My Mummy Wears a Wig - Does Yours? A true and heart warming account of a journey through breast cancer Read online

  MY MUMMY WEARS A WIG – DOES YOURS?

  Michelle Williams-Huw

  Published by Accent Press 2007

  Copyright © 2007 Michelle Williams-Huw

  ISBN 1906125112/9781906125110

  The right of Michelle Williams-Huw to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher: Accent Press, The Old School, Upper High Street, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6SA

  Printed and bound in the UK

  Cover design by Joëlle Brindley

  Extract from Ten-Minute Life Coach by Fiona Harrold, © 2002 Fiona Harrold. Reproduced by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

  Extract from The Daily Mirror Horoscope is reproduced by kind permission of The Daily Mirror / Mirrorpix

  For my three boys,

  my mother and father

  and my sisters

  Contents

  June

  July

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  January

  February

  March

  April

  There is no such thing in anyone’s life as an unimportant day.

  Alexander Woollcott, 1887-1943

  June 29, Thursday

  It seems I am going to have to find out where Kylie Minogue bought her glamorous headscarves. I have an aggressive tumour in my right breast which will require surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, all starting in the next few weeks. I’m either really calm or this hasn’t sunk in yet.

  I had a routine mammogram for a minor complaint called costochondritis, which is a pain that is felt in the breast but actually stems from the rib area. I had Googled my symptoms and diagnosed myself, but wanted it confirmed by a medical professional. When a ‘blip’ turned up on the mammogram, the hospital staff said it was nothing to worry about. They were 99 per cent certain everything was fine. At thirty-nine years old they don’t expect you to get cancer. Ho hum, that little one per cent turned out to be a malignant tumour which would have taken anything up to five years to be felt.

  Everyone kept saying how lucky I was at the hospital: Helen the breast-nurse specialist who has been assigned to me, and Mr Monypenny, the lovely Consultant. I’m not sure how lucky I’m feeling at the moment. The two things I remember most about this morning are firstly, the state of the blinds in the examination room: they needed repairing so as I sat on the edge of the bed with my top off I was watching people get on and off the buses outside through the broken blind and, secondly, the five words I never really thought I’d ever say: ‘Am I going to die?’

  I was on my own for the results, not thinking they would be bad. I was calm and collected when they told me, so much so that Mr Monypenny asked if I was taking it all in – then I got to the crux of it. ‘You see, I just need to know, am I going to die?’

  That was easy enough to say but the next bit got me. ‘The thing is, I’ve got two small children . . . and they really need their mummy.’ Tears ran down my cheeks as I spoke.

  Helen the nurse gave me a tissue and the student nurse sitting by her side started crying.

  ‘How old are they?’ Mr Monypenny asked. ‘Two and six’, I told him. My heart was fit to explode when I uttered those words. The thought that my two beautiful little boys might lose their mummy; that their small lives might be blighted by tragedy, was too much to keep inside. They had to have their mummy – and their mummy had to have them.

  Mr Monypenny told me I didn’t have to decide anything now; I should go home and think about what he had said and choose whether I was going to have a mastectomy or a lumpectomy. Hello! The most major decision so far this morning was jam or Marmite on my toast; now I was being asked whether I wanted my breast cut off or not.

  ‘You see,’ I said, ‘if the children are left with their father to look after them, their clothes would never be colour co-ordinated.’ They laughed and it brought a momentary release.

  I rang Rhodri, my husband, who was in London working, and he kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry for you,’ over and over. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but he was sorry and I sat outside the hospital on a glorious sunny day, wanting to be a thousand miles away.

  I drank a lot of wine.

  June 30, Friday

  As a mother myself, phoning to tell my own mother I have cancer in the same week that my father has had an operation for skin cancer (on the mouth) is a daunting prospect. It is a very strange experience having cancer, as you immediately feel responsible for the mental health of all the other people around you. My mother is one of these people. There is no right way to tell someone you have cancer; there is no way of sugaring the pill. It simply has to be said. ‘Mum, I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve got breast cancer.’ There it is, out there.

  If I found out one of my own children had anything wrong with them as serious as this, no matter what age they were, I think it would be one of the worst imaginable situations. Mum was obviously shocked, as was my father, chipping in from the background, saying uncharacteristic things like, ‘We’ll support you,’ (when they were about to leave for the hospital to see if he would get the all-clear for his own skin cancer). Bloody hell, we’re all riddled with it.

  My mother was practical and supportive in the way only a mother can be when one of her children is ill – although I don’t, of course, feel ill. As I keep saying to everyone, ‘I feel fine’. I am fine – apart from the cancer. It’s the old story: go into hospital a healthy specimen, come out with a life-threatening condition, ho hum.

  Twenty minutes later, my mother rang back. ‘Shelley, it’s Mum here. Me and your dad have had a chat and we’ve completely come to terms with your cancer.’

  I laughed. ‘What, in twenty minutes?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we’re fine now, we’re over that.’

  Great. Let’s hope it takes me as short a time to come to terms with it.

  Mum rang again later, to tell me Dad had the all-clear on his skin cancer.

  ‘How is he?’ I asked.

  ‘Forget about him now,’ Mum said. ‘It’s you we’re thinking of.’

  ‘Yes,’ I joked. ‘I’ve got worse cancer than him – I’ve trumped his cancer.’ She did laugh but I know she was hurting.

  Helen the breast nurse came to the house today. Whoever doubted the NHS? I’ve only had wonderful service – now I know why I pay those enormous taxes. She was with a student nurse – the one who had cried the day before. At one point I think the student nurse actually fell asleep. It was rather surreal and I’m sure a less robust person than myself would have found it upsetting, but I thought it was very typical of my life in general. Nothing is ever straightforward, plus I forgave her as she had cried when I was talking about my children when I had my diagnosis. Also, I remembered what it was like to be a student myself.

  Helen came to discuss my options because, ‘Let’s not forget who’s in control of the situation here – you,’ she said reassuringly. Oh yes, I really feel as if I am in control. One minute I’m leading my tra la la life, the next minute someone is asking me whether I want my breast cut off.


  My options are lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy, or mastectomy with sentinel node biopsy. My reaction is to have a mastectomy like Babs, my friend who has recently had a double mastectomy. That way, I will never have to think about the cancer again – it’s gone, that’s it. Or so I thought. Apparently, cancer doesn’t work like that.

  It’s not as straightforward as taking your breast off and the disease never coming back. If the cancer does come back, it can attach itself to the wall of the chest. Oh my God, these are issues I have never wanted to think about in my life. Babs, I have since discovered, had cancer in situ, which means it wasn’t going anywhere, whereas I have an aggressive tumour which most definitely does go somewhere, and if it’s not caught in time, that somewhere is usually one’s vital organs; and basically, I think by that point you are fucked.

  Sentinel node biopsy is a procedure they don’t do all over the country; they inject you with a blue dye that finds the main nodes under your arm. They take these away and see if they have any cancer in them. If they do, they take all of the lymph glands away. If they don’t, you get to keep them.

  I asked how accurate it was and Helen said about 96 per cent so I decided to go for it – option one sorted. As far as option two was concerned, I decided to have the lump removed and see if they could get clearance around it; the doctors have to have a certain circumference around it to make sure it doesn’t come back. I will then have chemotherapy and radiotherapy after the operation.

  Mr Monypenny is apparently one of the pioneers of sentinel node biopsy and breast surgery. Helen says the team of surgeons at the hospital are at the forefront of pioneering surgery, and I secretly wonder if all breast nurses across the country say this. She has worked for My Monypenny for years and says he’s a perfectionist. Well, that suits me. As a control freak perfectionist myself, this is a big plus point in his favour.

  When it’s time for her to go, Helen gives me a pile of booklets and papers, and tells me to call her at any time. As she leaves, she rolls her eyes at me over the student nurse – who by this point is sitting in the front garden.

  I asked Helen if I could have my op after our summer holiday in Brittany, which is the last week in July and first week in August. She said that was fine and it would be early August. I want to spend that time with Rhodri and the children before it all kicks off. We’ve all really been looking forward to the trip and Elis, my older child, would know something was up for sure if we didn’t go.

  I also asked if she thought the cancer might go out of control before I came back, because I didn’t want to delay my operation for a holiday if it meant my life being cut short. Apparently, cancer doesn’t work like that. I am finding out a lot about how cancer does and does not work.

  Life at home carries on as normal. There are dishes to wash, children to bath, nappies to change, food to buy. We don’t mention breast cancer (BC as Rhodri and I refer to it in conversation) in front of Elis. I don’t want to frighten him, don’t want him to think there’s anything wrong with Mummy in any way. Osh is away with the fairies and doesn’t know what time of day it is, so it’s not an issue with him. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing. I’ve told my story about fifteen times and my head is spinning a little.

  It was Elis’s sports day today; I missed it but Rhodri went. I couldn’t face talking to people in a happy jolly voice knowing I have breast cancer. Elis came second in his race – he told me this morning he would either come first or second, not boastfully, but in a ‘that’s just the way it is’ type of voice. I said second was brilliant, but he wasn’t having any of it. My God, he is like me – I have gone to great pains to keep him from being the obsessive perfectionist that I am, and now look.

  I drank a lot of wine.

  July 2, Sunday

  I have spoken to all my sisters now. I am one of four girls. My three sisters are Joanne, the eldest, then Julia, then me, then Sarah. We have always been very close and I know they will be there to help me through this. The weekend was mad, with people getting in touch. Rhodri’s mother was very emotional on the phone as expected and, like my mother, said she would have the cancer for me if she could. I am not sure I would want to live with the guilt of giving this to anyone. I called Ben and Bree and Ian J, as we are having a farewell dinner on Saturday. Ben and Bree and their baby Nancy are moving to Brighton.

  We have all been looking forward to going out for weeks. My mother had the children (having cancer gives you umpteen instant offers of babysitting). I didn’t want to be a party-pooper on the night so got it out of the way, by phone, before we saw them. We all cried and said we loved each other. I’ve been doing a lot of that this weekend – mainly in a drunken haze. We had a fab meal and talked about the cancer but also didn’t talk about it and the evening wasn’t spoilt by it, because I wasn’t going to allow it to. I keep saying to everyone how positive I am because the doctors caught it early.

  We laughed and talked about the last eight years we’ve all known each other – God, eight years have gone by in the bat of an eyelid. We had a lovely evening, drank loads of wine and went back to Ian J’s house, where Rhodri and I stayed over, as I couldn’t move off his sofa.

  Ben and Bree left about twelve – it was their first night out together since baby Nancy was born seven months ago. Bree called me a few weeks ago and said she just wanted the five of us to all go out, like we used to before we had commitments and babies. ‘I just want it to be like it was,’ she said, but the truth is that none of us will ever be those people again: we’ve all grown up and no one noticed. We are parents and homeowners and we’ve all got jobs with responsibilities – and I’ve got cancer and I will never be the same again.

  July 3, Monday

  My boss, Martyn, who I thought would find the whole business of discussing intimate parts of my body in a rational manner excruciating, has been wonderful. He has two sisters-in-law who have had breast cancer; one of them has died of it – not a good story – and one of them hasn’t and is living to tell the tale – a good story – so he is well versed in diagnosis, prognosis, treatments and outcomes.

  Clare, our boss, was great too. She asked me into her office and was really supportive and helpful, and I was all positive and felt somehow quite grown-up. She has said I must take whatever time off I need and not think about work. Of course, I didn’t actually say that my work had become small and trivial at this moment, but I think she knew, and I was grateful for her understanding.

  Emily and Paul in the office have also been very kind. It’s quite unusual to see people so shocked about yourself; not in a ‘You are having a baby!’ kind of way but in a ‘that’s bloody awful!’ way, and talking to you quietly as you talk to someone whose parent has died or something. Paul’s girlfriend has had breast cancer twice – twice, bloody hell – so he was particularly knowledgeable about it.

  July 5, Wednesday

  I’m counting the days until our holiday. Luckily, it’s not too hectic at work and I am attempting to put things in their rightful place. Some poor bugger has to come and find some order in this mess when I am away, and I will be away for about six months. It’s slightly perverse, but having six months off work doesn’t seem too bad a prospect.

  Yes, I know I have cancer, but if having six months off is what I need to get through it, then so be it. I am spending a large amount of time Googling breast-cancer sites, gathering as much info as I can. I am fast becoming an expert. Give me another year and I can probably start practising alongside the lovely Mr Monypenny.

  The phone doesn’t stop ringing at night, it’s constant. I am getting a bit tired of telling my story now and I want a rest. I would quite like to go back to the quiet, non-cancerous me who had a few phone calls and went out and had friends round and didn’t have to think about whether I was going to live or die, or keep my breasts or cut them off. Didn’t have to wonder whether my husband would get a new wife within six months of me dying, or whether Osian will remember me when he grows up if I die now, or whether Elis will re
member all the lovely moments we’ve had together or the shouty, irritable mummy moments and how sad everyone would be when I died, blighting his beautiful, young life.

  July 12, Wednesday

  Today is Elis’s end-of-year play. Firstly, I do like Elis’s school. It’s a small Welsh-language school slap-bang in the middle of a city, Cardiff, but it feels as if it’s in rural Wales.

  For a lot of people growing up in Wales – myself included – we came here for a better life, but we still want to bring our valleys’ ways or, in the case of the school, our very old-fashioned, high moral values, usually associated with rural Wales, with us, and there is NOTHING wrong with that.

  The play involves every child in the school, and that’s about 180 children, and is nothing short of a piece of nationalist propaganda, which I think is bloody great, because if we’re not teaching them at six that the English drowned Tryweryn or that people threatened to go on hunger strike if we didn’t get our own Welsh language TV channel and that, I quote, ‘The story of the English is not the Welshman’s story’ then you are fucked, because the only way the bloody language is going to survive is if these children believe that they are special, and that people before them have been denied the right to speak the language so they need to keep that right and that language alive.

  That’s why I fell in love with a first-language Welsh speaker who is passionate about his country and his language and who once spent a night in jail through protesting and that’s why I want my children to speak Welsh. I feel I was robbed of my language and am glad that my children will never grow up feeling that they were denied a language that is rightfully theirs. I just wish the play was a bit shorter than two hours.