So yesterday I experienced a deeply powerful emotion. I drove 3.5 hours to Houston to help my 80‑year‑old mother get to a series of radiology appointments, including a standard mammogram and breast ultrasound. When we entered the breast imaging center’s main lobby, a small woman with dark hair in her late 30s or early 40s popped up and helped me with the door as I struggled to control my mom’s transport wheelchair while also keeping the door open. I thanked her, we smiled and nodded, and then took our seats to wait.
Eventually it was my mom’s turn, so we headed back to another waiting room — a more private one, decorated with tons of pink and breast‑cancer‑support everything. You know the type: the highly decorated bras, the wishing tree where you can write notes for yourself or others going through breast cancer. At some point we were brought into the imaging room with the mammogram machine. From there it was a cycle of me helping my mom answer questions from the techs, getting her set up, stepping out while they took images, and then waiting while they ran them to the radiologist. The radiologist kept requesting additional images, so I was bouncing back and forth between the imaging room and the lobby.
During one of these back‑and‑forth moments, I found myself in that little private waiting room again — this time with the woman who had helped me with the door. We were on diagonal sides of the seating area but facing each other. She was wearing the same type of gown I had helped my mother into, so I figured she must be in the middle of her own imaging.
A radiology nurse brought her a warm blanket, and she wrapped herself in it. The nurse spoke to her in Spanish, but the one phrase I caught — repeated more than once — was “mass grande.” I watched this kind woman fight back tears as the nurse walked away. Then she pulled the blanket over her face and folded into herself, shaking with quiet sobs.
I didn’t know where she was in her journey or what exactly was happening, but I knew that whatever the nurse had said had struck terror in her. And I remembered. I remembered all of it — the feeling of the floor dropping out from under me, the blood draining from my face, the mental chaos of competing voices shouting so loudly that I couldn’t hear any of them clearly, only the panic.
She was alone. Technically, we were alone together in this little pink waiting room. Without thinking, fueled entirely by compassion, I got up and went to her. I sat next to her and put my hand on her back while she stayed tucked under the blanket. She kept sobbing and shaking, but it felt right that she didn’t have to face that moment completely alone.
Eventually a different nurse came to get her. She noticed the woman was in distress and handed her a box of tissues. Then she looked at me and asked, “Are you with her?” I said no, probably with a concerned but confused expression. I guess it was a little awkward — me touching a complete stranger who was crying in the lobby.
We helped the woman stand, and as the nurse guided her toward the next room, she finally looked at me. Her eyes were full of fear. I opened my arms to offer a hug, and she stepped into it. I wrapped my arms around her, and we shared a gentle but firm squeeze. Then — out of instinct or habit or maybe just mom energy — I kissed the top of her head. She was much shorter than me, so it just happened. Looking back, I’m glad she didn’t freak out. It was quick, but it was genuine.
I wanted to tell her I was six years out from my breast cancer diagnosis and doing fine. I wanted to tell her that maybe what they found wasn’t cancer at all, and that she was in the right place to get answers. I wanted to replace her fear with hope. But that wasn’t the moment, and my Spanish wasn’t strong enough to say any of that with the tenderness the situation deserved.
We dropped the embrace with a quick nod and half‑smile, and then she went into the next room. I went back to bouncing between my mom’s imaging room and the lobby, wondering if I’d see her again. I didn’t. She left while I was with my mom.
Later, that nurse found me and thanked me for my kindness. I told her I was a six‑year breast cancer survivor, so maybe her fear just hit me a little deeper.
I’d like to think it was meant to be — her and me in that little pink waiting room, alone, when she had something big and terrifying to face. She had shown me kindness earlier when I needed a little help, and I hope I was able to return it when she needed comfort.
Who knows.
So here is my question. What is this thing inside me — inside so many of us on the other side of breast cancer — that makes us want to help the ones coming behind us? What do we do with this calling?