Please, Sir. I want more!

Edited the original post to fix my erroneous quote.

As I sit here, typing up this article, I am reminded of a scene in Oliver Twist, where Oliver sticks out his plate and says, “Please, Sir. I want more!” I hope the universe’s response is more favorable to me than the one Oliver received.

I’m flying out to Portland again on Tuesday to get another PET scan, the eighth since the one that shattered our world two years ago. In March 2024, I received a PET scan that confirmed that the breast cancer I had fought so hard against in 2013 had reawakened and found itself a new home in my spine, hips, and left arm. I had palliative radiation on the spots in my hip and spine and started hormone treatment. Despite not being able to tolerate treatment very well, every PET scan since then has shown no evidence of active disease, to the shock of us all.

In July 2025, I stopped all treatment and expected to land on hospice shortly thereafter, assuming that the cancer would spread like wildfire once there was no medication blocking its expansion, but the universe had a different plan for me. My November scan and then my February scan showed no sign of a recurrence. My oncologist was cautiously optimistic, and although she stated that her educated guess was still that I would have less than a year left to live, she made it clear that no one knows for certain and that I could, in fact, live many more years. Cancer (fuckin’ bastard!) has a mind of its own. It grows when it wants to grow, and it stops when it wants to stop, and we are mere puppets in its hands. Those are my words, not hers.

This scan feels different than all the others. I made the mistake of telling my parents last week that I didn’t feel anxious about this one, and I think the universe took that as a challenge, because I have, since then, lost quite a bit of sleep over the possible results of next week’s scan. You see, the last eight scans, I have expected there to be cancer growth. I have expected to be told that it was time to put my affairs in order and bid farewell to this realm, but this time, I don’t expect that. For the first time in two years, I am actually anticipating a clear scan, and I am terrified of what it will do to me if those damn cancer cells have decided to wake up yet again and throw another party in my body.

How is this different from the other seven scans I’ve had? I think it’s because this time I have hope. I have a life that I fiercely want to live. I have goals, dreams, and aspirations that have grown with each clear scan, and I am clinging to the unlikelihood that I might get to live to old age. My God, I cannot express how much I want to get old!

I told my husband yesterday that I was planning on asking my oncologist how many clear scans I have to have before we can consider me cured. As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized the error of my thinking, and the look on his face confirmed it. We have both heard what so many doctors have told us, that there is no cure for stage four breast cancer, that the cancer cells sometimes go dormant, but they never, ever completely go away, and since it is unlikely that I will every choose to treat again, the odds are not in my favor. We know this, and yet I find myself hoping, begging, dreaming for a miracle. They do happen, and I find myself intreating the universe to give me another chance.

Please. I beg you, with all of the energy and fervor I can muster, let me live!

Let me see my children graduate.

Let me meet their life partners and get to know them.

Let me walk through adulthood with my babies who are just now stepping over the threshold, out of childhood and into the big world.

Let me set my feet into the cold ocean water and breathe in the misty air.

Let me watch the bees buzz around my yard and feel the sun on my face time and time again.

Let me play countless games of ball with my dog and be by her side when she takes her final breath several years down the road.

Let me grow old with the man I love.

Let me plant many more gardens.

Let me make dozens more friends.

Let me continue to learn, and grown, and improve, and thrive.

Please. Let me live.

Photo by Natalie Grainger on Unsplash

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-Becks.