Breast Cancer The year was 1947. I was twelve years old and scared. Something was wrong. Mom cried a lot, spent hours lying on her bed, and refused to talk to anyone. Dad walked around looking angry and growled at me when I spoke to him. I'd seen him like this before. He wasn't really mad. He was worried, like the time the hail wrecked the wheat.

I could feel the tension, but in those days they still considered me a young child, and there were certain things you just didn't discuss with children. One day I came in from a walk and found Mom and Dad sitting on the couch. She had been crying again and Dad looked like he was near tears as well. I couldn't stand it any more. I sat down on the floor at their feet and burst into tears.

"It's going to be all right," Dad said, smoothing my hair. "Your mother has to have an operation, like when she had her appendix out. When it's over she'll be home again, and she'll be fine."

His words were reassuring. However, the tone of his voice and the worry lines on Mom's face weren't. I didn't sleep much that night.

The next day, Dad took me to stay with my grandmother. He was taking Mom into the hospital to have the operation. I still didn't know what was wrong with my mother. Dad stopped by my grandmother's every night. They tried to act cheerful, but I could hear fear in their voices. Then one night when they thought I was sleeping, I heard them asking the dreaded "What if" questions. "What if she doesn't make it? What if she doesn't come home?" I cried myself to sleep.

It seemed like forever before I knew Mom was on the mend. Then one day Dad told me to get dressed up. He was taking me into town to visit Mom. We picked flowers from the garden and made up a pretty bouquet. I danced all the way to the car, grinning.

But when I walked beside Dad into the room where Mom lay, I didn't feel like smiling or dancing. She looked pale and sick, and she had tubes and needles sticking into her it seemed like everywhere. But worse yet, the top of her nightie was open and her chest was swathed in bandages. The right side was so --- flat! Then I realized she had no breast on that side.

I stared at her in horror, the flowers forgotten in my hands. Then I started to cry. That was when the nurse came in. She took one look at me and then at Mom.

"You shouldn't be in here!" she said. "Go on, child. Get out."

She frightened me, but I felt anger as well. This was my mother. Didn't I have the right to see her?

Dad gently took the flowers and put them on the bedside table. Then he led me outside to the waiting room. In those days, no one under sixteen was allowed to visit a patient. He comforted me for a few minutes and then returned to say goodbye to Mom. I was devastated. All I wanted was to run back into that room and give Mom a big hug.

Mom recovered, but it was a long road. Even after she came home she had to make frequent trips to the Cross Cancer Clinic in Edmonton, a two and a half-hour drive, for therapy. She had radiation treatment. She may have also had chemotherapy because she lost her hair by the handful. But the trips became less frequent, and finally things went back to normal.

Ten years later the worries began again. Newly married, this time I was old enough to know what was going on. The doctor had found a lump in her other breast. A biopsy revealed cancer. She would have to have the second breast removed. This time, instead of our small town hospital, she had the operation in the University Hospital in Edmonton. Methods and conditions had improved a great deal since the first operation.

When the doctor saw the ugly red scars from the previous mastectomy, he was shocked. "My God, woman" he said. "They didn't operate on you. They butchered you!"

But when she had that first surgery, they did the best they could in our small hospital. The doctor had probably never performed the operation before.

After the second operation, Mom had to go through all the radiation therapy again. The treatments left her sick and depressed, and she lost more hair. And, for the rest of her life, she lived in dread of cancer. Every illness, every small sore, she was sure it was a return of the dreaded disease.

Mom passed away in November of 1999. She was 89, and died of a stroke. Cancer never struck again.

Shortly before her death, I had my yearly mammogram. I had been having these for years, and the results had always been normal. In December, I received a letter. The mammogram had shown an abnormality in one of my breasts. I had to go for more tests.

I know it's a cliché, but I can honestly say I felt like the blood froze in my veins. I had to wait two weeks before I could get in for the tests. In those two weeks, I alternated between tears and anger. Was I going to go through the same thing my mother had - the operations - the radiation treatments? To make it worse, she had been in her thirties. I was over sixty. Would I be able to stand the surgery and the treatments if I did have cancer?

My daughter drove me to the clinic in Edmonton. I had another mammogram and an ultrasound and got the results immediately. No cancer, just a water-filled cyst. Nothing even serious enough to need removal. I breathed a sigh of relief.

A kindly nurse, a lady close to my own age, had noted my apprehension. She took me into a quiet room, brought me a cup of coffee, and asked me why I had been so upset. Haltingly, I told her the story of my mother's ordeal. She took the time to talk to me, to explain how much medical technology had advanced since those days. She told me she had lost a breast to cancer and explained the tests, operation and treatment she had undergone.

True, it was much the same as what my mother had done, but new methods had simplified things, improved the treatment and made both the operation and the results safer. Although breast cancer is still a dangerous disease, I now knew just what I would face should it ever strike.

Now I try to make every moment count. I live life to the fullest. Although the worry will always be with me, buried in my subconscious, I have made up my mind I will not let the fear of cancer rule my life.