5, Home from Hospital

Who are the best people in a hospital?
The ultra sound people!

A neutron goes into a bar and orders a drink.
Neutron: How much?
Bar person: For you, no charge.

The jokes are clinking across the dinner table toasting us being reunited as a family. “You can tell you’ve been to university. The jokes are getting more intellectual!” we tell our newly-returned oldest son.

Relaxed and happy, all together again, this meal contrasts with the one on 6th May when we told the boys the situation in between one important A Level exam and another, just in case the information were to damage the supreme concentration and control needed for foreign language speaking tests.

Then, mouth dry and hardly enjoying the lovely meal my husband had made, I waited until we had all finished.

Me: I have been to hospital the last two Thursdays, once for a biopsy then to get the results, which is why I have been very tired when I’ve come home. They have confirmed that I have pre-cancerous cells in my left breast and I will need to have an operation to remove them. It’s nothing to worry about.

Their compassion was immediate and thankfully one of them was direct enough to ask: So have you got breast cancer then?

Me: That’s the good thing about this. It’s about taking away the cells before they have time to develop into proper cancer. It’s lucky that they were found early. I’m glad you asked that though...

I’ll be tired after the operation and not able to do the usual things and I’ll be off work. I’m not ill, in fact I’m very well...I’m running the Women’s 10k on Sunday so there’s nothing to worry about.

We chose to wait to tell you until after you’d done your Speaking Test, just in case it unsettled you. The operation will be on 14th June just before your exams finish but hopefully it won’t have any impact on them.

Afterwards, during Friday evening, the boys were lovely, kind and affectionate. They stayed close; there was nothing we needed to say, but they were sweet and companionable. Son 1 and I watched the film ‘Charlotte Gray’ based on Sebastian Faulks’ novel. It was a good message of bravery, determination and triumph over extreme adversity as was watching Bear Grylls in Mexico’s Copper Canyon, which I watched with Son 2.

Now it’s December. They’re playing football together, not in the dark and rain on the water-logged lawn, but on the X-Box, a few doors across the landing. I can hear them as I write, their cheers, jibes and laughter. Soon there’ll be guitars on full volume as they thrash a song out together. It’s very noisy.

What‘s best about being home from hospital?

Being part of a family’s noise and loving every sound.