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How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a specter through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by the spectral throat? -Joseph Conrad
She had the most intense gray eyes I’d ever seen. Her demeanor matched her eyes. A quality of total attention. A stillness. The consulting room was deathly quiet.
She looked at my husband, then at me. A small woman, long-fingered surgeon’s hands, a head too big for her body. She was the chief of Breast Surgery at the most respected teaching hospital in northern California. I could imagine her lecturing to medical students, admonishing arrogant residents to pay attention. Little did I know that I was going to come to both love and hate this small woman more than anyone I’d ever met in my life.
“You have breast cancer,” she said.
My brain took it in, but I wasn’t tracking properly. I didn’t believe her.
She pointed to a series of films mounted on light-boards and plunged into a medical discussion. My husband got up and followed her around, looking carefully at everything and asking for more details. His scientific mind was working hard—trying to disprove what she’d asserted.
Within seconds, I realized I couldn’t hear them, although they were only a few feet away. Reality was starting to penetrate—I have cancer. I have cancer. I have can—a high-pitched scream rose inside, like the shriek of a hysterical child.
Maybe I did scream. Because another doctor, a surgeon-in-training, reached out and patted my hand. “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade,” she said cozily.
I wanted to flip her out of that operatory like I was a heroine in a Jackie Chan movie. What would she say if her plane suddenly lurched, or if she was in a dark alley and a stranger lunged? Make lemonade? Both of these women were going to be involved in my treatment and in some ways I owe my life to each of them. But I think at the moment I would have sold my soul to have never met either one.
I was about to freak out. Correction: I was freaking out. My thoughts reverted to a white-water raft trip I’d taken in Idaho. The T-shirts the guides gave us read: “This place sucks. And you’re not getting out.” I was being sucked down in a whirlpool and nothing was going to save me.
I don’t want to scare you, but that’s how it happens. When we first learn we have breast cancer, fear is no longer an emotion. It is a demon that takes control of our body and confuses our mind.
And here’s the really bad news. You can’t stop the fear…not entirely.
But there is one thing I wish I had known during that first appointment. One thing I wish every woman on earth could be told—because it would make the early days much easier.
That screaming voice warning of coming darkness?
It’s telling a lie.
You will survive your cancer. Maybe not forever, but then no one lives forever. You will survive it long enough to enjoy many good times ahead. You will certainly survive it long enough to fully comprehend all your treatment options and get a second opinion—so don’t let your doctors rush you. And more likely than not, you will also survive it long enough to accomplish all your hopes and dreams.
And here’s something else to keep in mind, because it is tremendously helpful.
Nothing will ever terrify you as much as being told you have cancer. Nothing that happens afterwards will be as traumatic as the moment you hear that initial diagnosis.
Every women I’ve spoken with—including those who are facing their last days with the disease—have confirmed that the initial diagnosis is the most frightening and painful time in the whole experience. No surgery, no treatment, no physical pain, in fact, no other experience except the loss of a loved one, hurts as terribly as hearing those three words: “You have cancer.”
But once we’ve survived that, we’re well on the way to becoming an entirely different person. Stronger. Better. More ready for life with all its joys and sorrows.
Finding out you have breast cancer is like being thrown in an abyss. But there’s a bottom down there somewhere and once you reach it, you’re already past the worst.
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