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The Time Between Scans
In December 2020, my mother’s shoulder started hurting, and from time to time pain would shoot into her breast. It wasn’t unbearable — just constant. She knew this was different.
Maybe it wasn’t even a feeling. Maybe it was thirty years of nursing experience telling her something wasn’t right.
So, before Christmas, she went for a breast ultrasound. The examination clearly showed lumps — in both breasts.
The suspicion of cancer hung over Christmas and New Year’s that year. But by early January, after the mammogram, there was no longer any doubt.
Cancer.
My sibling and I had an unusual reaction. When we found out that because of her diabetes she would need insulin for the rest of her life, we fell apart. But the news of cancer pushed everything else aside.
Find a doctor. Start treatment as quickly as possible.
After hours of reading and conversations with doctors, hope was still there. Surgery. Treatment. Stage two. We had caught it in time. Somehow, compared to the thought of lifelong insulin injections, it seemed less cruel.
But it wasn’t.
It was cruel because the question returned with every CT scan, every three months.
