A young woman in her early twenties with a kidney tumor. (An extremely rare case from the start.) The tumor has already spread to the lymph nodes, and both the kidney and positive lymph nodes have to be removed. And they are.
But not much later, she is back in the hospital with new symptoms, and the cancer is again in the lymph nodes. She needs a second operation but now the situation is even worse — the cancerous lymph nodes mass is very close to the vena cava (a large vein which carries blood to the heart from other parts of the body), and if it grows some more, it will enter the wall of the vena cava. And that will be the end of it.
The urologist who will perform the surgery knows this, and she also knows that the patient has just become a mother, with a baby of six months old.
Before she goes asleep, she looks the anesthesiologist and urologist deep in the eyes, and asks whether this is her last chance to see her baby become a toddler. And the silence answers her question more than any words can.
Less than two months later, she is in the hospital again. The cancer has grown into her vena cava, and she has only a couple of weeks left. And when she hears the news — which she, as a young, very intelligent and independent woman, had expected but tried to ignore the best she could — she starts crying, crying, crying.
And only one sentence vibrates through her trembling heart as her world shuts down —
Her baby is eight months old.
Her baby is eight months old.