Chapter 3 #2
‘It is an option of course, but as you rightly say it can be a very gruelling treatment and given that your mother has rheumatoid arthritis it presents additional issues. Chemotherapy can cause considerable damage in people with autoimmune diseases like that. It may considerably worsen the symptoms of the rheumatoid arthritis and prevent the periods of remission your mum is currently able to enjoy.’
‘Oh God.’ Bex couldn’t even look in her mother’s direction this time.
Donna had always been a force of energy; she’d had to be, raising her children on her own and always working at least two jobs to keep the family afloat, but somehow still always managing to be there for her girls when they needed her.
Most of the time even her diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis hadn’t slowed her down as much as it probably should have done, but when she’d suffered attacks, the crippling pain it caused had been obvious.
Bex had only ever seen her mum cry a handful of times, but she’d witnessed her do so in the midst of a flare up and seen the fear in her mum’s face that this would be the time the rheumatoid arthritis wouldn’t go back into remission.
It wasn’t just the physical pain, it was the way the condition took away everything she was during the bad patches – the grandmother who wanted to keep up with her beloved boys, and the woman who had a social diary that made Bex tired just hearing about it.
The thought of her mum being in the grip of far more frequent and unrelenting attacks made Bex want to grab hold of her and run away; instead, she turned back to the consultant.
‘So getting on the waiting list for a transplant is the best option in your opinion?’
‘There may be other alternatives that don’t involve long waiting lists.’ Dr Chan was looking directly at Bex now, as if she held the answer to this riddle.
‘Like what?’
‘Depending on what the team at King’s College Hospital say, we may be able to consider a transplant from a live donor.
That involves part of the donor’s liver being removed and transplanted into the recipient, with both of the livers able to regenerate over time.
Of course it’s not without risks to the donor, so it’s not an easy undertaking. ’
‘I’ll do it.’ Once again, the words had come out of Bex’s mouth without her being able to stop them, but on this occasion, she didn’t want to.
‘No, you won’t.’ It was the first time since being told she had cancer that Donna had spoken, and she folded her arms tightly across her chest to hammer the message home.
‘Family members do often make the best candidates for live donation. Blood group and tissue matches are easier to achieve, and of course there’s usually a strong motivation to help.’ Dr Chan was looking directly at her patient now, but there’d been no softening in Donna’s body language.
‘I don’t care. There’s no way in the world that I’m allowing my daughter, who has a young family, to put herself at risk.’
‘But Mum, I want to do it and if you don’t let me—’
‘No!’ For a woman who rarely raised her voice, Donna could really pack a punch when she put her mind to it. ‘Henry, Ollie and Tom are your priority, not me. If something went wrong and I robbed those boys of their mother… No way, I’d rather die than risk that.’
Dr Chan took a breath so deep it seemed to suck the last of the oxygen out of the room in which Bex was already struggling to breathe, but she was clearly ready to lay things on the line for her patient.
‘Mrs Deyes, whilst it’s admirable that you want to protect your daughter, I think you need to consider the impact on your entire family if you don’t review all of the treatment options and select the one that gives you the best chance of making a recovery. ’
Donna opened her mouth to protest, but Bex knew she was just going to repeat what she’d already said about not wanting to put her daughter at risk.
So she got in first, the harshness of her words aimed at finally making her mum see sense.
‘Exactly. How do you think it’s going to make me feel if I know I could have saved you, but you thought it was better to let me watch you die instead? ’
‘That’s not necessarily what’s going to happen.
’ Her mother’s tone sounded reasonable, but Bex could see the fear in her eyes.
Donna was terrified, but she wouldn’t admit it, because even now her instinct was to put other people first. ‘The boys need you, Bex, and they’re going to need you long after I’m gone, whether it’s from this or something else.
I can’t let you risk that. I just can’t. ’
‘Is there anyone else in the family you’d feel more comfortable considering as a donor?
’ Dr Chan’s question was straightforward enough, but it winded Bex again.
The image of Briony bursting back into her life and charging to their mother’s rescue made her stomach lurch.
She didn’t want her involved with this, because she couldn’t be trusted, but even as she told herself that, and a wave of dread at the thought of seeing Briony again washed over her, she knew she had to put those feelings to one side.
‘Mum has another daughter.’ Bex could just have said ‘my sister’ but somehow, she still wasn’t able to make her mouth form those words. The truth was that for years she’d tried not to talk about Briony at all.
‘That could be a good alternative if—’
Donna didn’t even allow the doctor to finish her sentence. ‘I don’t want Briony being put at risk either.’
This time Dr Chan seemed determined to have her say. ‘Whilst no operation is without risk, there is a rigorous testing process and for healthy donors the chances of any serious complications are low.’
Bex wanted to use the doctor’s response to fight her own corner again and to tell her mother that she had to let her be the donor, but she’d recognised the resolute look on Donna’s face and the way her arms had crossed so tightly over her chest, so she knew nothing she did or said was going to change her mother’s mind about that.
Despite her protests, Donna’s response about the prospect of Briony being a donor hadn’t been quite so resolute.
Maybe it was because Briony wasn’t here, or because Donna suspected she’d be too flaky to go through with it, but either way, Bex had spotted a chink in her mother’s armour, a ray of hope that she might back down and allow one of her daughters to save her life.
This time Bex was going to have to be stronger than she’d ever had to be before and refuse to back down until her mother saw sense.
She was also going to have to see the one person she’d hoped never to have to come face to face with again, but she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
‘Well, in that case.’ Bex could barely believe what she was about to say. ‘We need to bring Briony home.’
King Arthur’s Table was the bizarre-sounding name of the restaurant at St Piran’s Hospital.
It conjured up images of huge, round oak tables and goblets of mead being supped by people dressed like extras from Game of Thrones.
The reality was very different. There were rows of tables covered in Formica, with a mix of staff, relatives and even a few patients seated around them.
Some of the restaurant’s patrons looked exhausted and dead-eyed, and others were in the grip of obvious devastation, with tear-stained faces, or their heads in their hands.
There were bursts of laughter too and lots of chatter, as well as utter joy on the face of a woman protectively cuddling her baby bump.
It was just an ordinary Thursday afternoon, but all human life seemed to be captured in that room.
Although in that moment, as Bex sat across the table from her parents, it felt as if they were in a world that comprised just the three of them.
‘Before you start, Bex, you can save your breath. I am not allowing you or your sister to donate part of your liver to me. End of story.’ Donna clearly wasn’t in the mood for debate and, for once, Bex barely even registered her mother’s use of the phrase your sister to describe Briony.
Bex hadn’t referred to her in that way for years, and she definitely didn’t think of her as a sister any more.
It was as if the person who’d been her sister had died the night she’d caught Briony and Liam kissing.
She couldn’t even picture her as the girl Bex had helped care for when her mother had been working, and who she’d sat up talking late into the night with about every kind of problem under the sun.
That girl was gone – forever as far as Bex was concerned.
Except now they needed her back and, if it had been for anything else other than to save their mother, Bex wasn’t sure she’d have been able to bear the thought.
‘You’re being ridiculous, Mum. You heard Dr Chan; she said the liver can regenerate itself. She’s the consultant so I think she knows best, and if the surgeon at King’s College Hospital thinks so too, why are we sitting here arguing about it?’
‘Oh, so you’d be fine with one of the boys being sliced open and half their liver being cut out, would you?’ Donna narrowed her eyes. She almost had Bex there, playing the motherhood card she knew wielded so much power, but Bex wasn’t giving up that easily.
‘I’d be okay with it if I knew it was going to save the life of one of their brothers.’
‘Of course you would, because they’re children, and they should have decades ahead of them. It would be worth the risk for them, but not for me. I’ve had my life and it’s been great. I’m not letting anyone do this for me, especially not when there are other options.’
‘Dr Chan said surgery in a case like this means the risk of the cancer returning is so much less than if you have chemo. And I know you’ve had friends who’ve been through chemo, you’ve seen how brutal it is.
’ Bex was doing her best to reason with her mother, but she was getting nowhere, so she turned towards her stepfather instead.
‘What about you, Ken? You must have an opinion on all of this.’
‘He might well have an opinion.’ Donna cut in before her husband even had the chance to open his mouth. ‘But this is my body and my choice, so you have to accept that the only opinion that really counts is mine.’
‘We just don’t want to lose you, that’s all.
’ Despite almost five decades in the building trade, Ken had such a gentle way about him.
‘I can’t bear the thought of life without you, and I know Bex, Matt and the boys couldn’t either.
Or Briony. We all need you and if there’s something we can do to hold on to you for as long as possible, of course we want that. ’
Bex tried not to let another mention of Briony bother her.
It didn’t matter in the big scheme of things and if having to see her again meant her mother would agree to the op, she’d do whatever it took.
Maybe that was what she needed to do; to pin all of this on the one thing she knew her mum wanted more than anything else – for Bex and Briony to have some kind of reconciliation.
Before Donna could even respond to what Ken had said, Bex played her trump card.
‘If Briony comes back for the op, getting rid of the cancer might not be the only amazing thing to happen.’ The muscles in Bex’s jaw were tight from forcing herself to say those words out loud and somehow keep the sneer off her face at the same time.
‘Maybe me and Briony could finally patch things up.’
‘Rebecca.’ Her mother’s tone was steely, and the use of Bex’s full name sent a shiver down her spine because it so rarely happened.
‘Don’t you dare use the situation with Briony to try to manipulate me.
I’ve said I’m not even going to consider a live donor transplant using part of one of my children’s livers and I’m not going to change my mind.
If surgery is the best option, then I’ll have to wait to be matched with a deceased donor. ’
‘But the cancer could grow too big by then, or you could get more tumours. Dr Chan said they’ll only operate if you don’t develop any more, and the tumours all stay under three centimetres.
We can’t afford to wait.’ Bex was aware she was starting to sound like a whiny child, but she didn’t care.
‘Why don’t you let Ken reach out to Briony and see if she’d even be willing to do it?
If she isn’t, that’ll be the end of things, but if she is, you could at least meet with the surgical team and get a much better overview of the risks and benefits of surgery. ’
‘I said no.’ Her mother’s eyes flashed with anger this time, the veins in her neck looking more prominent.
The earlier chink in her armour appearing to have been welded shut.
‘And if either one of you contacts Briony about this and puts the idea into her head that it’s her responsibility to donate a part of her liver to me, I will never, ever forgive you. ’
And yet you were able to forgive her for everything she did to me.
This time, by some kind of miracle, Bex was able to stop herself from saying the words that were screaming inside her head.
Briony had to be protected at all costs, it was the way it had always been.
But if doing that resulted in Bex losing her mother, she’d have even more reason to hate her so-called sister than she already did.