What Diagnosis Day Actually Felt Like
There are some phone calls you remember because of what was said.
And then there are phone calls you remember because somehow, in the span of a few sentences, the life you were living five minutes earlier no longer exists.
Mine came on a Sunday night.
I had been waiting for the biopsy results for about a week, which meant I had already done what most of us probably do when we're waiting for news we don't want.
I worried. I prayed. I tried not to worry. I tried to keep doing normal life. And somewhere in there I probably convinced myself at least a few times that everything was going to be fine.
Then the phone rang. My doctor told me I had aggressive, invasive breast cancer.
Even seventeen years later, I don't think I can adequately explain what happened inside of me when I heard those words.
Maybe that's because for a little while...nothing happened.
That's the part of diagnosis we don't talk about very much. We talk about fear. We talk about tears. We talk about fighting.
But sometimes the first thing that happens is simply shock.
Your brain hears the words, but somehow they don't completely belong to you yet.
Cancer. Me? No.
I had worked in healthcare. I knew what cancer was. I understood enough medical language to know that "aggressive" and "invasive" were not words I wanted attached to my name. But knowing something medically and understanding that it is happening to you are two very different things.
I hung up the phone. My family was downstairs. And I had to walk down there and tell them.
I remember something very strange happening to my voice. It became flat. If you know me, you know flat isn't exactly my normal communication style. I tend to have plenty of words, plenty of expression and occasionally a few too many exclamation points. :)
But suddenly I sounded like someone else. Almost like I was watching myself deliver somebody else's news.
That is one of the strongest things I remember about diagnosis day.
Not screaming. Not falling apart.
Just...disbelief.
My mind had not caught up with what my ears had heard.
The tears would come. The questions would come. The fear would most definitely come.
But first came this odd space where I was physically standing in my home while mentally thinking:
How can this possibly be my life?
And maybe you've experienced that too. Not necessarily with cancer. Maybe it was another diagnosis. A phone call about someone you love. A death. A divorce. A job loss. Something involving one of your children.
One sentence and suddenly there is a before and an after.
Before the phone rang, you were thinking about supper or laundry or tomorrow's schedule.
After the phone call, you're trying to understand an entirely different future.
The Morning After Is Strange Too
Something else I remember from those early days was waking up. For a few seconds everything would feel normal. I'd open my eyes and think about coffee or what I needed to do that day.
And then...
Oh yeah.
I have cancer.
It was almost like being diagnosed again every morning.
I eventually wrote in my CaringBridge journal, a month after hearing the news, that there were still times it was hard to believe we were actually on this journey.
A month later.
That seems important to say. Because we sometimes expect people to receive devastating news and immediately start processing it.
We ask questions.
What did the doctor say?
What's the treatment plan?
What stage is it?
What are you going to do?
People mean well. Truly.
We are scared too, and information gives us something to hold onto.
But the person sitting across from us may still be somewhere back at:
Wait...you said I have cancer?
Shock doesn't necessarily leave because a treatment plan appears.
In my case, there were doctors and scans and surgery decisions and eventually chemotherapy and radiation. There was plenty to DO. And, strangely, doing can make things easier for a while.
You make the appointment.
You fill out the paperwork.
You research.
You tell people.
You make another appointment.
There is a lot of activity surrounding a cancer diagnosis. But underneath all that activity there can still be this quiet thought:
I cannot believe this is happening.
I Wasn't Instantly Brave
I think we've done something a little unfair to people walking through cancer.
We love the brave story. The warrior. The fighter. The person who announces, "I've got this." And there is nothing wrong with those words if they are yours.
I said some pretty determined things myself very early on. But determination and shock can exist at exactly the same time.
So can faith and fear.
Actually, one of the things I find most interesting when I read my old CaringBridge journals is how often both showed up in the same entry.
I could tell everyone I trusted God...and then admit I was scared to death of chemotherapy.
I could write about blessings...and also write that cancer was a great big interruption of my life and my dreams.
I could have faith and still ask:
What is this going to be like?
How sick am I going to get?
How am I going to be a wife? A mom? A friend?
Faith didn't keep me from having those questions. Faith gave me somewhere to bring them. I understand that much better now.
At the time, I think I sometimes believed being a "good Christian" meant I should handle all of this beautifully.
Trust God.
Be positive.
Don't complain.
Look for the blessings.
And yes, I did believe God was with me.
But cancer still scared me. Both things were true.
Maybe Shock Is Your Mind Protecting You
Looking back now, I have a little more compassion for the woman standing there holding that phone.
She didn't need to understand her entire future that night. She couldn't have.
She didn't yet know about the double mastectomy. Sixteen chemotherapy treatments. Twenty-eight radiation treatments. Hospital admissions. Hair loss. The years of survivorship that would follow. The things cancer would take. Or, surprisingly, some of the things that would eventually grow from that very painful season.
Thank goodness she didn't know all of that.
She only had to survive the phone call. Then she had to walk downstairs. Then she had to tell the people she loved. And then she had to take the next step.
I think sometimes that's what shock allows us to do. Not carry the whole thing. Just the next thing.
I wish someone had told me that then.
If Someone You Love Was Just Diagnosed
This is one of the biggest reasons I keep telling these stories.
Because somewhere today, someone's phone is ringing.
Someone is hearing words that are going to divide their life into before and after. And someone who loves them is standing there afterward, desperate to say the right thing, and coming up empty — which is exactly where I want to meet you for a second.
You don't have to make the person feel better. You don't need the perfect Scripture verse, and you don't have to remind them to stay positive.
Sometimes you simply need to stay.
Bring food.
Sit quietly.
Drive them to an appointment.
Send the text that says, I'm thinking about you. You don't need to answer.
Let them say the scary thing without immediately trying to fix it. Shock needs room — more room than most of us are comfortable giving it.
And If You're the One Who Just Heard the Words...
You do not have to understand your whole life today. You don't have to know how brave you're going to be, and you don't have to figure out the next six months — you don't even have to know how you feel yet.
There may be tears. There may not be. There may be anger or questions or numbness or a strange need to clean the kitchen...human beings are funny creatures when life gets turned upside down.
For today, maybe the only question is:
What is the next thing?
Not the whole path.
Just the next step.
One of the truths I eventually learned through cancer — and have had to relearn many times since — is that God was not waiting at the end of the journey for me to finally figure everything out.
He was already there.
In the phone call.
In the silence afterward.
In the questions.
In the tears.
And in that strange stunned place where I couldn't quite believe this was really my life.
Hope didn't require me to understand what was happening. It simply gave me something to hold onto while I didn't.
And sometimes...that is enough for today.
If you've been through your own version of that phone call — I'd love to hear it. Where were you standing when your life split into before and after?
If someone you love has recently been diagnosed with cancer and you're wondering what actually helps, I created a free guide called How to Actually Help Someone With Cancer. It came from both sides of this story — being the person who needed help and learning, over the years, what made the hard days a little easier.
And if you'd like to know when Faces of Cancer is released, you can also join the book notification list. The book goes deeper into the emotions we don't always talk about after diagnosis — including shock, fear, grief, anger, surrender, joy, hope, and everything that can exist between them.
P.s. You also don't need to tell me about your neighbor's cousin's friend's cancer died of cancer. Cancer patients hear a surprising number of those stories, and we're always too polite to say we've heard enough of them.