I've called my cancer Wendy

Pre-op Dutch Courage

So Motherload fans, I've been quite absent from this blog for a while, and I've got an excuse.

On Thursday I had surgery to excise some very early breast cancer.

Now, this won't be a long post, because I'm still post-op and a bit tired.

But I wanted to pass on a few things that have interested me on this journey.

1. I found my lump on 22 February 2016. This also happened to be the second anniversary of the death of a wonderful friend, Jane. She was the bravest woman I have ever met. She died of ovarian cancer. We met, the day after her diagnosis, when my little girl went round to play with her little girl. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. What is the etiquette for a playdate chat about ovarian cancer with a mum you've never met before? We became firm friends. We learnt mindfulness together during six sun-filled weeks in her kitchen, as her cat strolled in and moved around us, happy and curious. Another friend I'd made through my daughter's school did the course with us, and it was run by yet another friend, who came from another of my many lives. My worlds were brought together in Jane's kitchen in the quiet and the birdsong.

2. I found the lump about two weeks after starting a new job, as a writer in residence for a divorce law firm, Vardags. I was so nervous about starting a job in the City, that I took to making the journey in a pair of pink trainers, then changing into a pair of high-heeled Shoes of Prey beauties, to pretend I was a kickass writer. What I was, was a tiny, frightened, mess of a writer.

3. I had been offered an amazing opportunity to take on some change management work for a company, just prior to starting at Vardags – I'd asked to defer it because of no. 4 below, but I was going to have to get going on it imminently. I quailed at the prospect of fitting it in.

4. I had, furthermore, issued a Facebook promise, like an idiot, that I would complete the second draft of Motherload by the end of February. Couldn't stand down. Not after six years.

5. Oh, and there was still the little matter of my tutoring eight hours a week after school, being a school governor, doing university admissions work…

6. And being a mother.

Keeping these six things in play, around supermarket trips, parkruns and yoga, turned into the framework that got me through the subsequent two months. That, and the ruthlessly and insistently appointed two-woman support group of Viking Sisters, who used Whatsapp to keep me off the ceiling, breathing, moving forward. Two months of going to the breast clinic for mammogram and biopsy, then having a second (eye-watering) biopsy, then being told by phone that there was, in fact, a minute carcinoma, but having to wait for the official confirmation, because there was a second area in doubt. There was the small matter of going on holiday with my extended family at Easter, and not being able to tell them. There was the delightful coincidence of my 48th birthday, three days ahead of the surgery.

To my immense surprise, deciding to tell no one, not even my mum (apart from my husband and my corralled Viking Sisters, who didn't have a choice in the matter), turned out to be the right move. I longed to scream the news from the rooftops, in the hope this would somehow save me from actually having cancer, but at the same time, I knew that I had to keep my head down, shuffling on, bracketing, parking, compartmentalising, prioritising. And to my second immense surprise, doing this gave me a huge boost of power and motivation.

Being, as I am, a recovering Proustian, and therefore given to telling everyone absolutely everything that happens to me, in laborious detail, using the imperfect tense, not telling people about the most frightening thing that had ever happened to me was weird. I had a secret.

Twelve years ago, when I was – as I never tire of telling people – kicked out of Cambridge for having a baby and a father dying of dementia, my head of department worked as hard and ruthlessly to push me to resign, as I worked from February to April of this year, keeping my secret.

She made damn sure that when I went to her, requesting flexible or part-time working post-birth, she left no stone unturned in humiliating me, trying to invade my personal life, and ultimately in just refusing my request. I could have done all my teaching in the time available as a part-time lecturer, and would have done it, didn't want to let my students down. Oh, she was thorough. She'd spent three years getting me ready for the final push, undermining me and provoking me. I mean, she was really very good at bullying. It's an art form.

As I went on to realise after quitting, and having to struggle without a job or a pension and two babies, I'd also been a very willing little helper. Good little girl that I was, I had willingly swallowed her hatred, and patted it into place with the rest of the things I loathed about myself. I was, it slowly dawned on me, good at being bullied.

When you find a lump, you go through a range of emotions: fear, anger, hysteria, grief are the main ones. When I found my lump, I duly went through all these things.

But something else happened too. I started to call my lump Wendy, in honour of the toxic waste I'd swallowed at the hands of my erstwhile head of department. In honour of the woman who was in a position of power over me, and saw fit to try to destroy a young woman at the start of her career. Because one thing was for sure. I was going to get rid of Wendy. My surgeon was going to help me to deal with my inner bullied once and for all.

And it was't just my surgeon. I knew I had to tell my new boss that I was going to have to slow down, maybe stop for a bit once the surgery was definitely going to happen. I dreaded telling her as much as I dreaded having surgery.

In the event, I need not have worried. Because the only thing my boss was worried about… was me. She just told me to do what I could, and not to fret about it. I went into the surgery on Thursday, safe in the knowledge that I worked for a woman who cares about her employees, who has worked out that a little trust is rewarded with a lot of loyalty, who likes herself enough to like other women.

Thank you

It's taken twelve years, but I am finally free of Wendy. She's out of my system. I wish her well, and hope she hasn't managed to destroy anyone else. Women like her are poor, sad victims of patriarchy and misogyny. I know now that she is to be pitied rather than feared. I know now that it's possible to be a feminist and to dislike women who bully other women. I should have taken her to a tribunal, and didn't have the strength. And wanted out, in the end.

Women who criticise, judge and bully other women are exactly like cancers, our own cells turning on us. If we want equality and freedom, we've got to have the courage to out them.

My daughter and I are running Race for Life on Saturday 9 July. If you would like to support us, please, please do. You can make a donation by following the link.