"You have this disease treated in home country."

As soon as we woke up Wednesday, we had one thing on our minds: the report. We quickly got ready and made our way over to Areum Women's Hospital. I tried not to think about the outcome. I was so nervous I couldn't think.

When we arrived at the hospital, every feeling I had from the previous week returned to me. I hated that place. Bad vibes. Through some broken English, I "conversed" with a Korean girl working at the front desk who eventually led me up to the breast specialist unit of the hospital. It looked all too familiar. I remembered the feelings of my last visit and became sick to my stomach. Soon, 'the doctor' came around the corner. She looked scared to death -- probably for a number of reasons. First of all, she couldn't speak English, which understanably made her nervous to deal with me. Second, the last time she saw me I was balling hysterically. And third, the information she was about to give me wasn't easy for ANY doctor to tell a 25 year old woman.

She led me into her office, looking extremely uneasy at this point, and sat down at her chair holding a large brown envelope. As I was about to take a seat, she blurted out: "You have this disease treated in home country." I looked at her, shocked, more at the way she told me then the information itself. I said: "Wait a minute! ... what are you trying to say?" She looked at me quietly and said: "It is malignant." I began to try my best to explain to her that I didn't want her to tell me anything else. I wanted her to give me the report so I could take it to a better doctor who could speak better English. Thoughts were rushing through my mind. I felt anxious. I didn't want to talk to her. I just wanted the report and I wanted to get out of there. She couldn't understand me. I started to get very frusturated and I know I acted very rude. I said: "Give me the report!" I think she could sens ethat I was getting frusturated, so she paged the hospital manager who could speak some English. He told me he would do up a translated version of the report for me. He said: "You have ... malignant mass ... .67 mm ... you need remove ... as soon as possible." I KNOW WHAT I HAVE, JUST GIVE ME THE REPORT! I turned to Mike and told him I couldn't wait another minute for the report. I really can't tell you why I wanted the report so badly. Probably because I didn't want to hear anything. I didn't want to know. Mike said he would wait for it and I told him I would meet him at the payphone around the corner. I ran out of the hospital as soon as I could. I had never been in such shock in my life.

I remember the walk to the payphone (about 2 minutes around the corner) seemed like an eternity. It felt like the world around me was moving in slow motion. I saw young Korean girls laughing and felt envious. I saw people conversing and going about their daily activities as nothing and I longed to be able to go back to normal life. But I realized that from here on in life would never be as it was even a week earlier.

I picked up the payphone and called my mother. It was 12 pm in South Korea, but 12am in N.S., Canada. Nonetheless, my parents were awake. They had, too, been waiting the entire week for this information and were sitting by the phone all evening wondering what the test results would yield. As soon as I heard my mother's voice I began to sob. I said: "Mom, I have cancer!!!!!" I know most people would have tried to break the news in a better way than this, but you have to realize that I was hysterical, in shock, and not thinking straight when I phoned her. I had just been extremely rude and disrespectful to the doctors and hospital staff too. All I heard was silence. Then I heard my father in the background asking what was going on. She told him. They were both in shock too. However, they remained calm (at least to me) and told me everything would be ok. I told them I would tell them more after I spoke to the second doctor and hung up. Then, impulsively, I called my brother in New Brunswick, who was half asleep. I sobbed in his ear. I remember saying: "I have cancer... I'm only 25 ... I'm in South Korea ... I'm on the other side of the world ... why is this happening to me ... what am I going to do?!?!" People stared at me as they walked by the phone. This wasn't uncommon, being a tall blonde in an Asian country, but now I think I was becoming even more of a spectacle: a tall blonde crying hysterically in the middle of the street in an Asian country. My brother had nothing to say. He told me to calm down and that I would be alright. I hung up when Mike arrived back with the report.

As you can probably suspect, we were both a mess. Picture being just 25, being on the other side of the world away from your family, and being told that you have a life-threatening disease. Picture being 23 and finally meeting the woman you love and being told that she now has breast cancer, a disease that kills. All we could do was be there for eachother, and we immediately began to appreciate eachother onehundredfold. I need to say that if it weren't for Mike, I don't know what I would have done.