Marina Stories

Chapter 10 - She will be mine again

The feel of those hands on her outstretched shoulders was so nice. Her whole body was tense and she was going to take advantage of these two days and the spa of this five-star hotel to relax and clear her mind.

"You can turn around now, ma'am." said the massage therapist.

Carina requested a full-body massage, and despite not being very modest, she was still careful of people who might see her or touch her scantily clad body. But here the spa was high quality and the masseur very gay, from what she saw.

Her eyes were closed as time passed, and she reached almost complete relaxation, while those soft and warm hands were on her collarbone, the sides of her breasts, her armpits, her waist, her belly.

"Hmm?" she moaned, opening her eyes, thinking the masseur had spoken to her.

"I said I felt some kind of mass on the side of your left breast." He smiled and continued his work. Carina closed her eyes again and thought no more about it.

It was almost a week after this incident at the spa that she thought about it again. As she took her shower late at night after work, she felt it, that mass in her left breast. She finished her shower and her body still dripping with water, she stood in front of the mirror and with a trembling hand she medically palpated her breast.

It was still there.

She had her mammogram about...a year ago? She couldn't remember very well, with all that had happened, she wasn't sure.

She dried her hair, then put on a long t-shirt that came to mid-thigh, then lay down on her bed where she checked again.

There was no doubt, it was clearly a mass.

She slipped under her sheets and closed her eyes to sleep. But her mind started racing. She was an OB, and she knew the diagnoses and the odds. She reassured herself by thinking it was probably just a benign cyst and that the mammography she would hasten to do the next day would confirm it.

xxx

She remembered when her mother had told her. She remembered the anger, the frustration, the bitterness, and her anger at the world. She was also angry at her mother, because she had wasted their time together by leaving, so much time that they couldn't catch up. But also against her father, because he had deprived them of this time by refusing to treat himself and forcing her mother to leave with Andrea. She also remembered the denial, she refused to admit the truth.

It all came back to her as she heard the radiologist tell her what he thought it was, but they would need the biopsy results first to be sure, but Carina was an OB and one of the best.

She knew.

She was so cold, alone, in that white room.

xxx

She was in her office when Amelia, Teddy and finally Jo came in. Carina had met Jo earlier that day and showed her the scan, of course, she needed a second opinion, and she trusted her as much as herself. And it was the same thoughts, the same suspicion, the same confirmation. They just needed to wait a few days for the biopsy to be sure.

She looked at her friends and smiled, Amelia rushed into her arms.

"Amelia," Carina growled.

"It's okay, you're going to have surgery to remove the mass and then we'll see if you need chemo." Amelia said. Jo was already crying as Teddy sat in the corner, the thinker as always.