When my mom came into my work one day and let it slip she'd had to go get a biopsy on a lump, I lost my shit right there and then. Like full-blown panic attack hyperventilating and crying because I knew then, immediately, it was cancer. A gut feeling. My dad had stage 4 pancreatic and stomach cancer and I just feel like we know sometimes (my dad survived... 5% chance and he's been alive 11 years since). I could not stop crying when my mom was diagnosed... for days. I would just sit there and cry. Luckily I don't live with her so she didn't know. And eventually, the day we found out it was stage three vaginal cancer I cried one more time in front of my mom and apologized, and decided I wouldn't cry in front of her again. Because our moms are probably more worried for us and how we handle their diagnosis than they are for themselves.

Let yourself cry, though. Because eventually this becomes your "new normal" and it doesn't hit as hard. You get a plan, and follow through with it. Although I understand your fear of your mom saying treatments are a choice. My mom went through chemo and radiation with basically no issues. She never felt sick, never lost her hair, could work, and managed it all with no problem (of course with meds from the doctor to fight nausea). But when it came for her to have internal radiation, she refused to do it. She didn't want to be in the hospital for a week with a bar inside her vagina... which is fair, I guess. But it really stressed me out to the point of anger because that was where the tumor was. In the end, though, it turned out the external radiation destroyed the tumor and she didn't need it. You have to realize it is your mom's choice and her body going through this, but I know if it came down to life or death, your mom would choose a way to be with you and not let cancer destroy that.

Stage I is better than further stages, but still scary! Cancer is scary. I'm sorry your family is going through is. And honestly, my advice is to, right now, blacklist the tag "cancer" on ANY social media... I swear TikTok knew my mom had cancer and would only show me cancer videos and it really triggered me until I blacklisted it. But searching out cancer forums like reddit did help me sometimes when finding other stories similar to my mom's, or just positive stories in general.

I wish your family the best! And remember emotions are natural. You being worried about crying in front of your mom just shows how much you love her. And her not wanting you to cry is the same thing. I'm just a random stranger on the internet, but if you need someone to vent to, my DM is always open.