You Must Remember This
You Must Remember This
“Would you like some lunch?”
Eve opens her eyes from dozing to see her husband, sitting on the end of a hospital bed that she appears to bein.
“Are you awake now?” he says. “Are you hungry?”
Searching for clues, Eve looks around her surroundings. Her gaze falls on a white board, on which someone has helpfully written:
Today is Tuesday.
Nurse for the day: Suzi.
Aims for the day: Have a happy day:)
And remember: CALL, DON’T FALL.
Hospital. She’s in hospital.
She had surgery. Yes. That’s right.
Her eye falls on a collection of homemade Get Well cards on her tray table and she picks one up. It is from Izzy, her ten-year-old, her baby, and is painted with her unmistakable artistic flair. Get well soon Mummy is printed carefully inside, followed by, I miss you, love from Izzyxxx
Eve’s heart contracts painfully. When did she last see her children? It feels like it was an age ago. Weeks. Years.
Where are they now, anyway?
Thoughts and questions are piling into her head, as if her head is a computer and it’s loading up again after a long sleep.
Call, don’t fall. That’s because she keeps falling over. That’s how she got the bruise on her arm.
She looks at her hand. There is a cannula going into a vein, taped in place on her skin. For the steroids, she thinks automatically, then blinks. Steroids?
“Where are the children?” she asks aloud, her voice croaky.
“They’re being looked after by your mother.”
“How long have I been in hospital?”
“A good while now.”
Her head feels heavy, she realizes. Heavy and kind of awkward. And her face feels tight, as though the skin has been stretched taut.
Her eyes stray to the single mattress squeezed into the room, the familiar blue T-shirt folded up on the pillow. “Have you been sleeping here?” she asks.
“I’ve been here the whole time,” says Nick.
“The whole time?” she says in disbelief.
“I wasn’t going to leave you, you silly girl.” He reaches out and squeezes her hand. “And the children are fine. Having a whale of a time with your mother, by all accounts.”
“Right.”
She rubs her head and feels nothing but soft bandage. “What do I look like?”
“Have a look,” says Nick, gesturing at the bathroom. “D’you want a hand?”
She leans gratefully on his arm as she toddles into the bathroom and faces the mirror.
Oh my God.
She has a turban of white bandage. Her face is sallow and puffy. She wouldn’t recognize herself at all, if it weren’t for the familiar eyes peering doubtfully back at her.
Another flood of memory pours into her mind. “I had an operation on my brain,” she says slowly, “and then we had a meeting with the doctor, and we looked at my scan on the computer together. It’s coming back to me now.”
“You remember all that?” Nick sounds pleased. “Maybe you’re getting your memory back. Yes, we met with your surgeon and we talked about your operation. It was a great success. Remember that?”
“I was in a wheelchair,” she says in sudden astonishment.
“Yes, you needed a wheelchair. Do you remember the children visiting?” he adds, as Eve turns and heads back to the bed.
“No,” she says. “Wait, yes. Isobel gave me this, didn’t she?” She reaches for the little furry rabbit on her tray table, which had been puzzling her.
“She bought it herself,” says Nick. “She said, ‘Mummy can’t be in hospital without a teddy.’ So we went teddy shopping.”
Eve gives the little white rabbit a tender hug, then places it prominently on her duvet.
“Eve…” Nick pauses, his face serious. “What else do you remember of the meeting with the doctor?”
“I remember they took out a growth.” A big hard lump of certain knowledge lands in her brain, like an iron bar falling to the floor. “And they said it might be cancer.”
“Yes.”
There is a long, long pause, then Nick says, “Eve, my darling, I have some news. They’ve analyzed the growth and it is cancer.”
“Right,” she says, and feels hot tears spring to her eyes before she can stop them. She takes a big breath and exhales sharply, gathering all her strength. Cancer. OK. That’s a big piece of news. But she’s not going to feel sorry for herself, she decides fiercely. She’s just not.
“OK. I’ve got cancer. Well, it is what it is. Will I have chemotherapy? Or radiation therapy? Or anything like that?”
“You’ll have both.”
She feels flattened for a moment. As though a car has driven into her. Cancer. She’s a cancer patient.
But then, within seconds, her natural optimism surfaces.
“Oh well,” she says as firmly as she can. “Never mind. People have cancer. It’s not the end of the world. They have cures for cancer these days.”
“Yes, for a lot of cancers they do have cures.”
There’s an odd expression on Nick’s face, and she feels a fearful tremor rumble deep inside her. There’s a big, crucial question she wants to ask—but at the same time, she doesn’t want to ask. She wants to know, but she doesn’t want to know.
She chooses a different question instead.
“What kind of cancer have I got? Does it have a name?”
“You had a grade four glioblastoma. They got it all out, so now we have to hope it doesn’t come back. That’s what the chemotherapy and radiotherapy will be for. You’ll be having them as soon as we get to the other side of Christmas.”
“Grade four glioblastoma,” echoes Eve carefully. The words feel vaguely familiar. “Have you told me this before?”
“A few times,” says Nick, “but you sound more alert now. Maybe you’ll remember this conversation.”
“Knock, knock! Occupational therapist here!”
A woman in a brown uniform comes bustling in and beams at Eve. “I’m Maureen. We’ve met before, but I know you have issues with your short-term memory.”
“I’ll leave you,” says Nick. “We’ll come back to this conversation. I’ll go and get a coffee and make a few calls. Will you be OK?”
“We’ll be fine,” says Maureen. “You go and do your thing.”
For the next half hour, Eve obeys the instructions of Maureen, which takes her full concentration. She walks, she turns, she attempts unsuccessfully to stand on one leg, she visits the bathroom, she walks down the corridor clutching Maureen’s arm and makes herself a cup of tea.
“Very good!” exclaims Maureen at the end of the session. “You’ve improved massively. You’ll be able to leave hospital soon.”
She scribbles some notes on her clipboard, then leaves—and Eve is alone.
She has cancer. It’s surreal.
“I have cancer,” she says out loud to see how it sounds. It sounds unbelievable.
She opens her iPad and goes to the browser. Carefully she types into the search box—
Grade 4 glioblastoma.
Within seconds, the results have appeared. She clicks and reads, then clicks on another page and reads, then clicks, reads, reads, reads, trying and failing to find a different answer, not believing what she’s reading.
Rare, incurable cancer…
…most aggressive form of brain tumor…
…virulent and deadly…
…unfortunately no cure…
…very poor prognosis…
…terminal…
…despite initial treatment with surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, glioblastoma virtually always recurs…
…Only 25 percent of patients survive more than one year…
…Average survival time is 12–18 months…
…Median adult survival time after diagnosis: 14 months.
As she finally looks up, she feels weak. She feels like she is falling down a deep, bottomless well. She can’t die after fourteen months. She has five children. Isobel’s only ten; she needs looking after. They all need looking after.
Tears are running silently down her face as she stares at the iPad screen. Did she know this information already? Did she forget? How could she forget this?
Fear is clenching her spine, but she has to be brave. She has to be optimistic.
But, fourteen months. And that’s the average. Is she average? Is she above average? Is she below average?
Almost gibbering in panic, she grabs her phone and sends Nick a text.
I googled glioblastoma. Xx
And almost at once, as though he was waiting, his reply comes into her phone.
Oh, my beautiful Eve. I’m coming. Xxxxxxx