There are moments in life when everything you thought you knew about yourself shatters with a single sentence. For me, that sentence came in the form of a phone call: “The biopsy confirmed what we suspected. You have cancer.” This blog is my space to share an unfolding story, one I never expected to write. Cancer became part of my life with a single phone call. Since then, I’ve also learned I have a very rare genetic mutation – and it isn’t just mine. This discovery has changed how I see my body, my health, and my future. This isn’t a story with neat edges or easy answers; it’s messy, raw, and constantly evolving.
I’m sharing these thoughts in draft form because, honestly, I’m still working through them. My hope is that in writing this, I’ll make sense of something that feels senseless, and that by sharing these moments, maybe someone else out there feels a little less alone. I don’t know what’s next, but I know I’ll keep writing my way through.
Why is it that life often confronts us with that which we have always feared? An ache. A pain. A cramp. A lump. My mind flutters in and out of what it could be. Nothing, I hope. I want to believe it’s nothing, but I know too many times *for others* that it’s been something. Like the tide pools of the Pacific, cancer gnaws at your body, little by little, eroding, distorting, and destructing – and what it leaves behind feels vastly different from the beauty we find at sea. It happens slowly and often we don’t even know it’s there.
Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Malignant neoplasm of the left breast. Tumor size: 1.8cm x 1.4cm. ER+ HER2-. Grade 2. I have no idea what any of it means, with the exception of one word. Carcinoma.
I say it back to the nurse on the phone. “Cancer? I have cancer?” The words feel foreign, like hair in my mouth, something that shouldn’t be there. Time starts to warp, every second stretching to feel like minutes, hours. I feel oddly detached, as if for a moment I’ve escaped myself and am watching someone else’s life unravel. It’s surreal, this feeling – hearing the one word I’ve feared the most and struggling to believe it applies to me. My imagination darts into dark corners where it doesn’t belong. The nurse apologizes for having to share the news. I have so many questions, yet I sit, silent. How do I process this? One day I’m excitedly packing for a long-awaited move across the country, a dream I’ve had for years. The next, I’m grappling with my own mortality.
I’m 38. I’m too young. I can’t do this.
I found the lump in my left breast a week and a half earlier. I’ve had a week and half to consider hearing this word, cancer. Yet, I’m unprepared. I don’t know what to do or what to say. After what probably seemed like an eternity for the nurse (I can only imagine she wanted to get off this call as badly as I did; after all, it must be painful to deliver such news), I began to ask a flurry of questions.
What does this mean? How bad is it? What stage? Is this going to kill me? What are the treatment options? How fast can they cut it out?
I want the most aggressive treatment as quickly as possible – as if speed could make my cancer vanish. Wishing for certainty that I can’t have; I push for answers I’m nowhere near ready to receive. I can hear it in the nurse’s voice, too – her hesitance, the forced calm. I can tell, even over the phone, I’ve overwhelmed her. My sister is a nurse. I know there are limitations to what they can say, but that doesn’t stop the words from barreling out of my mouth. I’m terrified. The thing I’ve been so scared of for so long is now in front of me and I need to know “Am I going to die from this?”
Looking back, I regret not only asking that question but even having that thought at all. Why wasn’t I the kind of person who could answer this call and receive this news with the confidence of my 7-year-old asking for ice cream for the 47th time in one week? I wanted to be one of those people who could face this news with a firm resolve, who could stare cancer in the face and say, “You don’t get to decide whether I live or die” – much like how I’ve watched my Dad handle living with cancer for the last 16 years. I did eventually get there, but it took some time, and it took a team.
If you’ve been in these shoes, you know the confusion, the fear, the hurricane of questions that come day and night. Cancer feels like such a distant possibility until, for some, it becomes immediate and real, reshaping life in an instant. I’m still figuring out what it means to live with this uncertainty, to keep moving forward as the ground shifts beneath me. There’s no roadmap for this journey, but I’m learning one moment at a time how to live with raw fear and confusion and questions and hope – and how to breathe through it all.