Days go past… and Lizzie still hasn’t received the results of her CAT scan.
One evening she comes up to me, looking pale.
She’s had a missed call. Her oncologist rang, minutes before – while Lizzie and her phone were in separate rooms.
The oncologist didn’t leave a message, as often seems to be the case with doctors. And it’s out of hours… so there’s no way of calling back, no secretary still available to contact.
Lizzie looks disappointed. ‘I’m sure he’ll ring again tomorrow,’ I say, uselessly.
The oncologist doesn’t call the next day. But, thankfully, he does call the day after that.
It’s a very short conversation, during which Lizzie nods and replies to whatever’s being said, monosyllabically. There’s one particular moment in which she looks unsure and confused – but about what I’ve no idea.
Eventually, Lizzie puts down her phone on the table. She’s smiling… but it’s only a half-smile, really. What does it mean?
‘What did he say?’ I ask.
‘He said,’ replies Lizzie, still smiling her half-smile, ‘that they couldn’t see anything bad in the scan.’
‘That’s great!’ I whoop.
‘Yes,’ says Lizzie, in a hold-your-horses way. ‘But these scans can’t see any cancer smaller than a centimetre in diameter anyway. So they’re not exactly foolproof.’
‘OK,’ I reply, less whoopishly.
‘But the good news,’ continues Lizzie, ‘is that the doctor said my markers are down. To eleven. Which is well below what someone without cancer would have. So that is great!’
‘That’s really brilliant,’ I say and swoop in to give Lizzie a hug.
She’s still smiling her half-smile, however. And wearing her hold-your-horses expression.
‘The doctor also said that my liver has had some “postoperative changes”,’ she says, with a frown.
‘“Postoperative changes”? What’s that meant to mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ sighs Lizzie. ‘He didn’t explain. He’s always in such a hurry. He said he’ll tell me when I next go in.’
OK, so I’ve known for a long time that this story wasn’t going to end straightforwardly any time soon. There’s going to be no immediate, unambiguous ‘happy ending.’ There are going to be scans and tests for the rest of Lizzie’s life.
But still, I was hoping there might be a very nearly unambiguous, straightforward sort-of happy ending at this point. A respite. But instead… “Postoperative changes”? Of Lizzie’s liver? Huh? Could this be another emotional spanner in the works?
Like the characters in any good story, it looks like we’re going to face a few more unexpected twists and turns before this journey ends. Except… we don’t want to be the characters in a good story. We’re real people… and what we want is a nice, undramatic, boring happy ending.
Soon please!
P. D. Clifton 
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