The girls I know at the Young Survival Coalition website have discussions on many topics about the impact of cancer on our lives. Sometimes though someone comes up with an idea to lighten things up. Here are the most popular things we don't want to hear from our doctors...

1. When complaining to my plastic surgeon about the funky shape of my tissue expander, he said "Well, its sort of like a beach toy that is not fully inflated yet".
2. When asked to take part in a clinical trial suitable for stage II cancer I asked my oncologist "So that means I'm stage II then?". He said "Yeah at least!"
3. After taking samples of my tumor, my physician asked "Do you want to see them, they look like little tiny pieces of angel hair pasta?"
4. After discussing plastic surgery for breast cancer my plastic surgeon said "You know they are never going to look real".
5. When discussing with my oncologist about getting my port removed he said " Well, I guess we can put it back in if we need it".
6. Talking to my oncologist he says, "Well everything is fine, for now"
7. My primary oncologist asked me "So, who is your primary oncologist?"
8. My plastic surgeon remarks "I hate making nipples".
9. Arriving to get a mammogram a few years after a breast cancer diagnoses. "Why are you here?".

I was present for death only one time in my 36 years of life. I consider this both a bad and a good thing. It's bad because I did not want my grandmother to die -- and watching it happen made it so real, so vivid, so painful. I don't think I would have ever chosen to watch my grandma die -- to watch her slip from consciousness to coma, to observe her altered body once death arrived, to witness the movement of her body on a stretcher as it was wheeled out of the house from the bedroom I still see every time I visit my mom's house. But I think I am lucky really -- and this is the good part -- because I got to be with her during her final moments. I got to watch her body as it lay still, peaceful and calm and still breathing. I got to talk to her and although she could not respond, I believe she could hear my words. And it makes me happy to know my grandma may have known I was with just prior to her flight to heaven. And after her flight, I got to touch her cool hands. I got to feel the power of the passing of one life -- a long life -- and I got to feel the comfort of a death that was not ugly or painful or difficult. It was sad -- it's still sad -- that my grandma died three years ago. But what a privilege it was to be part of the day she left this world.

Susan DeWilde left this world in much the same way -- with loved ones by her side. She was a fighter and had conquered several rounds of breast cancer, a tumor in her spinal cord, uterine cancer, lymphatic cancer, and then leukemia, which took her life at the age of 53. I don't know this from Susan herself but from her friend, Christy Mack -- who helped her accept her death and guided her into her own final moments so that she could escape her pain and die peacefully. Christy writes about her beautiful friend and her empowering death in an article that appears in the August 2006 Oprah Magazine. Titled Friends to the End, Christy's story details how she soothed her friend, cradled her hand, and talked her through her last breaths. She helped her on her way during a time her friend feared most. Christy writes, "What she and I shared the night she died was a precious gift of friendship, emotionally profound and sacred in its perfection. It broke my heart. It strengthened my soul."

This I understand.

I am always a bit nervous before I head out for a check-up with my oncologists. I have two of them -- a medical oncologist who delivered my chemotherapy and a radiation oncologist who delivered my radiation therapy. Today I see my radiation oncologist and she will examine my breasts and manipulate my breasts and feel my underarms and check for lymphedema -- swelling in the arm due to removed lymph nodes -- and she will ultimately determine whether or not I have anything to worry about at this time. It's been just over one year since my last radiation treatment and six months since I saw this doctor for a follow-up.

So I am a little apprehensive about what I might hear -- because it's always possible that something does not feel right, that something is questionable, that something has returned. I am mostly confident that I am okay but there is still an unknown that lies ahead of me. An unknown that in a matter of a few hours will be known. And I will either learn that I am in fact okay. Or I will begin another spiral into the what-if-it's-cancer scenario. Only time will tell.