There are few words to describe the moment when medical professionals find something in your body that they believe is cancer. I’ve re-lived that very moment daily for sixteen months. My initial emotions of shock and fear transitioned into acceptance, peace, and countless other juxtaposed feelings. I know that I will never, ever forget that life changing moment!
It didn’t take a formal diagnosis for the impact to hit me. It was the simple recognition of a mass that didn’t belong. For me, it took imaging in an Acute Urgent Care center because of a long-lasting cough. When the first X-ray came back, they came into the room, closed the door, and then attempted a casual conversation about “seeing something” and the need for further imaging.
My heart slowed to what I felt like was a full stop. I don’t know that I heard much else but I understood that I was being taken for a CT scan. I hoped, with every ounce of my being, that there was a logical explanation for the foreign body they’d spotted in my chest. I stayed present and positive throughout the test until the results hit my online medical portal in advance of a doctor explanation.
Whoever decided that it was a good idea to release sensitive medical test results, directly to the patient, made a significant error in judgment. I read my results before I had someone to explain them. I knew that what I saw wasn’t good.
The radiologist suspected that the 16 cm tumor in my chest needed a specialist consult. That is when THE moment began. It was actually more of a bottomless abyss of darkness than a single moment. I simply got lost inside myself – the very bottom of my being entirely collapsed. Time stopped. I descended into a free-fall. Physically, I rolled over onto my right side to face the wall and continued to zone out. By the time the doctor came in, all I actually heard her say was “We’ve consulted Oncology.”
The Urgent Care doctor had also already scheduled an 11 am appointment the next morning with my General Practitioner. I’d learn that he was going to serve as a “general contractor” while we got to the bottom of the origin of the chest mass.
I brought my best friend along to that appointment because I knew that I wouldn’t actually hear any of it. I was still periodically zoning in and out of interchangeable periods of numbness, terror, deep sadness, optimism, resolve and confidence. She asked the questions and played “bad cop” when necessary. (three weeks until my scheduled biopsy? Not acceptable.) I truly hung in this haze of raw, everchanging emotion.
Later that week, the doctors realized that my tumor was rapidly growing and strangling my esophagus and trachea. I was admitted to the hospital within days. That simple step started to clear away the fog lingering in my head. My emotional pallor started to brighten as I met my new oncology team, proactively knocked out all of the testing/port installation, and discussed the plan of attack. Having a direction allowed for the positivity to move back in and start run the show.
Fortunately, I was fast-tracked into the diagnostic phase because of the urgency of symptoms caused by the tumor. Unfortunately, it’s common for a cancer diagnosis to take much longer.
I know how hard it was to live with the smog in my brain during the time between Urgent Care and hospital admission. If I could encourage someone like me, who had to wait for answers, I would gently assure that person that there is a calm oasis ahead. There is great peace in knowing that your doctors will have a plan. There is a peace in a progressively better understanding of your diagnosis. There is a peace in proactively going through treatment.
Also, there is a remarkable, newfound peace in the outpouring of love and support within the community of your family, friends, co-workers and far beyond.
If you know someone who is early in the process of a cancer diagnosis, and you think that they would benefit from a conversation with someone who has been there, please reach out to me.
