to get up. I gave a little cry when I saw him. ‘What on earth has happened?’

  ‘Mum. I’m OK, don’t fuss, but we drove into the back of a car.’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘The car in front crashed into another car, and we couldn’t stop in time. I was in the back, but I’d only just got in and was taking off my jacket before buckling my seatbelt. So I was thrown forwards.’

  ‘Where does it hurt?’

  ‘My chest. And my back is sore.’ Jesus, I thought. He might have broken a rib, or done some damage to his spine or neck. I had to get him to hospital, but how? I hated the cancer more than ever then, for preventing me from taking proper care of my child. I knew, of course, that Gerard would have come immediately, or anyone I chose to call. But I felt it was my job to go with him, and I wept as I saw him get into the back of a taxi, cursing this feeling of utter helplessness.

  Richard was fine, as it turned out, but a few days later I received a call from Aquinas. ‘Mum’s had another stroke.’

  ‘Oh no, no more.’ I couldn’t deal with this – yet another blow to deal with when I was already on my knees.

  ‘The doctors don’t think she’ll make it this time. I’ve been told to get hold of all the family.’ I perked up a little: that meant I’d be seeing Jimmy, my favourite brother. He lived in England, and my world had collapsed when, in his early twenties, he had moved away from home. I called him to tell him about the summons to the hospital.

  ‘Bernie, how are you doing? Are you bearing up?’ He knew I was sick – my sisters had told him when I’d got the diagnosis. ‘What about Gerard and the kids, are they OK?’ I told him how things were, and I broke the news about our mother. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘She’s at the end of her life. You’re only in the middle of yours. I can’t wait to see you.’

  ‘I look like shit,’ I said.

  It was her 89th birthday the following week, and we all congregated in her hospital room, taking photos, believing this was the last we would see of our dear little mum. Bless her, her mind had gone, and she didn’t really know who we were, although I felt she knew at some level that her time was limited. How I longed to put my arms around her and tell her all my problems like I used to do as a child. I thought of Marti Caine, who had suffered greatly with cancer a few years earlier. (I had followed her progress, which sadly was downhill, with great interest and empathy, as you do when high-profile public figures are going through a similar experience to your own.) Something she said had stuck in my mind. That her mother, who had many failings later in life, gave her enough love in her first seven years to enable her to withstand all the hard knocks life was to deal her. This is how I felt about my own mother, and as I stroked her pale cheek I reflected that it was probably a good thing that she would never know that I, her baby, had cancer. I sat and put my arms around her, trying to comfort her and draw what strength I could from her frail body. I remembered how, as a child, we used to sit cosily together, before the big ones got back from school, in front of Watch with Mother. She would be in her pinny and there would always be a smell of baking in the house. If I shut my eyes I could almost imagine the smell of her scones and brown bread.

  Gerard was talking to Jimmy, Aquinas, and her husband Pat, and Sarah and Julie were in a corner with Deirdre, Terence and Frank. Richard was next to me, and I knew how shaken he was to see someone so near death – she looked even worse than I did, and that was saying something. As I sat hugging her, lost in my own memories, he put an arm around me, saying quietly, ‘It’s all right, Mum, it’s all right.’ The poor lad could see I needed my own mother, and in his inarticulate way he was doing his best to show me that he could be my support, now that she no longer could be. Eventually he led me out, but I so wanted to stay with her. I had spent days by my father’s bedside when he was dying but I never said goodbye to him and I hadn’t been with him when he died. I did not want to leave my mother by herself now.

  The fact that, a week later, my mother was sitting up in bed as if nothing had happened did not take away the sharp sense that, although I was going through my own private hell, life – and death – was still going on around me. I couldn’t put it on hold and ask it to wait until I was feeling more able to deal with it. And in some ways I did not want to: one strange upside to all this, I noticed, was that my senses were heightened. Food tasted of itself once more – or was it my new diet? Smells were richer and stronger, landscapes more beautiful, people kinder, music more evocative, more sensual … and Ger’s touch, or the feel of Julie’s hand in mine, was like I had never felt before. In the middle of all the horror I was discovering how precious life was. Suddenly I became highly observant, and had a new, acute appreciation of my world. It was a primal instinct, a visceral desire to keep going. This, I realized, was a privilege. A privilege offered only to those living on the edge.

  And still I forced myself to go out to lectures and talks, although sometimes Gerard would try to make me stay at home and rest. ‘These people know what I need to know,’ I would insist. ‘I must go.’ It was on the days that I was confined to bed, however, that I really learnt the most, as I could do nothing else. I must admit that I was confused by some of what I was reading. In one place I would read of certain vitamins that were essential; then one speaker would say that the therapeutic amounts of vitamins recommended by some people were toxic. I was unsure about cooking vegetables too: steaming had been my preferred way of cooking, believing that it preserved the goodness; then I read that key nutrients were destroyed by cooking at a temperature greater than 45 degrees. Then at one lecture I heard about sprouting – a way of growing vegetable seeds into sprouts that contain fifty to a hundred times more nutrients than the grown vegetable. This was worth getting out of bed for! It didn’t involve the confusing field of vitamins, and they could be eaten raw. I was determined to find out more, and start as soon as possible. What was more, during the course of my six months of chemotherapy, and beyond, I met some of the best-known names in the health field and pumped them for information.

  It was almost Christmas, and I was due to go in for my penultimate chemotherapy session just before the day itself. I couldn’t bear to think that Julie’s Christmas would be ruined by my being sick, and I asked the oncologist if there was any way he could delay it.

  ‘Sure we can, a week won’t make any difference at this stage. There are always several operatives off that week anyway.’ I was so pleased, and so grateful – having four weeks rather than only three in between bouts was heaven, and we had a lovely family Christmas. Gerard was in high spirits throughout the holiday, and said to me on several occasions, ‘Isn’t it great – only two more to go!’ That was not how I felt at all. I knew I would dread it right to the end – like climbing a mountain, to others it looks as if you are nearly there; for me the final peak was the worst, and seemed almost insurmountable. My immune system was at its lowest point, and despite all my efforts to keep myself as healthy as I could, I knew I was almost at breaking point. I couldn’t wait for the year 2000 to be behind me.

  When it was eventually all over, the oncologist said to me gently, ‘Those last two sessions were very tough on you, weren’t they?’ I nodded, and lay still as he examined me. What was supposed to happen now, I wondered? Was I free to go home and get on with my life? I think he read my expression.

  ‘Well now, the chemo and radiotherapy should have removed all cancerous cells. Your immune system will hopefully repair itself. Don’t worry, I’ll keep a close eye on you. I got you out of it the first time, and I’ve got you out of it a second time! Come back every three months for a check-up.’

  As I left the hospital
I noticed the first few snowdrops of spring pushing their way through the hard earth. I was bowed, but not broken. The tumour was gone, and I had only lost half a stone in weight. My hair was starting to thicken, and – astonishingly – my arthritis in my right hand and shoulder seemed to have disappeared. I also found I no longer needed my reading glasses. I thought about the few simple changes I had made to my lifestyle, and realized there was no turning back now.

  ‘So, are you going to give up this health kick now you’re through the treatment?’ said Ger a few days after the final session of chemo.

  ‘You must be joking,’ I laughed. ‘There’s no way I am ever going to revisit that hell again – not if I have anything to do with it.’

  And I did have something to do with it. Now, more than ever, I understood that my future was in my own hands.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Breaking Through

  Just as stress sets off a kind of vicious circle in which your anxieties and fears stop you from looking after yourself properly, which in turn leads to illness and disease within the body, so I found that once I turned the corner into a healthy way of life, I started to feel the benefits. I had more energy than I had had for years, which in turn motivated me to look after my body much more effectively. Naturally, it helped enormously that the treatment was over, but I knew that I would not be regarded as totally ‘cured’ for many years yet. The simple but dramatic changes I had made to my way of life – which had started as a stark choice between eating and drinking as I used to, or filling my shopping trolley with different items – were now no longer a choice. It was simply the way I was going to keep myself well.

  Malahide is a small town, and at that time we had lived there for sixteen years, so we knew a fair few people – having three children at two different schools widens your circle of acquaintances like nothing else! During my illness, though, the number of people I saw regularly had contracted to some close girlfriends, a few local neighbours and my family. It wasn’t until the spring of 2001 that life returned to normal and my health and spirits began to improve, and I was able to get out a bit more often.

  ‘Bernadette Bohan?’ came a cry from behind me as I window-shopped along the local high street one crisp March morning. ‘Is that really you?’ I turned to see a woman with whom I’d made some costumes for a school play some years earlier.

  ‘Hello,’ I said warmly, trying to remember her name. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, back at work now that Sean is in full-time school. How are your three kids?’ I told her what they were all doing, and took a few steps along the pavement as if to carry on with my shopping, but she carried on talking as if there was something she had to say.

  ‘You look well, though, Bernadette. I, er, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but, um, I heard you have been very ill.’

  ‘That’s right. Breast cancer.’

  ‘Didn’t you have cancer that other time?’ I nodded. ‘You’ve had it twice?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I smiled.

  ‘How come you are looking so good?’ There. She’d said it. I guessed from her face that when she’d heard that I had had cancer a second time she’d assumed that I had either already died or must be on my way out. A fair assumption, I reasoned.

  ‘I started finding out about ways to beat cancer through eating more healthily. I’ve discovered some amazing things. Now I drink massive quantities of organic vegetable juice, I drink lots of clean water, I grow my own sprouts, I take digestive enzymes and probiotics and –’

  ‘Brussels sprouts?’ she interrupted.

  ‘No, I have little jars in my kitchen where I grow all kinds of seeds – alfalfa, fenugreek, broccoli – and when they have sprouted a few shoots I eat them with salads or in a sandwich. They’re powerhouses of nutrients – you wouldn’t believe what they contain.’

  We carried on chatting while we walked back up the street, and she eventually told me that her husband had prostate cancer. Ah, I thought, that explained her fierce interest in my recovery. Then I suddenly realized we were near my house. ‘Come in, why don’t you? I’ll show you my juicer and how I do the sprouting.’

  She spent two hours with me that day, and returned a few days later to find out more. That time she brought a friend with her whose daughter had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. A week later the daughter herself came: a pretty, dark girl in her twenties. I could see she was frightened, and desperate for help. She had that same hunger for information and knowledge that I had felt myself not so very long ago. ‘I want to get on your programme,’ she said. ‘Tell me exactly what to do.’ That shocked me. I had not thought of what I had been doing as a plan, or a programme, it was just a few things I did, based on what I thought was some very compelling evidence.

  ‘My goodness!’ I exclaimed, a little embarrassed. ‘I’m not suggesting this is a programme you can follow, but I can show you a few simple things that will have a huge impact on your health.’

  ‘I’d really appreciate that, if it’s not too much trouble.’ Too much trouble? This was my special subject, and I loved nothing more than climbing up on my soapbox.

  ‘OK. The first thing you need to understand is that cancer is caused by deficiency and toxicity. Your job is to maintain a powerful immune system to help you fight the disease. You can do this by removing some known carcinogens from your environment, and by adding certain things to your diet – delicious things, I might add – which will give your body massive doses of the anti-oxidant vitamins and certain minerals and enzymes that it needs for recovery.’

  ‘What about chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, and should I have a mastectomy, and what about manual lymph drainage?’ the questions tumbled forth.

  ‘I cannot advise you on any of that; I’m not a medical person, although I can tell you about my own experience. You must make your own decisions, but educate yourself so that you can make an informed decision. What I can show you are the extra things you can do to enhance your chances of survival.’ And so I would go on, and the hours would pass. This would happen several times a week, and my first few ‘students’ would leave, gratefully clutching handfuls of scribbled notes.

  I’m a sociable, chatty person, and everywhere I went I would talk to people, and I would tell them what I was doing. My new diet seemed to be so effective, and I was so excited to be feeling well and to feel I actually had a future ahead of me, that I became something of an evangelist. The more I talked about it, the more people would contact me to ask if I could explain what to do about cleaning up their water, and which toiletries didn’t have damaging chemicals in them, or where to find the best organic products. I was receiving two or three phone calls per day from people suffering not just from cancer, but from arthritis, eczema, ME, irritable bowel syndrome, and many other ailments. And what was even more interesting, perhaps, was that most people who contacted me were fit and well – and wanted to stay that way.

  ‘How long is this going to go on for?’ asked Gerard grumpily one evening, as our dinner was interrupted by yet another telephone call.

  ‘Sorry, won’t be long,’ I said breezily as I rushed off to take the call.

  ‘I meant how long are you going to be acting as unofficial health adviser to the entire population of Dublin?’ he said when I returned.

  ‘Yeah,’ chimed in the others. ‘It’s getting a bit much. The house isn’t our own any more.’

  It was true. It wasn’t just phone calls: most days I was in the kitchen with two or more people, usually strangers, trying out juicing combinations, showing them which supplements were worth buying, giving them information about the dangers of fluoride … sometimes I did not have much time to prepare the family’s evening meal, and quiet evenings with Gerard were often derailed by the telephone. And, if I admitted it, I was tired out as well.

  ‘I’m sorry, I realize it’s hard on all of you. Perhaps I ought to group people into proper classes and hold them at regular times, and only speak to people on t
he phone at certain times.’

  ‘Or perhaps you could stop altogether?’ they said.

  ‘I can’t, this is too important. I have information that could help these people. I can’t not tell them what I know.’

  ‘I think it was your determination and drive to live that saved you. You were completely focussed on finding ways to help yourself, and it was that which pulled you through. Not this faddy diet thing.’ My heart sank. This was Gerard, my Mr Wonderful. If he didn’t believe in my diet, who would?

  ‘You would think like me if you had read all the evidence,’ I insisted. ‘And look at me – surely you are pleased I have helped myself become well again? Don’t forget how I used to moan about my arthritis. And only last week my dentist said he couldn’t believe the improvement in my gums and teeth!’

  ‘Of course I am pleased, but evidence?’ he snorted. ‘Are you telling me that there is a cure for cancer out there and your oncologist isn’t telling you about it? Don’t be daft.’

  ‘You know what doctors are like – they want to have everything proven and tested and re-tested in double-blind trials like drugs are. Who’s going to invest millions of pounds in doing those kinds of trials on this stuff? I think it’s just common sense.’

  ‘Well, all I know is, you can’t continue with it for ever.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, surely it’s hard cooking separate meals for the rest of us. All that shopping for organic fruit, and those supplements you’re taking. And as for not drinking milk – where do you think you’re going to get your calcium from? Thin air? You’re cured, aren’t you? Can’t you just accept that, and move on?’ Then he let slip the real reason for his hostility. ‘And it’s so difficult for everyone else. You make us feel as if we’re being really unhealthy.’