Nadine Williams

“It’s a big story from a little finger”.

Monday,  January 24.

In one of the Beatles’ popular songs, there is a line “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans’’, and this captures the terror of today.

We are sitting in another doctor’s surgery – this time, a renowned Adelaide neurosurgeon. He is the doctor who operated successfully on our friend Mary to rid her of debilitating pain.  Olivier had turned to him before Christmas to discover the cause of chronic pain in his left forefinger, which has had all the symptoms of a neuroma. The doctor had despatched him to have an MRI to determine if his finger pain is not localised to the hand where he has been treated for six years, but the spine – somewhere in the C6/C7 region where the nerves for the left forefinger originate.

We expect an “all clear’’ here because over the past month, miraculously the finger pain disappeared two or three weeks ago following physiotherapy by a renowned sports physiotherapist. Now it is reduced to nothing more than an irritating tingle, rather than the debilitating, excruciating shots of chronic pain.

However, the doctor is sombre. Saying nothing. He is reading intently a long report from the radiologist. And now he takes out the X-rays and slides them one by one up against the illuminated glass panel. The light reveals the outline of Oli’s curved spine and I see that one vertebrae is blacker than the others.  An uneasy feeling creeps across my chest.

The doctor takes his seat and looks at Olivier and says.

“There is nothing here which shows any connection to your finger pain. It has nothing to do with it.

“But these results present more questions than answers.’’

He tells him that there is evidence of metastasis of the spine in three or four vertebrae.

Of course Oli asks “What does that mean, doctor?”

“It’s a kind of spraying cancer and it has metastasised  so what we are looking at here is a secondary cancer.  There must be a primary cancer somewhere else in the body.’’

I stare at him in disbelief.  I sneak a look at Oli who catches my eye and I feel like vomiting.

“I need to find my notebook,’’ I say. “I am a journalist and I must write this down.’’

It is as if I must get the facts here in case I forget them. They won’t be real unless they take form in my shorthand scribble.

And I quickly write down T1, T3, T7, T10, T12: “T” is for “thoracic spine. And then he adds, the shocking sentence.

“What we have here is spinal tumour diagnosis.’’. The doctor is speaking in a kind, low, mellow voice.

“.. A spreading metastatic disease that has gone to the spinal bone in multiple places. Most of the spine has some involvement.’’

There is a moment of absolute stillness. I am sure I have stopped breathing. My beautiful husband has secondary bone cancer. Oli is stone-faced. Emotionless.  My body begins to shake and I fear I will be unable to stop it. Surely my very heart is trembling.  Tears well up and spill down my cheeks and I sob aloud.

“You are allowed that, too,’’ the doctor says. And, he adds, looking compassionately at me. “It’s a very big story from a little finger.’’

He lists a number of tests that Oli must have – and Oli speaks again.

“This will take time, won’t it doctor?’’

“No, this will be very quick. My staff will organise these tests within 24 hours and you should think about an oncologist if you have any preference.

“One of the tests involves a full body bone scan and the dye we inject will light up and sparkle wherever there is a cancer,’’ he continues and he  runs his fingers like I did so many years ago when singing Twinkle twinkle little star to my young children.

Tests are organised for later this evening and 8.45am tomorrow morning.

I go into the toilet, sit down on its lid and feel as if I will pass out in shock.

As my daughter would say, “Put on your big-girl bloomers, mum”.   Olivier is waiting  and speechless we walk to the car, holding hands. The sun still shines in a cloudless sky in a kind of mockery.  At the car, I take his arm and ask him how he feels.  “I feel numb,’’ he replies.  Ironically, the car is parked outside the Memorial Hospital balcony where almost 7 years ago, Oli had visited me there when I had my hysterectomy.  Memories flicker of that Saturday night up there sitting on the balcony, all sore and stitched after the operation, and remembering how he had brought into the room an Esky filled with lobster, aioli and salads and how he had opened up its lid with so much style,. And how impressed I was that he had sliced already the lobster into two halves and arranged them on two plates at home and sealed them up. And into the pervading sadness of the present, I remember a delicious moment of the past and how we devoured it all from its red shell, and drank from two crystal wine glasses some French white wine he had carried in a bag over his shoulder into that hospital.

I knew then he would be a  tour de force in my life.

So our romance evolved into a wonderful marriage and life since with Oli has been such an extraordinary adventure and a wonderful loving human experience, that this one memory brings some comfort. Yet, today, on the pavement, no more than 30 metres from that balcony,  my happiness bubble burst. My husband has lost something so precious – his health.