Page 133 - She's One Crazy Lady!

Mr Stewart left and as he walked away, he drew the curtain and there stood my bed friends.
“We’re so sorry Glennis. Why did you have to pick the short straw?”
As before, Mr Stewart had explained what would
happen next; that I would be admitted again in two
weeks for the mastectomy plus an axillary lymph node
clearance to determine if the cancer had spread
further. Apparently, cancer was present in seven of the
eleven nodes taken out with the lumpectomy and this
number was far too high. I did ask him why he didn’t do
the mastectomy at the same time as the lumpectomy.
He told me both tumours, which measured over five
centimetres, had to go off to pathology to ascertain
what sort of cancer it was and what grade. He knew it
was an aggressive type, therefore, they had to culture
it to see how quickly it grew. “
All that information was hard to take in. It wasn’t
the mastectomy that worried me or the treatment to follow; it was the year off work. How would I explain this to everyone? I sat on the bed, motionless. Rob, one of the male nurses on duty, came and sat next to me and my bed friends hovered. I felt myself welling up so disappeared to the toilets to compose myself. That was the first time I’d cried. They weren’t tears of, “Why me?” They were tears of, “Why now?”. Tears of frustration. Rob was lovely and gently reiterated Mr Stewart’s words: “Let go Glennis.” I knew that’s what I had to do and managed a smile when Shona, who was on duty, looked at me, smiled and said, “We’ve got to put up with you coming back then, have we?”
Change of plan. I knew that a September return to school was now out of the question and felt utterly heartbroken.
Marilyn picked me up and made light of the announcement, although I couldn’t make out what she was really thinking or how she felt. In the car driving home, having had many hugs and assurances with my bed friends that we would meet up, she presented me with a pile of car parking tickets: “You’ve already cost me a fortune and you’re coming back for more!” We laughed. I needed Marilyn’s matter of fact (but caring) approach.
I told people straight away, mostly by phone using the cascade system and, despite such a set-back, it was good to be home, where I could think and be on my own. There was so much to think about – and do. My superiors at the LEA said I wasn’t to worry about a thing, that they would find a replacement Head to stand in for me, but it would not be Des. Who? That worried me. After two years of incredibly hard work by
I was to meet
up with both Shona and Rob in the following months. ”
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