What we don’t know — and why it matters
by Terry Arnold
On a flight to Cleveland, the woman beside me leaned back in her seat and said in a mocking voice, “She waited too long.”
It took every ounce of self-control I had.
After about an hour of silence, we had started talking. She asked why I was traveling, and I told her I was heading to a medical conference to share an open-source document about inflammatory breast cancer. She said that sounded interesting. I don’t think she fully registered the word inflammatory at first — but later, I could tell it landed.
She told me she was a nurse, retired for about thirteen years. She thought it was great to see this kind of education happening. Then she paused.
“Yeah… I had this one really horrible breast cancer patient.”
She described a young woman who came in with a breast that was huge, swollen, and covered in blisters. She said she had asked the patient, “Why did you wait so long to seek care?” The woman replied that she had been busy taking care of her parents and didn’t have time to focus on herself. By the time she realized something was wrong, it looked “pretty graphic.”
Then my seatmate repeated the patient’s explanation in a flippant tone —
“Oh, I was busy with my parents.”
My mind is filled with questions.
Cancer?
Dementia?
A car accident?
What made this woman put herself last while her body visibly changed? Sometimes women do exactly that. They put out the fire right in front of them, not realizing that one swollen breast might be something more ominous. She was probably doing the best she could.
Then the nurse added, almost casually, “Well, she died so quickly.”
She shrugged.
“It hardly mattered.”
The knife felt deeper in my chest.
I waited.
Then, quietly, I asked, “Do you think what she had could have been inflammatory? Because that’s known for rapid onset.”
I heard her take a sharp breath. There was a shift. I could almost feel the realization forming — maybe that’s what it was. The unspoken recognition: I’d never seen it before. I didn’t recognize it.
I don’t think she was responsible. She sounded like someone who had simply been part of an intake team, someone who later learned the woman had passed away. But the weight of that moment hung between us.
The rest of the flight was mostly silent. Before we landed, she asked the name of the charity and wished me well in my work. I suspect that conversation will replay in her mind.
It certainly will in mine.
And it underscores something we must understand: we cannot judge the people who come to us for help. They don’t know what they don’t know.
And sometimes, neither do we — until it’s too late.
That is the divide we must close. Together.