Oh God, What Have We Done?

"Well the colposcopy is performed with the patient lying on her back, legs in stirrups, and buttocks at the lower edge of the table. I will examine your vulva first, ..."

"Oh, you just did that last night, did you see anything wrong there, my dear?"

"Mother, please I'm trying to be serious. Next, I'll place a speculum in your vagina and examine it for any suspicious lesions. Then with an ectocervical biopsy brush, which we use in place of punch forceps during colposcopy, I'll collect a full transepithelial tissue sample to send to a pathology lab for evaluation and diagnosis of possible cervical cancer."

"You think I have cerv..."

"Helen, I don't think anything right now, and you are making this very difficult for me; now do you understand why..."

"Sorry, Love, I'll keep quiet."

"Next I'll perform a colposcopy; this is a medical diagnostic procedure to provide me with an illuminated, magnified view of the cervix and the tissues of the vagina and vulva, you know what that is, don't you?"

"Yes, I know; does it hurt?"

"Not generally, sometimes a little burning after the application of acetic acid if there are any lesions; I'll use a topical anesthetic such as lidocaine or a cervical block to decrease your discomfort, and just to be sure and not have to repeat the exams again, I'll do an endocervical curettage. I'll use a long straight curette or a cytobrush to scrape the inside of the cervical canal. I'll carry all samples to the biopsy lab myself on Monday morning, then we wait."

Helen, silent and thoughtful after her daughter's explanation, shook her head as if to dismiss unpleasant thoughts, and quietly said, "Oh my, my, it's already past noon, what do you say we eat out, and it's my treat?"

"Are you up to going out?"

"Yes, I want to enjoy life with my love and lover; it's been so long!"

So they did.

They went to the clinic midmorning the next day, where Moira performed the necessary exams on her mother. After she had rested for around sixteen hours, they left the clinic with the samples. Helen was tired and in pain, so she went immediately to bed when they got home, and Moira prepared everything for next day.

After dinner, locking doors and windows, Moira went to bed with her mother. Helen was using flannel pajamas and dressings in her crotch to avoid staining the sheets in case of bleeding, and Moira was careful not to do anything that would cause discomfort to her mother. They hugged and went to sleep in each other's arms.

They slept late Monday morning, and Moira went to shower around ten, dressed, and prepared herself for a trying day. She took breakfast to her mother in bed first, and advised her not to get up throughout the day, be careful with the dressings, to carefully wash herself, no shower, and to immediately call her if she noticed any heavy bleeding. Helen nodded at her daughter/doctor's instructions and went to sleep again after Moira gave her a mild sedative.

Moira took her mother's samples and went to the lab. When the assistant asked for the patient's name for the paperwork, Moira gave her own. The girl opened her eyes as big as saucers, and Moira had to tell her it wasn't hers, but a patient's who didn't want it to be known that she was sick. Lab results would take one week.

The working day was a nightmare for Moira, sick with worry about her mother. At about 6 PM, with the last patient gone, she said her goodbyes and drove to her mother's home. When she got to the clinic parking lot, her father, leaving at the same time, approached her car to greet her, and ask about her health. Moira's only contact with her father was on the rare occasions that they crossed paths in the halls of the hospital.

"Hello, Moira, how are you?"

"Hello, Dr. Song, I'm fine and you?"

"I'm well, thank you: do you know anything about your mother?"

"Yes, I go see her most weekends; don't you go home?"

"Well, er...not lately, it's a long ride, and I have too much work and too little time; besides your mother and I don't have much to say to each other."

"Well, Father, I'll tell her I've seen you, and that you seem to be alright, bye."

"Alright, take care and give your mother my regards."

Moira went to her apartment to see if everything was alright there, took a few clothes and lingerie, and went to her mother's house; her home again after so long. She bought Chinese for dinner on her way, and she was in the house driveway around 7 PM. She entered, checked the locked doors and windows, and went to her mother's bedroom.

Helen was sitting on the bed, surrounded by pillows, watching TV. Her face lit up when she saw her daughter enter. Moira went to the bedside and softly kissed her on the lips.

"Good evening, Mother; how are you feeling, have you bled?"

"Good evening, my love; no, I've changed the dressings twice, and there were les blood each time, and it was just a sample the last time," Helen told her daughter.

"OK, I'll examine you after we have dinner, and if everything is alright, you can take a shower and I'll dress you for the night; are you hungry, shall we eat?"

"Yes, my love, what did you bring?"

"Chinese, and I saw your husband tonight by the way; he sent his regards."

"Did you tell him anything? And he is also your father by the way, you know."

"No, I didn't tell him anything, and yes, I know he is my biological father; only biological. He loves me as much as he loves you, even less, which means not at all."

They ate and talked, talked and ate; when they were finished, Moira told her mother, "You go to the shower now and I'll see how you are down there later, OK, go."

A Helen went back to the bedroom after her shower, and Moira made her lay down on the edge of the bed with her legs up and heels on the mattress. Moira brought a stool to the bedside, made her mother open her knees wide apart, and with the small light on her head lighting her mother's mons and vagina, she made sure there was no trace of the previous day's exams.

"OK, Mother, there is no bleeding and everything is quite normal, I'll put a tampon in your vagina to stop any blood coming down and you may go pee with no trouble at all that way."

Helen blushed deeply and Moira, looking at her, asked what the matter was. Helen said, "I don't have tampons, it's been a while since the last time I needed one?"

Moira giggled a little and said, "Don't worry, I'll use one of mine, I always carry them since I'm quite irregular."

The days slowly went by for Moira. Whatever the hour, she went to her mother's home after work every day, carrying her mother's favorite takeout dinner. They were days of bonding. With a glass of wine or a tumbler of good French cognac, they talked after dinner about their estrangement from the other and about their experiences in life. Without going into more detail, they each talked about their sexual experiences and the 'whys' of things that have happened in their family's lives. They usually curled against the other, softly kissing without passion, until it was bedtime.

Then both, like and old married couple, went to the bedroom undressed, wore pajamas in Moira's case and a nightgown in Helen's, got into bed, shared a goodnight kiss, and turned the light off. Then, in the darkness, they each thought about what the analysis off Helen's disease and the future was going to provide them with.

Moira received an e-mail from the biology lab fifteen days later, pointing out that the tests she had ordered were completed and ready for her pickup. Moira went that same day, and even with all her experience as an MD, she couldn't hurry to open them for fear of what they might say. She took the big envelope, thanked the lab employee, and went to her car to open it in its intimacy.

She opened the envelope, pulled the sheets of paper with the results of the printed analyzes, rapidly scanned them, and an anguished sob escaped from her chest. Her worst fears were confirmed. Her mother was suffering from a terminal case of metastatic cancer.

She was hesitant on the path to follow, she needed a second opinion, that of an oncologist, and wasn't sure how to act regarding her father. He was her mother's husband, even if they were in fact living separately. She finally started the car and headed to her father's office. Without telling whose results they were, she showed them to him.

"Good morning, Father, I want to show you something and want your opinion about it."

He was surprised to see her daughter, and even more so that she requested his opinion, "Good morning, Moira, what can I do for you?"

"Father, I would like for you to look at these lab results and tell me your opinion."

He took the documents from her hands and said, "They haven't the patient's name, how's come?"

"Well, she wants to keep her identity secret, something to do with an inheritance, or something like that."

He sneered, "Typical woman's logic. Let me see..." He looked at the documents in his hands and he suddenly was only a doctor, not her father. He looked at them several times, apparently to make sure of what he was seeing, and he softly said, "Well, Moira, my sincere opinion is that your lady patient is a very sick lady, and should go see a specialist as soon as possible, today if she can."

Moira was thunderstruck; she had assumed as much, but wanted her famous father's opinion to confirm her worst fears; her mother was dying and she didn't feel herself strong enough to tell her.

In short the written lab report said, "...The resulting facts of the examination and studies of the samples are that they contain: Abnormalities similar to those seen in traditional cervical biopsies; we have also detected the tissues have many premalignant lesions in the samples and malignant lesions in the areas under study have discernible characteristics..., that range from reactive squamous and glandular epithelial cells to overt invasive carcinoma..."

That was a night of anguish for Moira; she called her mother to tell her she would be slightly later than usual due to a problem in a patient at the last moment. Helen was waiting for her when she arrived at her mother's home, still up without having gone to bed.

She hugged her daughter, and before Moira could say a word, she said, "You have bad news, don't you, my dear?"

Moira hugged back her mother and her crying filled the room.

"Shush, shush, my love, don't cry, don't cry, I love you, I love you," were Helen's comforting words to her daughter, while Moira's sobs became more and more anguished, and she could only babble, "I'm sorry, Mother, I'm sorry."

After a long time of crying together, Moira could finally tell her mother her illness's medical prognosis. Helen listened to her, not saying a word, and when Moira had finished, her only words were, "So, how much time I still have?"

Moira made an effort to speak as a doctor and not as a daughter, and told her what they had found and that they had to go to an oncologist first, then after treatment and...

"No, my love, I won't go to an oncologist and be treated with chemotherapy and radiation, suffering severe pain and all that, for what, to have how much time, five, six, even seven months to live with a poor quality of life?"

"But, Mother, we could..."

"No, my love, we will live like we are now; we won't tell anybody, not even your father, I would say him least of all. When my time comes, and the suffering is acute, then would be the time for painkillers and my quietly passing away."

"But, Mother, it's my responsibility..."

"No, my love, it's not your responsibility, it's mine, and I will so leave it established in my last will. And now, I'm a little tired, we should go to bed, my love."