Dancing in the Shadows

by Jane Riddiford

It had been a busy morning, bouncing from one meeting to another, and finally it was lunchtime. I made my way in through the yellow gates of our Skip Garden. A little space for the wild and the free amidst the rise of glass and steel buildings that King’s Cross has now become. I saw some of my colleagues sitting around a table and without thinking, sat down amongst them. It was only then I looked around, there were a few unfamiliar faces. It turned out this wasn’t our staff lunch, it was a meeting between our garden team, a patient and two GPs from the Caversham practice.

Coincidentally, the practice is minutes from where I live in Kentish Town and where I am registered, although I have hardly ever been there. There was a good feeling between everyone at the table and I noticed that one of the doctors, Jane Myat, was smiling at me and so I stayed and joined the meeting. Something happened that lunchtime that would bear fruit months later.

Fast forward and I am walking down a long grey linoleum corridor, diligently following the yellow line down the middle. It seemed to go on forever before I came to the right sign and the right set of fire doors. I made my way in and joined the rows of people sitting in chairs with blue plastic padding. I was in a patient’s waiting room of the Royal Free Hospital. Unfamiliar names were being called and then I heard my name shouted out across the room. I turned around and a nurse with a white coat and those special thick-soled weight loss trainers was waiting to lead me into a consulting room where a doctor in thick black rimmed spectacles looked up from a pile of notes. Before he spoke, I took in his warm brown eyes and that he was wearing studded cowboy boots. He was relaxed but I felt worried…about the fact that he didn’t look very healthy.

“We have some good news and some bad news,” he said. “What do you want to hear first?”

“The bad news,” I replied.

“We have found some breast cancer.”

My heart missed a beat and the room went all blurry. “And the good news?” I stuttered.

“The tumour is small, we have caught it early, and it is totally treatable,” he said. “I will now leave you with the nurse and she can explain more about what we have in store for you.”

And with that, he left, leaving me feeling out of my depth, like I was way out at sea. The nurse promptly led me into her tiny little office; it was more like a broom cupboard. There was a single electric bulb, no window and just enough room for a fold-up chair for me to sit on. I wondered if this was really meant for the patients. The nurse reached up to a shelf and brought down a huge red folder stuffed full of glossy pamphlets. One by one, she passed them over to me, talking all the time; drugs, wigs, breast enhancements.          	

My mind was swimming, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t take in anything she said. 

“It’s all going to be alright,” she said. “You’ll just need some surgery, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy and maybe five or possibly ten years of hormone tablets.”

I remember thinking, “I don’t think so,” but I really didn’t know. As I was leaving, she said, “A word of advice, don’t look on the Internet. Just follow what we say, it’ll be better that way.”

The path ahead seemed like a maze. “Perhaps the nurse is right,” I thought. “The easiest thing would be to not think too much and agree to whatever is suggested.” At the same time I knew I needed to call on everything I had at my disposal before making any definite, irreversible decisions.

It didn’t take long before I called on the smiling GP who I had met all those months ago on that hot sunny day, sitting in the middle of the Skip Garden. On our first appointment, we talked a lot, or rather I talked and she listened, and slowly I began to feel I might be able to navigate my own way through. It was a long appointment, and as the talk went on, time seemed to slow down. The myriad of choices that lay ahead of me turned into steps that I could face and I realised that I could pace out the times when I needed to make each decision.

The second time I met with my GP, she suggested I come early at 7.30 in the morning, before her clinic started. She led me into the beautiful organic garden in the middle of the Caversham practice that is known as the Listening Space. There was a basket and a thermos flask and I watched in amazement as she laid out homemade bread and jam and picked fresh herbs from the garden to make our tea with. We didn’t talk much at all about my health; we ate and we talked about the things we both shared; our sense of nature and healing, and how a GP practice, with all the many relationships that are held there, had the potential to be the heart of a community. 

Through the conversation I forgot that I was now meant to be a ‘disease person.’ Instead it made me realise I was a ‘well person,’ and from that moment on I decided that is who I would be. No matter what was happening in some part of my body, I would try and see it from the part of me that was a well person with a miraculous body that I knew very little about. I even decided to love those little tiny cells that seemed to be performing in an unusual way. Who were they? What were they saying to me?

I did have surgery and people were very kind to me, lending my husband Rod and I places for convalescence; a cottage on the sand in Whitstable and a caravan on the Gower Peninsula, right by the sea. In the early mornings we would run along the beach, and float and stand in the water, roaring at the top of our voices to match the crashing sounds of the waves. I felt the strength of the ocean enter into my cells.                                             	

Then came the news, the surgery was successful and the boundaries on the cells they had removed were all clear. Good news, well sort of. We had moved into the next phase and I knew that now there were even harder decisions to make.

The next hospital visit was with the oncologist; afterwards I called her Dragon Lady. I sat in a wrinkly T-shirt in front of a smart young woman in a crisp white blouse and shiny black patent leather stilettos…not much good for moving quickly on the linoleum, I thought.

As we began to talk, she sat up straight, looked me in the eye and said, “I can see you’ve thought about this a lot. I don’t know about many things but I can assure you that I know everything about your condition. I sit on this advisory panel and that advisory panel ,and even another very select European panel.”

I could feel myself shrink in the face of her most expert expertise. After all, who the hell was I to have an opinion about what might be right for my body? I only just managed to pluck up enough courage to say, “Can we slow things down? Can you give me a month before I make any decisions?”

I wished I had gone with Rod that day. I walked home slowly across the heath...stopping and sitting amongst the trees. Finally I got to the street where I live, and just as I was going past the Caversham practice, my phone went; it was my GP. “Do you want to come and see me now?”

I couldn’t believe it. We sat and wrote letters together in her little practice room; letters to other oncologists so I could at least see what others had to say. Eventually, return letters with appointments and opinions came. It was helpful in an unexpected kind of way.

One of the consultants said I definitely should do most of the treatment that was on offer, in other words, a full course of chemotherapy as it would make a 2% difference. Even to my untrained mind, this sounded like a miniscule amount; it was disturbing that she was un-hesitating in her advice. Perhaps she was expecting me to read between the lines.

On the other hand, when I discussed the option of chemotherapy with a kindly consultant from UCL, an older Indian man, he looked at me with a tear in his eye.

“It’s the only thing we’ve got,” he said, and then he went on to say, “Whatever you choose will really only work if you are completely behind it. If you can find a way to not be afraid of your fear, it will make a big difference, but there are only about 2% of people who can do that when faced with this disease.”

Could I even dare to think I might be one of those people? I was curious how he came to that number. Time was running out and my mind was swinging like crazy, between going this way or that, more treatment or none or…I just didn’t know what to do.

A few days later I took a nap. As sometimes happens, I dreamt that I was walking…dancing with the shadows beneath the trees. When I woke up, I knew I had to go to the Heath. It was dusk by the time I got to a quiet place off the path. Even though it was late autumn and quite cold, I took my shoes off and felt my way forwards. The feeling of soft cool earth met the soles of my feet and a tingling feeling of aliveness spread through my body, my breathing went deep and slow. The appointment with Dragon Woman was the next day and suddenly it became clear what I wanted to say.

I don’t remember how I got to the hospital but I do remember ironing a smart button-up shirt and polishing a remotely tidy pair of shoes, and that Rod came with me.

“Well,” said Dragon Lady, “What have you decided?”

My rehearsed words were weak. Rod said afterwards he had never seen me so intimidated by anyone, but at least I spoke and I managed to say exactly what I wanted to say.

“Thank you for all the time you have put into seeing me and thinking about my case. I have decided that, at least for now, I won’t be taking the path you have suggested.”

Amazingly in that moment, Dragon Lady and I both relaxed. She even smiled, especially when I signed a form to say I knew the choice I was making. She wished me well and said I could come and see her whenever I wanted.

Thinking back on that time, I would say it was through listening and love, and walking in the way of the forest, I found a way home…

We are the tongue that tells the truth

We are the song upon the wind

We are the courage to stand forth

So that change it can begin

On this good green earth we must take a stand

With an open heart and a healing hand

(words thanks to an XR anthem)

Read Jane Myat’s piece, Isn’t that something

Visit The Listening Space

Watch Jane and Jane

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