Juliette
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, England
FRIDAY
I am just about getting used to the idea of turning forty when I’m told I am going to die pretty soon. Let’s face it, you can’t get much more ironic than that.
‘So much for “life begins”,’ I mutter to my doctor Michael who looks at me with remorse as I give him a nervous smile and a ‘shit happens’ style shrug. My face is telling a lie. My tongue is telling a lie. I am trying to pretend I am okay but of course I am not okay. Inside I am crying. I am forty and I am dying and I am not okay at all.
I stare at the floor until the pattern on the carpet makes my head spin and the ticking of the clock seems to get louder and louder as we both try to think of what to say next. The big loud hands of time, chasing each other in circles, taunting me as my life ticks away, hours, minutes, seconds … stop.
Michael looks up at me like he might cry too, lost for words for once.
We’ve come quite a long way over the past three years since we were first paired up on this cancer journey and here we are now, reaching the end we had hoped we’d never have to face. The part where he tells me, as my consultant, that there’s nothing more we can do except wait for the inevitable, for my share of the journey to end. The part where he tells me, as my friend, that all our battles through treatment, our suffering, our praying and positivity, all of it is now just a waiting game.
If only it was as simple as waiting – but I can’t just sit around and wait. I have so much I still want to do in life and now, already, it’s all about to end.
I go to the window and look out onto the city rooftops. I open the window and inhale the air, fearing that if I don’t focus on something as simple as breathing I might faint, and we don’t need to add to the drama, do we?
‘Have you spoken to your family about this yet, Juliette?’ Michael asks me. He is fidgeting with his pen as he speaks. ‘I mean, I realise you didn’t know for definite what the outcome was before today, but have you prepared them at all, for the worst?’
I know without having to look at him that he has taken his glasses off to wipe them for the third time since I got here, just to give his hands something to do. He is such a fidget when he has to give bad news but this isn’t just bad news. This is the very last piece of news he will ever have to deliver to me. This is the beginning of the end for me.
‘My sister knows I’m here today, as does my mum, but they’re still holding out hope. It will be a shock to them no matter what’s going through their heads, no matter what they’ve been expecting, this will be the very worst, obviously,’ I tell him.
‘And Rosie?’
Oh God.
‘Rosie thinks … Rosie thinks I’m having a pamper day for my birthday at a spa with some friends today. She has no idea what’s going on … not yet.’
My voice cracks when I say my young daughter’s name aloud. How am I going to tell her? How? She doesn’t have anyone else to lean on. She’s only ever had me.
‘And Dan?’
Michael is really making sure this news is sinking in, I’ll give him that much, as he lists the most important people in my life. My mouth dries up at the mention of Dan. I try to reply but I can’t.
‘You’re going to have to tell him, for goodness sake, Juliette,’ says Michael. ‘The man must be going off his head with worry. He is still part of your family too, no matter what you’ve gone through.’
I turn to face him and lean on the windowsill with my arms folded.
‘It’s a bit more complicated than that, as you know, Michael,’ I say to him, unable to look him in the eye but I can tell he is raising an eyebrow. ‘Oh you know it is, don’t look at me like that!’
I am watching him now and just as I’d predicted, he is giving me a ‘tough shit’ glare.
‘Dan and I have both accepted that he can’t cope with me and my sickness,’ I remind him. ‘And I don’t know that I can cope with him right now either. He has his own problems that he has to deal with, but I will tell him soon – just not yet. For his own good, not mine.’
Michael puts his head in his hands. He is almost as devastated as I am with this mess – and what a mess it really is when you realise you are going to leave behind everything you love. It’s like you need to pack up to go somewhere, but you’re going nowhere really; how the hell do you plan for that?
‘You can’t just block him out of this, Juliette,’ Michael says. ‘The man must be climbing the walls with worry. Do you even know where he is right now?’
I shrug.
‘His mother’s house, probably? Or with his sister?’
The truth is, I don’t know at all. I don’t have any idea where my husband is and right now it’s better that way for me, for him, and for Rosie.
‘And you really think that it’s okay that you don’t know?’
I nod. I shrug again. I don’t know what to say.
‘Today might change all that, obviously,’ I tell him. ‘And maybe it won’t. I will have to think about it carefully as I’m sure you understand – I mean, you probably know me almost as well as he does by now.’
Dr Michael and I long ago ditched the doctor-patient formalities and admitted that we had actually become really good friends. We talk about everything from American rock music to favourite one-pot recipes (he’s newly single) to our shared Irish roots, and I even gave him relationship advice once – though I’m the last person who should be doing so. The very, very last person. We’ve argued a lot too when the going got tough.
‘You are the most annoying and stubborn person I have ever met,’ he tells me, managing a light smile. ‘And I mean that in the nicest possible way.’
‘Yes, yes, you’ve told me that many times before,’ I say, rolling my eyes. ‘Look, I just need some time to get my head around this all and then I’ll talk to Dan. I know I don’t have the luxury of time but I need to just … I need to think about things. No matter how much I’ve dreaded this moment, and I knew that it might come soon, it’s still a massive shock to hear my days are numbered. And the sickening thing is that I don’t feel sick right now. I feel fine! How cruel and weird is that?’
We pause in silence.
‘The sickness will come quite soon, unfortunately,’ says Michael. ‘So enjoy this time while it lasts. You will have the option of palliative care of course, when you feel you need it. And you will have to think about home versus hospice care just like we talked about before, plus your steroid management and what sort of pain control you want.’
The clock is ticking again, so loudly.
I don’t have much time to do an awful lot and we both know it.
‘What will I do now? I mean, next, Michael?’ I ask him. ‘What am I actually supposed to do right now? I’m so scared even though I’m trying to be brave. Please tell me what to do. Where do I go from here? How do I start preparing for my life to end?’
So many questions hang there in the air, like they are stuck in a cartoon speech bubble above my head. A series of questions that no one has the answers to.
Or so I thought.
‘Are you asking me what you should