My anaesthetist nods gravely. I guess he writes down “anxious”. He is very, very nice to me.

The morning after surgery, a counsellor visits and gives me a beautiful, silver, horseshoe-shaped cushion made by a volunteer. It’s designed to sit under my arm. She tells me I will need to be careful vacuuming, grocery shopping, lifting laundry.

I can’t speak. It’s the volunteer who sewed this cushion. It’s the thought of all those women leaning painfully into washing machines to haul out heavy, wet clothes. It’s the memory of my grandmother, who lost her breast and should have had a career. “Oh darling, how lovely to get paid,” she said wistfully when I got my first job. The counsellor leaves and I hug my cushion like a teddy bear.
A friend says that radiotherapy is like going to school and it’s exactly like that. I have my own locker with my name on it. The nurse hands me a gown. “One size fits nobody.”

People are eager to tell me I have nothing to worry about and I therefore resist feeling anything. But I’m upset. I’m very upset.

Every day, I lie in a mould made specially for me, with my arms above my head like a sunbaker and hold my breath over and over, so that the blue line hovers still on the monitor. Sydney goes into
lockdown but I have a valid excuse to leave the house. Each day when I come home from treatment, my son kisses me on the cheek. People are lovely and their loveliness is as soothing as my silver cushion. They send flowers and blankets, hampers and lasagnes.

On the last day of treatment, I ring the bell and the staff clap and cheer like waiters singing happy birthday. I feel I don’t deserve it, because I didn’t suffer as much as my sister, or as so many others. I didn’t suffer as much as the children whose beautiful faces appear on fundraising emails from the Cancer Council, but one of the nurses cries, “Louder! Ring it louder!” and I ring it louder.

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I will take hormone therapy medication for the next five years. The list of possible side effects is so long and cruel, it’s almost comical, like a witch’s curse: thinning hair and joint pain, weight gain and despair. The internet assures me I will experience every single one. My sister says, “Nah, you’ll be fine.”

Some people see cancer as a gift, but I wasn’t sick enough to come face-to-face with my mortality, only to give it a sidelong glance, so I gained no wisdom. I am grateful for the incredible care I received, but I’m bad-mannered about my cancer. It was not a nice gift. I don’t want it again. I don’t want it for anyone, not for my family, not for yours. (Keep up your health checks. Support cancer research.)

I do know that scars and memories eventually fade. We’ll be back on holiday at the same place this summer. I’ll buy an egg sandwich from the bakery. I’ll think of the person who has my locker now, and send her my love down the coastline.

I WON’T BE CHECKING EMAIL.

Liane Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall (Pan Macmillan, $33) was published in September.

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