I sniffed the folded johnny gown before taking off my sweater and bra, then stripped naked except for panties. I cradled the pile of green, could almost feel Saul as a newborn in my arms, see him jaundiced and yellow, wrapped in a white cloth which smelled just like the gown. We were in hospital for a week after he was born.

But that was another time here, in a different ward.

Athena and I became friends when she attended my photography show Portraits of Grief at a gallery in Halifax. Her niece was in one of the photos. Saul was just a baby then and I had brought him along. He slept in his baby carrier.

I texted Athena when I got the results back from the first mammogram. Abnormal. Athena had been in Toronto at a meeting. She had stepped into the hall and called me on my cell. “Don’t worry. It’s probably nothing, Honeycakes.”

This is Athena’s nickname for both me and Saul.

Then the second test was abnormal, too.

They sent a letter both times. For efficiency. Clarity. So it’s in black and white.

It was a cold day, with a little late-March snow on the ground. The sky was low and grey. The grass was brown and the tree branches were bleak. It was splendid nonetheless. I texted Athena, who called again. I was crying this time. “Could I have chemo and keep working?”

Athena was quiet. “Sure.” Then she cleared her throat. “Are you fucking crazy, Daisy? Do you know how hard that will be?”

I was quiet. Just my gulping breath.

“If you push yourself, maybe,” Athena said.

More silence. We both know I’m self-employed. No insurance.

“It’s probably nothing,” she said. “But if it’s something, it’s probably treatable.”

Right now I’m upside down and Clara is talking but I can’t make out the words. It’s hard to hear upside down. I feel safer with my eyes closed so I can retreat to my inner terrain. Deep breathing . . . four counts for each breath, a hold before exhaling, a hold before inhaling. If you can control your breath and heart, you’ve got it made. This is what I’ve been learning in the community mindful yoga and meditation classes my doctor recommended. Still, my heart pounds and the blood whooshes by my ear canals. When they tip me back around, the blood will pour out of my mouth, a libation to the gods.

A prayer for good genes. For my breasts to be healthy.

Maybe they really have forgotten me. The chirping machines, dinging gadgets, and computerized charts hold their attention, not me, Upside Down Daisy.

While immobilized like this, the last person I want to think about is my sister, Ruth, but of course she forces her way into my mind just as she forces her way into my life. My sister Ruth always says people can’t escape the clutches of their past. She says, in her superior way, that if you apply her formula, you can hold off grief or catastrophe, melancholy, dementia, or blindness. She’s a physiotherapist and she tells all her patients they’ll recover if they do the exercises exactly how and when she tells them.