Claudette had been having trouble with her right breast ever since sliding off the side of an aluminum boat when it was rocked by a wave. As a clam poacher turned licensed clam digger she’d seen twenty years of every kind of sea, weather and human scenario and considers herself one salty dog. When soreness developed into a cyst on her right breast she discussed home remedies with a few women friends. We’d all agreed that a fresh garlic compress might help draw the cyst. When I dropped by next morning to see how Claudette had faired I found her crying. She had put the crushed garlic directly against her skin overnight. First a cyst, now a burnt boobie and a bra that reeked of garlic.
Months later driving to Vancouver we’re laughing about the burnt boobie to fill the empty fearfilled space that otherwise looms. Doctors have lanced the cyst, done a biopsy, and a panel of eight doctors are evenly divided, yes its cancerous, not it’s not. Claudette has an appointment to see a specialist who wants to schedule cancer treatments, maybe more surgery. With every conversation she had with doctors her fears increased to the point that she could barely speak her second language of English, and didn’t understand much of what was being said to her.
I speak a crude Quebecoise which had improved as I’d come on board to help her through the maze. I’ve seen many women, under pressure from doctors, make fearful decisions that brought disastrous results. I was too close to Claudette to let that happen again if I could help it. As well, every fiber of my being was screaming that she didn’t have cancer, she had an inept medical system on her back. Claudette didn’t feel she had cancer either.For the weeks leading up to our trip to the city I repeated my belief that she didn’t have cancer ad nauseum…she kept asking and it made her feel better to hear someone else say it.
When we stepped into the brilliant May sunshine after her appointment we had to look at the hospice that she would have to stay at during the cancer treatment. Going from one gloomy building to another gloomy building on a gloomy mission on such a beauty day seemed sacrilegious. We raced to our hotel room after feeling like truants skipping school. When Claudette and I left the doctors office she had accepted the doctors word, she needed treatment. As we sat on our beds in the hotel room, I asked her again, do you feel you have cancer? Again she said no. I asked, why then would you let them torture you by making you come to the city much less undergoing treatment? Twenty minutes later we booked out of that room leaving the doctors belief system behind. Claudette would not be accepting treatment.
It was a joy to step back into the day. When we were asked if we’d care to join my thirty year old son Aaron for an afternoon at the local nude beach that joy carried the moment, we said yes. Claudette had just been released from what had felt like a death sentence, and Aaron is blind, he can’t see stretch marks and wrinkles, why not go to Wreck Beach.
I be honest. It wasn’t until the fellow selling beer for a toonie bent over beside me baring a scrumptious tanned bum that I stripped butt naked too. Claudette followed suit shortly after. Talk about rubber necking, in a few swift hours that first afternoon we saw flesh in every shape and color without apparel. We forgot, for the first time in months, about why we were in Vancouver.
We had two more days in the city before we were able to head home. Both days, as soon as our business was done, we hit the beach, without my son as escort and foil. We giggled and laughed, playing like neither of us had played in too long. I have to share about one fellow in particular who stood out of the crowd, intentionally so. He’d stepped onto a rock a few feet above the sand beach and stood as if surveying his kingdom quite near where we lay supposedly tanning. I spotted him first and nudged Claudette to look. This was no time for nicey social protocols, we stared. This mans penis was covered with piercings, so many that his penis was stretched by the weight of the gold rings. It was a wonder to behold and in the moment struck me as completely hilarious or I might have asked what happened when it got hard.
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