Losing My Shadow

William Steele

I gave my name in at the reception desk of the clinic and was asked to take a seat in the waiting area along the corner. There were lots of women there that afternoon and, like any waiting room, there was little chat and much reading of months old magazines to try and contain worry.

Sitting there, amongst the others, I found myself thinking back to what had brought me here. A few weeks earlier, in a moment of passion, my partner had found a lump on my chest. It was to the inside of the right nipple. I was immediately worried. It was the weekend before the May Day holiday and I couldn't see my doctor until the Tuesday. I telephoned from work for an emergency appointment on the Tuesday morning and went to see him later that day.

He felt around my chest and confirmed the lump and said that he would refer me to a clinic at the local hospital. I was not at ease with the situation and felt some dread ahead. I talked to a colleague at work about it as she had just returned to work after treatment for breast cancer. Her hands automatically closed in on the lump on my chest and she felt it as well. She did put me at ease a bit when she told me about her treatment. That ease with the situation didn't last long and I spent sleepless nights before I received an appointment at the hospital.

I went myself that day and I sat with the others trying to appear calm in an atmosphere of worry. They called my name and I went into a small consulting room. The doctor asked me to strip to the waist and examined my chest, both sides, arms up and arms down, and she too felt the lump. She explained that the next step was to take a fine needle aspiration of the lump, a small sample of cells for analysis. I remember feeling quite sore after the needle had done its job. I dressed myself and went back to the reception desk and was given a return appointment for today to get the results of the test.

In the interim, my worry had grown to a real concern and my hand constantly found its way to my chest to make sure the lump was still there, in hope that it had disappeared or burst or something - anything, to make it not there. Of course, it never did disappear in the interim; it was still there as I sat waiting for my name to be called.

I came from this fog of remembrance as I heard my name being called. I was shown into a bigger consulting room and there was already a little group of people there, not just the doctor I had seen two days before. The door was closed behind me and I sat there with the others, waiting. From an adjoining room a man came and sat down behind the desk, introducing himself as Chris Simpson, consultant breast surgeon. He looked at some notes, looked at me and said, without hesitation, 'I'm sorry to tell you, Mr Steele, that you have breast cancer, I will be carrying out a core biopsy today to reconfirm it and you will be booked in for surgery as soon as we can arrange it and then the oncologist will explain what other treatment that you will be needing.'

I asked for Karen to be brought into the room to be with me. I stripped to the waist again and lay on an examination table as Mr Simpson gave me a local anaesthetic. He said not to look if I didn't like blood. Karen, silently weeping, took my hand. The knife approached my chest, Karen looked away, I looked down and watched the blood as it eased from the wound and ran down my chest. I felt nothing; no worry, no pain just nothing really.