Odd as it may sound, I can trace this journey by its showers.
*****
On the night before my mastectomy, I find myself standing in front of a shower grasping a plastic bottle and an instruction sheet. The cubicle is narrow, and I struggle to balance the piece of paper in a place where it will stay dry but remain visible. It outlines the manner in which I must use the contents of the bottle to disinfect my body prior to surgery. Such is my state of anxiety that I am unable to remember simple guidelines for the use of soap. I am first on the next morning's operating list, and must set an alarm so that I can repeat the process prior to departure. On my second attempt I still feel the need for instructions. My left breast carries traces of bruising from the biopsy. The air is cold, and I am afraid. I dress quickly in my cleanest clothes and walk out of the bathroom. My husband is sitting on the edge of the bed, and I tell him that I’m ready to go. I can’t meet his eyes.
*****
When I am strong enough to shower in hospital, a nurse unplugs the array of cords linking me to bedside equipment and I shuffle to the bathroom. As a young woman living with my husband, I slept naked and bounded to the shower empty-handed. As a new mother, I wore drawstring pants and a singlet from bed to shower, and would often have company - a baby gurgling in his bouncinette, or a toddler demanding construction of a train track. These memories come as I slowly unwrap two new purchases – slippers in a practical dark grey and some matronly, front-buttoning pyjamas. My gigantic post-surgery bra comes not from a lingerie shop but on order from a medical equipment company. I struggle to find places to put everything in the hospital bathroom, then undress. One of my two tumours had grown into the pectoral muscle, and in order to remove it cleanly a section of the muscle has been replaced with mesh. The skin has been spared, and a saline-filled balloon has been inserted where my left breast used to be. Over coming weeks it will be injected with fluid, preparing the damaged skin to hold an implant. My chest looks bumpy and bruised. The nipple is covered with black, dead skin – its survival, I’m told, is uncertain. After a token spray with the hand-held shower I pat myself dry, don my unappealing garments and return to bed as quickly as my body will allow.
*****
Soon after leaving hospital, I am told that cancer has been found in several lymph nodes. Another operation is arranged so that more of them can be removed. Once again, I find myself in a shower holding a bottle of antiseptic. To clean around the surgical area I must rub the fluid over my partially reconstructed breast, touching it properly for the first time. It feels hard yet strangely crumpled, and is utterly foreign under my hand. It dawns on me that in the panic that followed diagnosis I never said goodbye to my breast. Before its final shower, should I have taken a photograph? I could at least have looked at it properly, and said thank you. My sons both stopped breast feeding suddenly, and I never had a chance to acknowledge the passing of each era. In the haze of recent terrors I have lost all memory of the last time my breast was touched with desire. It seems that endings in the life of my breast – even that of its very existence – have been destined to pass unrecognised. Tears mingle with disinfectant as I wash my forever-changed skin.
*****
During chemotherapy, showering seems like an enormous task. I wince from the impact of surgery as I lift my left arm to perform the prescribed shoulder exercises under the soothing warmth of water. My right forearm feels tight where toxic infusions are causing veins to harden. One day, I notice that hair is coming away with the shampoo. Soon I must choose a headscarf before my shower each morning to arrange on my freshly cleaned scalp. After drying myself I tend to my splitting toenails and painstakingly apply an uncharacteristic amount of makeup, the better to put forward a brave, cancer-fighting face to the world. Later, radiation treatment causes my skin to burn and I am given creams to apply to my chest after showering. Rubbing my reconstructed breast - sensing its strange hardness without and its numbness within - repulses me. I learn that singing a rousing version of ‘Advance Australia Fair’ provides a level of distraction and steeliness suitable for the task. By the time I’m done, the morning seems half over.
*****
A year has now passed since my left breast’s final shower. The reconstruction is finished, and the surgical wounds and radiotherapy burns are long healed. My nipple survived and is pink again. The chemotherapy track marks in my arm are still tight, but my shoulder – for the most part - moves easily. The surface of the reconstructed breast isn’t totally smooth, and it has little feeling or movement. But in a strappy Darwin sundress or my bikini top and boardshorts, a scattering of tiny blue radiotherapy tattoos provides the only hint of my history. I am starting to believe that a day will come when I will shower without thinking about cancer. On that longed-for morning, I will lift my arms above my head freely as the water rushes down my body. I will give my re-grown hair a quick shampoo. I will dry myself hurriedly while poking my head out the door to yell instructions at the kids. I hope that after hanging up my towel I catch sight of my face in the mirror, realise what has just happened, and give myself a grin before stepping out the bathroom door to start my day.
