One of my all-time favorite shows is ER. The actors and the storyline make it such a great drama. I’ll admit it’s much harder to watch some of the storylines after having children and cancer but I found myself watching an episode the other day on Pop network.
In this episode, “Rescue Me” from season 7, Dr. Green learns he has an inoperable brain tumor while Dr. Corday learns she is pregnant. As I was watching I was thinking wow, shit that is a lot to deal with all at once.
Then I realized wait this is kind of like what I was hit with all at once. Thankfully my tumors were operable and were removed. But instead of the dealing with a cancer and pregnancy among my husband and I, it was me dealing with both at once.
Thankfully we got the best possible outcome with a healthy baby and successful surgery and treatment of my cancer. It was so stressful and scary and so much to worry about between both the baby and myself. I’m glad I was able to focus on doing whatever I needed to do to keep my baby and self healthy and not focus on the scary and shitty diagnosis.
I definitely have a different perspective watching the show now than I did years ago. Sometimes the show is hard to watch and sometimes I cry watching episodes. But I guess it was like that before cancer and kids too. Who didn’t fight back tears in the episode when Dr. Green died?
So I’m finding myself hooked on ER again and watching again today. Season 7 was one of the best with great storylines: Dr. Green dealing with a brain tumor while Dr. Corday is pregnant, Dr. Weaver struggling with her sexuality, Abby dealing with her manic mother (Sally Field was amazing in this role), Dr. Kovac and his struggles with faith while treating the Bishop, brilliantly played by James Cromwell, Dr. Chen dealing with her unplanned pregnancy and adoption and the complicated love triangle with Abby, Dr. Carter and Kovac. (I always wanted Carter and Abby to end up back together but oh well!)
The drama of all this is so powerful because it’s so real. I know too well the reality of dealing with a tumor and pregnancy at the same time. Sometimes I do look back and think how the hell do I make it through all that? How did I stay so strong? Sometimes it’s upsetting and hard to look back on and other times I look back proud of all I was able to get through. This episode reminded me that I went through something incredibly challenging and difficult and made it out ok. I am one tough mother.
#pregnantwithcancer #chemo #breastcancerbattle #cancerdiagnosis #ER #onetoughmother