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
