‘Piers?’
‘Piers?’
I hear Lizzie’s faint voice and stumble back into consciousness.
‘What time is it?’
‘Two thirty,’ whispers Lizzie.
It’s indeed two thirty in the morning (I see on my iPhone) and Lizzie’s woken me up because she’s feeling sick. Very sick.
She also has a bad pain in the middle of her abdomen.
Lizzie keeps on pursing her lips and breathing heavily. ‘I’m going to be sick!’ she suddenly blurts and lurches to the toilet. I stumble after her.
Lizzie is now repeatedly sick into the toilet – retching up a colourless, strangely odourless liquid – with a tinge of yellow bile.
I briefly think about the times I used to hold Lizzie’s hair back, when she was sick from drinking too much. A lifetime ago. She hasn’t got enough hair to hold back, anymore.
Finally, Lizzie stops retching. After a few minutes to steady herself, it seems she’s well enough to return to bed and sleep. Whatever the problem is, it appears we’ll deal with it tomorrow morning.
But at six o’clock, she wakes me up again. The pain in her abdomen is worse. In fact, it’s excruciating. All the colour has completely drained out of her – like it did in the midst of her chemotherapy.
It becomes clear that Lizzie needs to go to A&E. It’s agreed her sister C. will take her (Jake has G.C.S.E. English Language this morning and Lizzie wants me to focus on getting him ready for that and to school on time).
Half an hour later, Lizzie is in the passenger seat of C.’s car – hurtling off to the hospital. And I’m left at home with the kids.
It feels like we’ve turned back time to July 2021. When Jake and Annie wake up, they process the information of what’s happened in their own ways. Jake withdraws into himself and starts gaming (instead of revising. Although, to be honest, he’d probably be gaming rather than revising anyway). Annie, meanwhile, keeps on saying ‘I miss Mum’ and asking lots of questions. What happened? What’s wrong with her mother? When’s she coming back?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers. I try ringing Lizzie’s sister C. to find out what’s happening – but there’s no answer.
After I’ve successfully deposited the kids at their respective schools, I try C. again – and this time she picks up.
C. tells me Lizzie has now been fast-tracked through A&E (apparently Lizzie was sick on the A&E floor – which helped with the fast-tracking). She’s now in a ‘Surgical Assessment’ clinic, waiting to see a doctor. She was in a lot of pain – but she’s been put on a morphine drip and the pain has subsided. C’s been allowed to stay with Lizzie for the time being – but no other visitors are allowed.
After I’ve spoken to C., a thought hits me.
I realise that with Lizzie’s apparent return to rosy-cheeked good health, our whole family (me, Jake, Annie, Lizzie’s sisters and brother and Mum and Lizzie herself) have all happily, comfortably stuck our heads straight back into the sand. We’ve resolutely avoided thinking about what might happen, if the worst case scenario occurs: Lizzie’s cancer returns. In fact, much of the time Lizzie and I have proactively put this thought out of our minds. We’ve wanted to focus on the positive, not the negative.
But, as I wait for further updates as to what’s happening to Lizzie in the hospital, I can’t help but think of the negative… the worst case scenario.
And I keep on asking myself… if Lizzie’s cancer does return, will she be able to go through everything again? The surgery? The chemo? How on earth will she manage it?
How will the kids manage it? How will I manage it? Of course, somehow, we’ll have to. But still… the thought is overwhelming.
Twelve hours later, Lizzie’s still in the hospital (the Queen Elizabeth in Birmingham) and we’re still in the dark as to what’s wrong with her.
Her sister C. stayed with her for the rest of the morning and early afternoon… and Lizzie’s sister H. has taken over visiting duties, from late afternoon.
It’s nearly nine o’clock and no doctor has been to visit Lizzie yet. Her morphine drip, at least, is continuing to deaden the pain in her abdomen.
I’m feeling the same fear of the unknown as I did when Lizzie went into surgery, the summer before, to have her original ‘debulking’ operation. What’s happening? At least her sister H. is with her. I’m feeling torn – I should be with Lizzie. But someone also needs to be at home with the kids – and the hospital still won’t allow any more than one visitor at a time, at the moment.
I continue worrying. Could Lizzie’s cancer have returned already? But surely it wouldn’t come back so painfully and abruptly, with all guns blazing loudly? If it came back, I always imagined it would do its damnedest not to draw attention to itself for as long as possible. That does seem to be cancer’s general modus operandi.
Finally, after H. has departed from the hospital too, I speak to Lizzie on the phone. She’s breathless and is having trouble speaking, but she tells me that she had a visit from Mrs. S earlier. Mrs. S. is the consultant who originally did Lizzie’s cancer debulking surgery. Apparently, Lizzie texted Mrs. S. (after several fruitless hours of waiting for the ward doctor to turn up) and Mrs. S. appeared soon after, like a fairy godmother.
As soon as Mrs. S. examined Lizzie, she sprang into action (according to Lizzie) – asking the medical team there to give Lizzie a drug called ‘gastrographin’ (a kind of a dye, used to show up a person’s insides during an X-ray) then arranging for Lizzie to have an X-ray followed by a CAT scan later this evening.
So… Lizzie’s going to have another CAT scan – three months before she was due one (they limit CAT scans to one every six months, because of the radiation involved).
Is this good news? It’s good the doctors and nurses are doing something about Lizzie’s pain. But a CAT scan? It really feels like we’ve stepped back in time ten months – when Lizzie being in hospital and having CAT scans was no longer unimaginable… it was the ‘new normal.’
It’s now Saturday morning… twenty-four hours since Lizzie went to A&E and was consequently admitted to the ‘Surgical Assessment’ clinic. The clue’s in the name there – the clinic is assessing whether Lizzie needs surgery again.
According to the hospital website you need to pre-book a visiting slot at the clinic, but I haven’t been able to get through on the phone to the ward Lizzie is in… so I hop in the car (with flowers and Lizzie’s laptop) and drive up to the Queen Elizabeth anyway.
When I get to the ‘Surgical Assessment’ clinic, I’m told kindly but firmly by a succession of nurses and doctors that there’s no way in hell they’re going to let me in to see Lizzie. Visitors aren’t allowed in the ‘Surgical Assessment’ clinic. Lizzie’s sisters were only let in because it was her first day there and C., at least, arrived with Lizzie.
I try and persuade the medical staff but they’re not budging. They’ll take Lizzie’s laptop to her, but that’s it (apparently she can’t even have the flowers). I don’t want to make a big flappy scene in Birmingham’s largest hospital, so I retreat and slump down on a plastic seat in the lobby. What’s my next move going to be?
It’s then that Lizzie calls again. She’s sounding better. She tells me she’s just had the results of the CAT scan.
It’s not a recurrence of her cancer. Thank fuck. Lizzie, in fact, has something called a ‘bowel adhesion’. Apparently a big globule of scar tissue (most likely residue from the debulking operation all those months ago) has got stuck in her bowel. That’s what’s been causing all the pain.
So… it’s not cancer… but it’s really not nice. They’re going to put a tube into Lizzie, through her throat, to try and drain her bowel and get rid of the problem that way.
If that doesn’t work… it’ll mean another operation.
Please work, draining!
It’s now Sunday and it sounds like the draining is going to work. No operation required. I said it once and I’ll say it again. Thank fuck.
Lizzie’s going to have to be even more careful about her diet from now on, however, if she wants to avoid this bowel blockage ever happening again. Basically, she’s now facing a ‘low residue’ no fibre diet. She’ll also have to be extra careful with which fruit and veg she eats (sheesh… I thought it was always OK to eat fruit and veg). In Lizzie’s words (on WhatsApp), she’s going to have to stick to ‘canned fruit and melon and bananas. Basically a 1970’s diet!’
When I speak to Lizzie, that Sunday afternoon, she sounds much better… and relieved. I can tell she’s feeling more like herself again, because of the usual tell-tale sign: her sense of humour has returned.
‘I’ve been lying in bed, feeling really sorry for myself,’ Lizzie declares.
‘Kind of understandable,’ I say.
‘I’ve been feeling so sorry for myself, I’ve been wallowing in the most embarrassing music ever. I’ve been listening to – ’
She cuts herself short. ‘No… no, I can’t tell you.’
‘You have to now!’ I plead. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s too embarrassing to say…’
‘TELL ME!’
‘I’ve been listening to…’ Lizzie lowers her voice, to a mortified whisper, ‘… Elaine Paige.’
‘Dear God no!’ I gasp. ‘Elaine Paige?! How could you?’
‘I know, I know,’ sighs Lizzie. ‘I started off by listening to The Roches… But that wasn’t enough…’ She’s beginning to sound like a drug addict, hunting for an ever-bigger fix. ‘So then I switched to Bobby Goldsboro.’
‘Who?’
‘He sang that song Little Things.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘You’d recognise it,’ Lizzie says. ‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘even that song wasn’t making me feel any better, I was feeling so sorry for myself. So that’s when I put on…’
I can practically hear her gulping.
‘Elaine Paige,’ I say, aghast.
‘YES!’ concurs Lizzie, guiltily.
‘Don’t tell me it was Memory?’
‘No…’ admits Lizzie. ‘It was I Know Him So Well. And the entire soundtrack of Evita.’
‘I was DESPERATE!’ says Lizzie, imploringly.
There’s a pregnant pause between us on the phone.
‘I know times have been tough. But, also, there’s a line you should never cross,’ I say, firmly.
‘Let’s never speak of this again,’ I conclude.
‘You’re right. Oh God, you’re right,’ agrees Lizzie.
It’s Monday and Lizzie is continuing to get better. In fact, it looks like I’ll be picking her up from the hospital tomorrow.
A tremendous feeling of relief has set in, for all of us.
But, of course, another feeling has crept back in too – with me, perhaps with the kids. A feeling we’ve put out of our minds, as much as possible, since last summer.
It’s an awareness of the fragility of things. A feeling that things might be better now… but they could go wrong again, at any time.
Of course, I tell myself, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become fixated on this feeling. Any more than Lizzie does (even when she’s listening to Elaine Paige).
We just need to get on with things – as Lizzie does. And hope for the best.
P. D. Clifton 
Leave a comment