Our families are deeply affected.  My poor dad was a “retired” physician, in name only.  In real life, he “doctored” all of us still.   So he was the one who received my breast MRI  even before my doctor did.  As a result, he had the unfortunate responsibility of informing his daughter that she had a messy MRI, full of cancerous lobes and one big malignant tumor. 

His tone was telling of the seriousness of the matter.  He wasn’t without compassion, but rather matter of fact.  Hearing his voice, normally upbeat and happy, was in stark contrast to his resonance  this time.  This was probably the scariest thing to me.   My parents were coming hot off of an arduous year with my sister’s breast cancer debacle just three years prior. Life was almost back to “normal” for them, albeit a new normal, but now it seemed, it would be my turn, round two.