The Life-Changing Impact Of A Cancer Scare
Preparing myself for a potential final goodbye
I was positive that I wouldn’t live out the year, maybe not even six months.
“Oh no, girl,” my doctor said as she pushed on my upper abdomen, her brows wrinkled in worry.
There was a mass. I’d noticed it a week before when I shifted the wrong way on the couch and felt pain. A hard lump protruded from my body. Due to the size, it shocked me that I hadn’t felt it before.
I had also lost ten pounds in the last two months without trying, along with dizzy spells and waking up in a cold sweat several nights in a row.
My doctor told me I needed an emergency CT scan and promised to set it up. I asked if I could wait until my grown-up son, Shawn, went home after visiting me. She advised me not to waste any time. Then, she unexpectedly hugged me.
I left the office believing in my heart that I had cancer. When I checked my medical chart online at home, the doctor had written “liver carcinoma with possible metastasis” in her tentative assessment.
I didn’t freak out. I couldn’t freak out because my seventeen-year-old daughter was at home wanting to show me a TikTok video, asking for a peanut butter sandwich, telling me about her day at school. I couldn’t…
