After a long process of tests and physicals and wondering, I was given good news today that for now, nothing serious is wrong. The mysterious lump is just a phantom lump that will hopefully disappear quietly in the same manner it appeared. All I have to really worry about is the avalanche of medical bills that will hit me sometime next month.
And I was happy. I hadn’t thought about it much because I figured I’d worry myself to death with “what ifs” and I steered clear of googling symptoms and reading about possibilities on the internet.
Yet, when I received the news it occurred to me that somewhere probably at the same time, someone was getting the opposite news. Bad news that the lump was everything anybody could fear.
My grandfather died this year from pancreatic cancer, and my aunt has just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in her intestines and stomach. She just had her uterus removed and in two weeks will start chemo and radiation.
According to statistics from the American Cancer Society one in two males will develop a form of cancer in their lifetime (prostate, lung, colon and rectum) and one in three females in their lifetimes (breast, colon, rectum and lung). That’s a lot of people getting bad news on a daily basis.
I suddenly wondered how I could be so lucky. Cancer certainly doesn’t care that I’m a single mom and that my daughter needs me, which were the only reasons I could think of that I should not have it.
From all of the tests and such, I learned that at the most, I may have an overactive thyroid which explains why I can’t gain weight and have actually lost weight. Obviously not anything to complain about and I’m hesitant to even tell anyone that.
After my appointments, my mom took me to lunch and was on the phone with my aunt when we met. I realized that even if you’re not worried, just mentioning a lump to anyone will create worry and I felt bad. Seems that it was on everyone’s mind except mine. My aunt mentioned that she was glad the tests came back okay. I had no idea what to say to her.
I wanted to tell her that no one deserves what she’s going through, least of all her. I wanted to tell her how much I wished she had gotten good news too. That somehow, her day could’ve been like mine.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful. More thankful then I could’ve imagined I would be. Just hard to be happy about it.
