I looked at her name badge, trying not to make it look as ifI was ogling her quite ample breasts, and saw that her name was Amy.
“Well at least I’m not wired up to all those machinesanymore,” I replied.
“You never were,” she said. “Well, you weren’t yesterday,anyway.” She had a friendly, bubbly way about her to which I instantly warmed.
This was the opportunity I had been looking for to try andshed a little more light on the situation. I headed back into the room and satdown on the bed. “Yes, well, now you come to mention it,” I began, “I seem tobe suffering from a bit of memory loss. I can’t really remember much about whyI’m here, or what’s wrong with me,” I said.
“That’s odd,” she said. “Amnesia isn’t something that wenormally get with cancer patients. The doctor will be round in a bit. Perhapsyou should mention it to him.”
When she said the C word it was as if someone had plunged adagger right into my chest. So that was why I was here. Deep down, I hadalready suspected as much, but it still hit home with devastating force.
“What type of cancer is it?” I asked, full of trepidation.There was no good kind, but the answer that came back was the worst possibleone it could have been.
“It’s lung cancer,” she said, her jovial tone becoming moreserious for a moment. “I’m so sorry, you really don’t remember, do you?”
So, that was that: the most fatal cancer of them all. I waspretty sure that few people survived it. What had I done to get lung cancer?Was it down to smoking? I had no idea.
Perhaps I could find out more from my daughter. I reallyneeded to find out more about her: her name would be a good start.
“Listen, Amy,” I said, “can you help me out a little here?My daughter was here yesterday and I think she might be coming in again today.This is really embarrassing, and I don’t want to upset her, but I can’t evenremember her name. Do you know it?”
“It’s Stacey,” replied the nurse. “You were telling me allabout her yesterday.”
Yesterday, I thought. Now there was a word to conjure with.When was yesterday? As far as I was concerned, I’d never seen Amy before todayand it had been Carmen who had tended to me yesterday.
“Thank-you,” I replied. “I will speak to the doctor about myamnesia. That’s if I can remember any of this by the time he gets here,” Ijoked. Even though I was facing death, I could still find some dark humour inmy situation.
Amy offered me some breakfast and I managed to eat a littlecereal with milk and sugar, and drink some orange juice. Soon after, I feltlousy, so I lay back down and thought about things.
When Stacey came in, I’d talk to her and try to make somesense of my situation. I didn’t have long to wait as I soon drifted off tosleep.
When I awoke she was sitting by my side. She smiled at me,her face not quite so desperately sad as it had been the last time I had seenher. Maybe she was putting a brave face on things for my sake.
“Thank-you for coming to see me,” I said, hoping that didn’tsound too formal. I tried to remind myself that this was my daughter, whompresumably I loved more than anyone else in the world, but it was difficult tofeel emotion for someone I barely knew.
I wondered where her mother was. Perhaps we were divorced.
“Dad, I’m going to be right here, every day, as long as youneed me, like I promised,” she replied.
“Stacey,” I began, able to use her name at last, “I don’tknow if it’s the illness, but I’m having a little trouble remembering things.Can I ask you a few questions? I know some of the answers may be a littleobvious, but my mind seems to be playing tricks with me.”
“Of course, Dad, ask away.”
“Well, the first thing is that I seem to be losing track ofthe days. Can you remind me what day it is?”
“That’s quite understandable,” she replied. “I always losetrack of the days over Christmas. It’s Monday.”
“So what does that make the date?” I asked. “Have we had NewYear yet?”
“It’s December the 30th,” she replied. “Two more days to go.Remember, you promised you’d be here to see the New Year in with me – don’t letme down now.”
So the clock was right. How long had I been here? Could ithave been a whole year? Was my memory of her wishing me a Happy New Year inthis very room not a couple of days ago, but from the previous January?
Surely I couldn’t have been here that long, could I? My headswam with all the questions I wanted to ask her.
“So how long have I been here?” was the obvious nextquestion for me to ask.
“I brought you in on Boxing Day, remember? You wanted tostay at home, but you were in so much pain, I didn’t think I had any choice.”Her face clouded over at what was clearly an unpleasant memory.
“I wasn’t here last New Year, then?” I replied.
“You didn’t even know you were ill this time last year. It’sall happened so quickly,” she sighed. “If only you had gone to the doctorsooner, but you were so stubborn about it.”
The whole New Year/not New Year conundrum continued toperplex me, but I put that aside for the time being as I continued to questionher about what had happened to me.
It turned out I had been ill and coughing for weeks andweeks before Stacey finally frogmarched me to visit the doctor in November.From there, the diagnosis of advanced and incurable lung cancer was swift andbrutal. I was given three months to live.
It seemed I hadn’t even managed two months. So much for puttingup a “brave fight”, then: it seemed as if I’d gone down like a punch-drunkboxer.
I really needed to find out more about my
