sometimes prayers trump privacy, mom

My mom has remained pretty tightlipped about this whole cancer thing, and she has asked me to keep the news to myself as well. I think it's mostly because she doesn't want anyone feeling sorry for her. I understand where she's coming from but I'm conflicted, because hello, one of my favorite things to do is spit out all my complaints onto this blog and then relish in the love and support from my readers. It must be a personality thing.

But the other day, not too long after she heard that they think the cancer was mostly cut out, I felt vindicated. Apparently one of the pathologists (disease-specialist doctors) ran into my mom in the cafeteria after her results came back. This pretty important dude told her that the reason it took slightly longer to get her results is that the laboratory technicians, doctors and analysts were giving the slides of what they cut out and sliced up an extra-thorough search. He said that every single person down there was keeping his or her fingers crossed and praying for my mom. Then this doctor stopped and gave her a big hug.

When she was retelling this story, she got tears in her eyes. To me, it's obvious: When you've worked somewhere for 32 years and have made a name for yourself as a sweetheart who always goes out of her way to help anyone from the janitor to the CEO, word gets around. Even though she might not have met all of these people, everybody knows her--for goodness' sake, on phone directories where numbers are listed by department, instead of the name of her area it just says her name.

I'm glad I opened my trap and told more people about what my mom is going through. Because we're not out of danger yet, and as helpless as I feel about this stuff, any tiny little good vibe that comes her way might just make all the difference.