Pen's first year check up looms but a return to the breast clinic is the last place she wants to be.

"However warm and caring and gentle the staff, there’s no getting round the fact that the breast clinic is not about good news, even the good news I did get there was set against the context of the fact that it could have been much, much worse news. Learning something isn’t as bad as it could have been doesn’t make it good, it just makes it a bit less bad. 

Being braced for terrible news leaves a residue, the walls of the hospital clinic are sticky with it..."