Ippi Ever After

Dad.

Chapter One

Crazy Mad, Crazy Bad

I don’t ever remember a time when there wasn’t some sort of pet in my childhood home and often more than one. We had cats, dogs, budgies, fish, even a crazy rabbit who liked to nip at visitors ankles. We also had unintentional pets, strays or injured animals that might or might not stay or even survive. The back garden always had a few little graves where we buried the ones that died. We had more cats over the years than anything else. A handful were killed on the road and some by natural causes. The first time I encountered cancer close up was in a cat. Kitsy was her name, not very original I know, but she was a stray that turned up at the front door one wet and windy night, so we didn’t know if she was staying. Kitsy was an interim name that stuck. She was probably an unwanted pet that some one left on the doorstep intentionally. We were known as a house that took strays and she wasn’t the first or last to find her way to us. Some one of us heard her crying outside and took her in. She was jet black with a small white patch on the front of her neck. She was small enough to fit comfortably in one open hand, maybe six or seven weeks old. She was a born survivor. She out lasted every other cat we ever had because she was quick to learn. She stayed away from the road and ingratiated herself with the five of us kids and mam and dad. She was with us for at least a decade. Then she had difficulty eating. Initially the vet thought it was a tooth problem but it only got worse. I took care of her when she couldn’t eat. I spoon fed her through her teeth because her jaw wouldn’t open and cleaned her face with a j cloth afterwards . No self respecting cat would let you do such a thing so we knew there was something more to the problem. Dad and I took her to the Royal Veterinary Hospital where they anesthetized her and did an x-ray. The vet there told us she had cancer in her jaw and that the humane thing to do was not wake her up. I was very attached to that cat, we all were, she was part of the family. The vet made sure she didn’t wake up and we went home. I’m not embarrassed to say I cried on the way.

Its half past midnight, another day has begun. Chemotherapy sits on the kitchen counter top, two steps away. All day it calls to me, ‘little pig, little pig, let me in’. I don’t want to, but I will, soon. I have to.

I read the text again ‘u don’t deserve any good luck in your life’. A year earlier that text would have floored me, reduced me to a quivering mess, but not now. ‘What I deserve’ has nothing to do with it. Bad things happen to good people all the time, and it’s not that I consider myself to be some shining beacon of virtue, I’m not, but the point is, what I deserve has damn all to do with it. Children deserve to have loving parents, that’s as far as deserving goes for me, everything else has to be earned. Death comes calling to everybody, you can’t deserve your way out of it.

I shifted in the seat. The 737 was an hour out from Dublin, I was on the holiday come down, work tomorrow morning, same old same old. Again I shifted in the seat, god damn but that mole on my ass was itchy. I must get it checked out I told myself and then I didn’t think about it again for six months. Work and family took over. In the normal course of events, I wouldn’t see the doctor until something went wrong. Six months or more could pass where I would never see the Doc for myself. I could and was there with one or other of the kids numerous times, but unless I pulled a muscle or something similar, I didn’t feel the need to see the Doctor, certainly not for an itch that lasted the duration of one flight from Malaga to Dublin.

I don’t remember the primary reason I went to see the Doc, it was probably a pulled muscle but while I was there I asked him to take a look at the mole on my ass. It was embarrassing sure, but the GP is about the same age as me, has young children like me, I felt a bit stupid asking him but not so much that I couldn’t ask him. I dropped my jeans and turned around. As he looked at the mole, he asked questions.

How long is it there?

As long as I can remember

Was it always the same shape?

I think so

The Doc gestured for me to pull up my jeans. I did and sat again beside his desk.

I don’t think it’s a problem he told me but we should get it whipped off

Ok I agreed.

I had no sense of anything but normal. Fifteen years earlier I had a mole removed from my chest. Exact same scenario. I’d shown it to the doc, he arranged for it to be removed. It was then biopsy and all no problem, very routine.

Public or Private? he asked.

Private.

An appointment with the Dermatologist arrived two days later and within a week I was sitting in front of him. He took a brief family history. No immediate history of cancer, generally long lived and healthy people. He got me to strip down and he examined me from head to toe for moles paying particular attention to the one on my ass. I’ve got Irish Skin, pale, freckles easily, burns easier still and I’ve got lots of moles, not unnaturally so but still, I’ve just counted them on one arm and there’s eleven.

I don’t think it’s a problem, but we should take it off.

A week later it was gone. A week after that I took the one or two stitches out myself and much like before I didn’t think about it again for two weeks, except once.

Mary and I were having problems. Well, in truth, one problem, the same problem for the millionth time. Mary screamed, Mary screamed a lot. It was nothing new, but it was getting worse, again. Harder than the actual screaming was the anticipation of the rage. I’d know it was coming for days before it hit. It was a cyclical thing. Many times I had asked for her to stop but she never did. In the beginning I’d made allowances, she told me her dad was struggling with cancer; I would have been devastated if it was my dad, so I accepted the excuse she made. It had been a whirlwind romance, there was a bit of the damsel in a tight dress and the knight in shining hair gel going on, there were two of us in it. Mary moved into my Rathmines flat within a week of meeting me. At the time she told me that she was getting a hard time from her mother. I offered that she could stay with me for a while and that was that. Two months later she wanted to have a baby. I was head over heels about her. We were getting on together really well. I thought we had more than enough love to include a baby. Maybe it should have frightened me off but it didn’t. Neither of us were teenagers, consenting adults and all that. I’d have done anything for her. Weeks later she was pregnant and the screaming started. Fourteen years later I couldn’t believe the excuses anymore no matter how hard I tried. I’d tried lots of different ways to communicate over that time but nothing stuck.

Why? I wanted to know there’s no need for all this stress.

I had no plan B. This was it, make this relationship work, we had two children, the possibility that I’d end up as a part time dad was reason enough to keep working at our relationship. Mary once told me that she was proud to always be the angriest person in any given situation with anybody. It was something she took pride in, I didn’t get it. I didn’t want to break up; I just wanted the raging to stop. I tried over and again to pacify Mary but no matter what I did or didn’t do the raging continued.

I’ve taken enough I told her during one of her rages, two months before the cancer diagnosis. I was sitting at the kitchen table holding my youngest in my arms. My eldest had disappeared upstairs as had become her custom when mammy flew into a rage.

You’ve used a lifetimes worth of anger on me. You have to stop. It’s abusive to me and it’s abusive to the kids It wasn’t the first time I’d used the word ‘abusive’ to describe what was going on, but this time I said it with conviction.

She faltered for a moment mid-rage.

When I look back through the prism of our relationship, all I see is you screaming at me. It’s wrong, it’s abusive I repeated and it’s always in front of the kids.

I’m not aware that the kids are there she said by way of an explanation. It’s like a light switch being turned on she continued hesitantly, and then she stopped. I only do it three or four times a year, what are you complaining about and the moment was gone. She screamed something eviscerating before storming out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her and stamping up the stairs screaming insults all the way.

One morning, two weeks after the mole was removed, for some reason I felt very up beat about the whole thing. I told Mary that I felt very optimistic for the future. When I look back now, I think it was a premonition that my life was about to change, but I got it wrong, so very wrong.

Chapter Two

Trouble and Strife

The weeks passed. Work was going through changes. The demise of the Celtic tiger was beginning to bite home. Sometimes I loved my work, sometimes I didn’t. All jobs looked less secure than they had not long before. That, coupled with new ownership meant changes. It was a time of caution. The head count was sure to be reduced. I can’t remember being too worried. With change comes opportunity. Get up on time, get to work on time, stay off the trouble radar and maybe I’d get a step ahead, that’s what I believed. Sooner or later, at least in the private sector, your face just doesn’t fit anymore. You can fight it or you can adapt. I’d been there a long time and it was so close to home that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages by a long way. I was determined to stick it out and show that I was more worthy than the guy next to me.

At home Mary wanted to have another baby. She’d been talking about it for a couple of months. I was getting used to the idea but I wanted us to do some couples counselling first. I didn’t see our problems as insurmountable, with effort and honesty I thought we could put the screaming behind us.

I’d taken an afternoon off to get the mole removed, but I didn’t milk it. The following morning I was back on the plant floor at 6.45am. The same the next day and the day after. In a lot of ways the early shift was harder than the swing shift. More guys to organise and more machines to nurse through the day.

It was Friday and I was finished for the week. April had slipped quietly into May and with longer, warmer days the kids were eager to be out in the back garden. I was the only one in the house when the phone rang in the hallway.

Hello

Martin? the voice on the other end asked. I didn’t recognise the voice.

Yes, how can I help you?

The voice on the other end quickly explained that he was the dermatologist I had seen three weeks earlier.

There’s no easy way to say this, the biopsy showed cancer.

Are you sure? I asked, hoping desperately that there was some element of doubt, that further tests would be needed, that maybe just maybe I’d dodge the bullet.

I’ve had it tested twice he replied there is no doubt. Its four point two millimetres. That’s bad news. I just received the second results and I had to tell you.

It hit me on the tip of my nose before it mashed its way through to my brain. I was speechless. Thoughts raced simultaneously through my mind. In a mili-second one thought eclipsed all others,

‘How do I tell Mary?’ Some part of me already knew that she wouldn’t face this. Mary didn’t like problems of any kind, the smallest thing could quickly snowball into a dramatic disaster. I expect lumps and bumps, Mary expects one continuous smooth path

He talked on for a few minutes. His voice rolled over me like waves on a pebble. After a few minutes I think he realised that I wasn’t taking it all in.

You have to have surgery to remove as much of the surrounding area as possible a pause Martin?

Yes?

Have you any questions?

Are you sure?

Yes Martin, I know it’s difficult, but I am sure.

I know I asked more questions but I didn’t want nor need answers. I just needed to hear another human voice as I figured out what to do next. By the time the call finished, I’d realised that there was no easy way to tell Mary. There was no point in holding anything back. I hung the phone up and sat on the floor in the hall.

I was numb, stunned but not yet frightened, well, at least not as much as I should have been.

In the initial days after I was diagnosed, the GP told me not to look at the internet. Of course I did. Google, google, google. Malignant melanoma is a wicked cancer. If it’s not caught early, it kills eighty five percent of those with it in five years or less. Early is one millimetre or less thick, anything above two is trouble. The charts don’t go beyond four millimetres. I clocked in at four point two.

On the following Monday I spoke to my GP. He had a surgeon in mind.

He’s the best he told me.

The following week was a blur. The world spun all around me but I stood still. We were due to go on holidays to Spain in four weeks. I really wanted to go. I wanted to keep everything normal. I told the bosses in work what was going on. From the get go they were supportive beyond anything I could have expected. I was optimistic; I can beat this I told myself again and again. My immediate boss was a good guy. Over the years we had developed a good working relationship. When we weren’t talking about work we talked about our kids. His wife was a nurse, his kid’s teenagers. Very subtly he tried to temper my expectations. In hindsight, I think he knew that I was facing a longer, harder battle than the six weeks post surgery recovery I was talking about.

My eldest girl wanted to do a sky walk. In essence it was an obstacle course fifty feet up. I was all for her taking on adrenaline pursuits and I suspected that it would be a while before I’d be up to it again. Mary didn’t like to be outside her comfort zone and I wanted Leah to be a bit more daring. I’d been taking her on the best carnival rides since she was two. We headed off to the sky walk.

In front of us were two teenage boys. A steward fitted harnesses over their heads and led them to the first obstacle. Both guys chickened out and were taken down steps where they were unharnessed.

I don’t think I want to now Leah whispered to me.

I didn’t want to either but I wasn’t going to let that stop us.

You can do it I assured her.

We set off over, under and across the obstacles. I don’t know which one of us was more nervous but we didn’t chicken out. Beads of sweat rolled off my brow, disappearing into the space below before splashing unnoticed on the floor. When we finished we both felt exhilarated. She wanted to go again, once was enough for me.

On Monday I met the surgeon. He was professional to the nth degree. Sharply dressed, confident and honest. I immediately liked him. He explained what he was going to do. Much of the flesh of my left buttock was to be further excised. At the same time a radioactive indicator was to be injected into the area and then he could see which lymph nodes the blood was flowing through. Once identified, a biopsy of the nodes would tell if the melanoma had spread.

Lymph nodes are the body’s sewerage system. Impurities in the blood are filtered out in the lymph system; hence, you can have swelling in your neck glands with a strep throat for example. If the melanoma had spread, it was likely that it would show up in the lymph nodes first.

Beaumont is a teaching hospital. Ranks of upcoming doctors spend set periods learning by example from the best professionals the country has. It’s big and it’s imposing. Thousands of people pass through the doors every day. Visitors, staff and patients mill around the ground floor from early morning to late night. It is a place of routine hustle and bustle. On the day I was admitted, I was a bit overwhelmed. I felt out of place. I was not sick in the same sense as most that I saw. I didn’t feel ill, didn’t look ill and didn’t want to be there.

The room had enough space for six beds but there were only five. To the uninitiated that might not mean much, but it is the difference between semi-private and public to the bean counters. In each five or six bedded room is a small room in the corner. In there, is a toilet and wash hand basin. In the more modern rooms there is a shower cubicle, in the one I was in, there was not.

I was given a name band, a line in my arm and one of those stupid gowns that fastens at the back.

Don’t go anywhere the nurse told me you’re on the list for later on and you have to go to nuclear medicine first.

I’d never heard of nuclear medicine.

The team will be around soon.

I sat on the armchair beside the bed. I listened to music on an mp3 and waited.

The team came and went. Fresh faced interns gathered around the bed listening to the surgeon as he explained what was to come. I had no problem lying down on the bed and baring my ass. The surgeon traced his finger along the line of the incision he was going to make. He talked about using a flap of skin that could be closed over to seal the wound he was going to make. The interns hung on his every word, some took notes, the clever ones listened.

After a time a porter arrived with a wheel chair.

Pop in there he told me.

I put slippers on and sat in the chair. I’d never owned a pair of slippers before; I’d never seen the need. I’d bought them along with Pjs a few days earlier.

He wheeled me to the lifts and we descended into the basement. I was greeted by a small swarthy man in a white coat. He brought me through a door emblazoned with hazard signs and the words ‘Nuclear Medicine’. He was the chatty type which suited me fine. In the time it took him to get me ready I already knew he was from Malta, loved Ireland and was up to date on malignant melanoma. Moments later another man in a lab coat carried in a small steel box. The outside of the box was covered in yellow and black hazard signs. The Maltese man opened the lock on the box and took out a metal syringe. He injected the contents into my left buttock. A few minutes later a different porter arrived and took me back up to the ward. The nurse hung a sign on my bed. It cautioned that pregnant women and young children shouldn’t come near me. I was radioactive.

I wasn’t allowed to fraternise, I had to stay at the bed and wait. I watched people come and go to the bedsides of the four other men in the room. Two were elderly, taken from nursing homes to Beaumont for minor surgeries. The other two were younger. One, a man who drank his liver into failure, the other a guy who had picked up an infection abroad from which he was recovering. I listened to music and waited.

A tall bloke dressed in green with white clogs arrived with a porter. They had negotiated their way through the corridors and into the room with a