It’s early Saturday morning – forty-five minutes before I have to take Annie to football – and I’m in the kitchen with Lizzie.
Lizzie is rummaging through her tray of repurposed drugs… the ones she’s taking, like Metformin (originally intended to help with diabetes, but now thought by many to have cancer-fighting properties), to decrease her chances of having a recurrence.
Lizzie’s tray of drugs is a sight to behold. It reminds me a little of a plastic, multi-coloured Guess Who? board. It’s covered in clackety-lids, which flick up and down just like the faces do in that family favourite board game. These plastic flaps, however, don’t have cartoon people on them; they have pictures of the sun and moon… and plates of food which represent lunch and supper. The illustrations, of course, are a reminder of when Lizzie should be taking her medication.
The tray of drugs reminds me so much of a Guess Who? board, part of me wants to pick it up and flip it backwards and forwards, to see the flaps flick this way and that.
That would be a terrible idea, of course, because all of Lizzie’s drugs would fly out – and she’d probably be in her rights to file criminal charges, of some kind, against me. So I resist my mad thought.
I suddenly remember how one of the football dads, a while back, said I look just like the bald, bearded guy in Guess Who? He got a big laugh with the other parents and I chuckled gamely along. But inside I was seething. Make me the butt of your ‘Guess Who?’ joke will you? One day I shall have my revenge upon you! Obviously, I never did.
As Lizzie continues flicking through the lids of her drugs tray, she opens her mouth into a massive yawn.
‘How did you sleep last night?’ I ask.
‘Really badly,’ says Lizzie. ‘I’ve still got this bad stomach ache.’
Lizzie’s been kept awake by a bad tummy for a number of days, in the last couple of weeks.
The news begins to make my own stomach churn. What Lizzie’s just said is horribly familiar sounding. After all, she slept badly for nearly a year because of a pain in her abdomen… a pain in her abdomen which turned out to be misdiagnosed Grade 3C ovarian cancer.
And now she’s being kept awake by a stomach ache. Fuck.
‘When’s your next blood test?’ I ask, as Lizzie lugs back some of her drugs with a glass of water.
‘Two weeks’ time,’ replies Lizzie.
I nod. Good.
You better keep taking those drugs… for however long you need to, I think but don’t say to Lizzie.
P. D. Clifton 
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