Today is one of Mother’s immunotherapy treatments. She thinks it is the next to last one.

I’m riding in the backseat. My dad is driving. We are halfway to the big city heading down I-22. Bright flashes of lightning make Mother jump. She’s looking at her calendar app, using a toothpick as a pointer to count back the weeks.

She has gone every three weeks since November for immunotherapy treatments, and before that it was every week for chemo, due to a breast cancer diagnosis back in the summer.

She’s going back in time to December, and now October and November.

She is hopeful it is just one more, after counting it up. No, that’s not right, she says, talking to herself.

She returns to her calculations.

My backseat view is perfect for watching the activities of my parents and the gray sheets of rain ahead of us. Mother takes a sip of water. Daddy comments on the situation.

“Man, that’s some rain there.”

Mother obsesses over her patient portal.

Daddy continues, “You know, we’ve not had that bad wind yet.”

“No, we haven’t,” replies Mother.

I check the radar on my weather app. Our blue dot is in the middle of a red blob, and it doesn’t appear that we will drive out of it. The storm will be with us all the way.

A tremendous flash of lightning and peal of thunder don’t faze Mother this time as she continues her portal quest, now looking for what, I’m not sure.

“What are you growing this year?” Daddy asks me.

Weeds, mainly.

Their gardening efforts thus far: green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers, and Mother interjects that they stuck out some of them little peas on the cucumber row, because they’re companion plants.

Potatoes, of course. And the figs look good.

”How are the blueberries looking?” I ask.

Mother’s thoughts shift: “Oh my word, we’ll probably be out there picking at night, got blooms all over them. We’ll have to keep them watered. Some last year were the size of our thumbs. We’ll have to go ahead and start spraying them with neem oil pretty soon. Plums are in bloom, and we’ll have to spray them too, or else the bugs will get them.”

Mother is now looking out the window, her phone and her patient portal. We are running the main drag of 78 Highway through Forestdale.

They go the old way to the hospital.

Mother continues. “We’ll let the ground dry out and let it warm up a little more and we’ll plant corn and okra. We’ll plant peanuts so we’ll have green peanuts. The peanuts you get at the store aren’t any good. We got our blackberries moved and planted. We found some Apaches at Chambers.”

“How are you doing with your whole experience,” Daddy asks.

He’s not referring to gardening.

I’m feeling more normal every day, I say.

How often do a mother and daughter have breast cancer at the same time?

My journey has been relatively short thus far. My cancer was removed via an excision in November, when it was still just a small, suspicious pinprick on a mammogram. The initial biopsy finding was benign, but it was best to remove it, concurred the radiologist and my surgeon. It was a good decision, because it ended up being the real thing.

My bilateral mastectomy was in February of this year, a surgery to decrease the odds of recurrence and of going through what Mother is experiencing.

She is 75 and has lost her hair.

She is 75 and having hot flashes.

Who knew that your fat cells still produce estrogen, long after your ovaries have gone kaput?

Then again, she is 75 and still living.

My odds of recurrence are now reduced by 90%. It’s not 100%, but I’ll take it.

We are in the last mile to the hospital and are stopped at a red light.

To our left, a large truck’s brakes slip, and the truck rolls forward slowly. Whether it was driver error or something mechanical, we’ll never know. As we drive past, we see the driver of the truck standing between his front bumper and the scratched rear end of a black car only a foot or so ahead. He is on his phone, looking back and forth from his bumper to the car, and the pouring rain is beating down on him.

Mother moves faster at doctor’s appointments. She stubs her shoe on the hallway floor on the way to the restroom and she stubs it on the way back, tripping both times, but she avoids a crash. She is doing better than the driver, at least.

The doctor’s office has a new computer system, complete with mobile check in. It requires a scan of the patient’s driver’s license. Mother navigates the process, turning her license first this way, and then that way, before she is able to proceed.

There is also a medical history questionnaire to complete, only once a year, we are told. The receptionist hands Mother a tablet. There are questions on her entire medical history, which is already on file.

“Just put ‘on file’,” says the receptionist. 

Except sometimes dates are needed.

And dosages.

And ages.

And you get error messages.

Just make it up, says Daddy.

Mother’s face flushes red. “My blood pressure is going to be high.”

I take the tablet and help finish it–for the last two questions.

The receptionist reminds her it is only once a year to complete it.

Mother’s blood pressure is 172/90.

The doctor comes in, and she compliments Mother’s new hair growth. Mother says she thinks she may keep it like this. Much cooler for gardening and fishing.

“And how many treatments to go,” asks Mother.

“This is seven of fourteen, so that will put you finishing in August.”

August.

Mother goes to the treatment room. Daddy goes to the vending machines. I return to the waiting area, which smells like dirty bodies. One man has fallen asleep and is snoring. A lady sitting on the opposite side of the snorer is eating pork rinds. Another young woman is staring at me. I smile at her, and she smiles back.

Our attention is drawn to the TV screen nearest us.

“How can your cancer journey help others?” reads the caption.

And then, a verse: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).

It will be August now.

Until then, we will keep traveling.

We will keep living.