Contrary to what many people believe, it’s usually not an oncologist who brings the worst imaginable news — rather, it’s an OB/GYN, a urologist, or a gastroenterologist (example given).
The initial cancer diagnosis is not the actual bomb — this is just a first step in a process which will eventually determine how your future will be sculpted by your condition.
In a next step — and this is the big one — your physician will try to determine through a number of medical tests, in what your stage your cancer is in. Again: this could be a game changer. And in some cases the game changer.
This time, the patient in front of you is waiting for the news.
She has a urological cancer, and she is also very young. In fact, she is so young that she should not even be here in the first place (cases like this are very rare, and often very bad).
The urologist looks at the MRIs, and at the protocol written by the radiologist. And she sees the black dots of various sizes which are near the patient’s spine, and knows what is next. Because if these dots are connected, the word spells “metastasis” and the future spells “empty.”
On the other side of the desk, a 21-year-old mother is sitting, afraid, but she has hoped, and prayed, and cried over the worst-case scenario, and still she also looks eager to know what the images are telling — only hoping for the best. Hoping to be a mother for her child, long enough to not be forgotten.
And within a couple of minutes, she will know.
And she will cry.