Days 1 -3

This is totally surreal.

Wednesday started out as a routine trip for my partner to the hospital to have a breast lump checked out. Simple mammogram, but is anything simple when you family history is infested with cancer?

She didn't want me there. I wanted to be with her but respected her wishes. Text to say the Dr wants a mammogram and an ultrasound, but still, I was to stay in work. Then a text, interspersed with a few phonecalls, and the Dr is concerned. She wants to do a needle biopsy. I should be with her. No, just stay where you are she says. I can't.

Out of work, run to the taxi depot, taxi to the hospital. The sun might be splitting the sky but no matter how many times the taxi driver says it's a beautiful day, I just can't see it.

At the hospital, phone in hand, where is she? I haven't let her know that I'm coming up, I didn't want to give her the chance to say no. She can tell me to leave if she wants. She doesn't.

In the waiting room she is surprised, but pleased to see me. I take my seat beside her and she fills me in on how her day has been so far. She's trying to be light-hearted but I can see the fear in her eyes. Is cancer something you can just 'know' you have?

The nurse starts calling people to hand out results. One by one names are called into the room behind us, most of them not even getting the time to get their arse in the seat before they are out again. All clear. My partner asks me if she thinks they are just getting the good news out of the way first as they'll need to spend more time with the 'bad'. I say I don't think so, but I do.

From 10 people there are now only three, and we are two of them. Her name is called and we stand up. The nurse walks towards a different room, we aren't going into the one behind us, the room of good news is not our destination. As we walk down the narrow corridor the nurse puts her arm around my partner. I wonder if they know how obvious this is and how they are giving the results without saying a word. We look at each other and we both know.

Into the room and the Dr is sitting there, door is closed. Bad news, we've found a cancerous lump in your breast. No, the lump you were concerned with was nothing to be worried about. This little bastard was hiding behind that one and would probably never have been noticed until it was too late had this other lump not popped up. My words, not the docs. It's 1.2cm, at least that's what they think. The Dr. is away after only a few minutes and we get up to leave too, shock taking over and a haze descending. The cancer nurse sits us back down. There's details to be talked through. My partner says she's glad I'm there as I can take it in so she can just ask me if she doesn't hear something. I don't know how much I took in.

The operation to remove it will be in two-three weeks, once they can get a bed. Then radiotherapy. Chemo is an option, as is a mastectomy, but only once they get the lump and lymph nodes out and see if it has spread.

We're in the car now, heading back to mine. I don't remember how that journey went. Pull up outside my flat, she wants to make a call but doesn't want me there while she does it. I can understand. I go into my flat and phone my mum.

Not long after she comes in she's away and I have no idea what to do with myself. There is this overwhelming urge to be doing something, anything, but I have no idea what. She wants to spend tonight at home with her son. I want her here or me to be there but I understand.

Thursday and it's into work. Telling people is easy when it hasn't sunk in. I may as well just be saying she has a cut on her finger I'm doing it in such a matter of fact way. But every now and then the severity of what this could entail hits me. I shut it out with a shake of my head.

Later on the phone rings, it's her, I should give her a name, let's call her P. I answer, P says she scared. Why, I stupidly ask, knowing why she would be scared, but knowing it's not like her to just blurt that sort of thing out. Something must have happened. The hospital had rang, they have a bed, she's going in on Sunday and her operation will be on Monday. Suddenly we don't have two-three weeks to adjust to this, we have two-three days.

We're supposed to be going to Snow Patrol tonight, neither of us want to. Luckily we get the tickets shifted and decide to just spend a nice quiet night in with chinese. Sometimes that's just what you need.

We talk about it. About how they will probably get her to sign a waiver or consent form or whatever it's called so that they can do a mastectomy if they need to when they are removing the lump. She wants reconstructive surgery at the same time. Do they do that? She wants to wheel me in to the surgeon and show him my breasts, claiming she wants a pair like them. It's funny, but I'm struggling to laugh.

We had wanted to go to the FA Cup semi final but were struggling to get tickets, when P says she saw that disabled people got priority. She asks if she can be considered as disabled, I say that I don't think a disabled tit is enough to qualify. She says 'it's worth a try'. This time we do both laugh.

In bed I'm very clingy, at least, I feel I am. And then it's morning and we lie in bed, drinking coffee and having a laugh. My rush to get out of bed is not there as it is most mornings. I think it's 12 before we get up. Then it's out, some shopping and she's gone. Her son is at his dads and she wants some time to herself, a night on her own before the hen night and then into hospital. I understand.

I can't get my head around all this. I've never had anyone close to me die, I've been lucky. Cancer is practically non-existent in my family so I don't know what to do. I hate not knowing what to do.

I feel helpless and lost. How the hell is she feeling?

My bed feels huge and empty tonight.