reflections

PARENT OPINION #1 / NO MORE F'ING LASAGNE

by ella ward

Do you know what’s worse than a hypochondriac? A vindicated hypochondriac.

You know it’s going to be bad when your GP gets choked up. No one likes telling a mother she’s got cancer. Doctor Tearful needn’t have worried. I’d been working towards this moment for years.

I’ve a significant history of cancer in my family, and since my early twenties my body had produced its own selection of concerning lumps and bumps. That, combined with a middle-class-prescribed amount of generalised anxiety disorder, meant my approach to health screening drifted to the paranoid side of vigilant. All of this meant that cancer scares were my bag, but not actual diagnoses. So I certainly didn’t think I’d ever get as far as a weepy GP offering me tissues while saying “journey” a lot.

In April 2018 I found a small lump on my bikini line. In less than a fortnight I went from having a ‘likely hernia’ to a biopsy-confirmed squamous cell carcinoma up my bum.

I had anal cancer and it was in my lymph nodes. That, as they say, escalated quickly.

These days, the cancer story follows a neatly set template. It’s a tale we (think) we all know. We’ve read the books and wept over Stepmom. So when the 21st-century bogey monster gatecrashes your party, the next few chapters are written and ready to go. People hear your news and live the whole tragic trajectory for you. You can see it in their eyes … and trust me, it only takes about eight seconds for them to get