As we know Ken Jeong not only plays a doctor on Dr Ken, he is one in real life. About a decade ago his world was rocked when his real life wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Eight years ago, she was declared cancer free.
Tonight at 8:30p on ABC, Jeong will relive those emotions in an episode he co-wrote. His TV wife Alison gives herself a breast exam in the shower and finds a lump. Ken freaks out and she tells him to calm down because it is making her nervous. He goes into the bathroom, lets out those nerves and goes back into the bedroom to calm down his wife who has breast cancer run in her family.
He tells his wife to call the doctor and schedule an appointment to find out if it is benign or malignant. She is hesitant to make the call, so he dials the number and runs away. Their daughter overhears the discussion and freaks out. But she doesn’t confront her parents.
Alison is told her doctor is on vacation and can’t see her for 2 weeks. Ken tries to make her an appointment for her and hits the same roadblocks. Then the staff at the Welltopia Medical Group, use all of their contacts and get her an appointment the next day. This is a sad scenario that many people, who discover lumps, find themselves in way too often. Not being able to make an appointment.
The next day Alison and Ken goes to the doctor and they find out the lump is solid and that means it could be cancer. He schedules a surgery the next day to perform a biopsy on the lump and tells her that the results won’t be back in for 24 hours.
During the wait, she starts writing a list of where everything is and the things Ken needs to know if it is cancer and she doesn’t beat it. This conversation is so real, you will feel their pain.
Finally, it is time for the results and you will have to tune in to find out what they are. But more importantly for a very powerful episode that deals with something so many families go through. Thinking you have cancer. Do you tell your family? How do you support your family member going through it? What are they thinking? How do you handle waiting for the diagnosis? And so much more. This is such a well done episode, I think everyone should watch it because it is something most of us will go through in some form of the way. It is preparation for the enviable that I hope none of us face, but most likely will.
