I have a friend from high school who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer a few years before I was. She had a recurrence a few years later and has now been cancer free for about 5 or 6 years. Like me she is mother and is only 41 today. She had a sore ankle and went in for some test thinking maybe she tore some ligaments or something and the Dr does a bone scan. They notice a spot on her collarbone and suggested doing a Ct bone scan.
Now on x-rays a tech touching the films before they were dry, arthritis or any number of things but if you are a cancer patient/survivor your first thought automatically goes to the worst case scenario. As hard as you try to keep positive thoughts the negative ones tend to surface more often than not. She had not told her kids who are 14 and 22 years old because it was close to her son’s birthday and she did not want to worry him and ruin his birthday.
She patiently waited for her test to be scheduled, and then she waited almost a week for the results. Why is it that doctors make people wait? Why don’t they think about if the roles were reversed would they like waiting? Luckily for her the test results all came back negative but for 2 weeks she had a severe case of the What ifs. What if the cancer is back a third time? What if this time it will get me? What if my kids lose their mom too soon?
My friend was lucky this time she is still cancer free but the what ifs will always be there.