Will She Be There Tomorrow?

I treated a child today who came in for difficulty breathing. He was accompanied by his mother, who had what looked to be like some severe swelling on the upper left hand corner of her face; around her eye and forehead. It didn't take long until we found out what the problem was: the mother had a cancerous tumor, which had grown so large that it was bulging out of her face and made her eye completely sealed shut. At that point, my focus turned from making sure the child was no longer having difficulty breathing (he had been stabilized by then), to worrying about whether he'd even have a mother a year or two down the line. Poor little 6 year old boy. Every time I walked into that room, it became all I could think of. I'd feel a heavy weight on me that almost brought me to tears. I lost my father at a very young age, and while there are occasional moments in which I feel a small void that feels like it could only be filled by havind had my father present in my life, I cannot imagine having lost my mother. For a child, his mother is the core of his universe. What would he do without her?