Hearing the word evokes fear. Even pronouncing it carries sinister undertones. The nasty little word has an eerie echo, evoking the image of a snake slithering across the jungle floor, forked tongue probing for prey.
Cancer.
Repeat it slowly, “cancer, cancer, cancer,” and it grows louder with every repetition, even if you only whisper it. Try and ignore it, and it follows you, like the drip on a leaky faucet, annoying you even as you walk away.
It’s not the word you want to hear from your doctor.
They will have a plan, the doctors will, a protocol, a way to attack it, fight it, deal with it, so not to panic at it, they say. But of course, more testing is necessary, for they must find the source, the stage, the grade, the profile. The doctor’s words take on a sense of the divine, for those words carry with them your prospects for life and death. So you hang each syllable, interpreting the inflection, searching for hope in the syntax, waiting for answers at the end of each sentence, answers that you suspect they don’t have but wish they did.
After their call, you can’t remember exactly what they said because that word “cancer” tripped you up, and the doctor’s words mostly swirled around your head because you were in a mental fog, gassed by the word they spoke at the beginning of the conversation: “cancer.”
When I left the house to teach my class, Lori was waiting for her biopsy results. “I hope they call today,” I think I said, “so you won’t have to think about it. I’m sure you’re okay. They’re just being extra cautious with the biopsy.”
I was partly right.
As soon as I walked back into the house a few hours later, I knew the answer from her eyes before I heard it in her words.
I’ve been here before, taking a seat to listen to words I don’t want to hear, turning inside out while taking it in, the helpless bystander, reminded again that I’m a mere observer, not in control, already regretting words I’d spoken—assumptions intended to push the unknown into a standoff.
The average risk of a woman in the United States developing breast cancer sometime in her life is about 13%. This means there is a 1 in 8 chance she will develop breast cancer. This also means there is a 7-in-8 chance she will never have the disease. With the exception of skin cancer, it’s the most common cancer in women in the United States. About 30% (1 in 3) of all new female cancers each year are breast cancer.
There may be some comfort in those statistics. Perhaps you look at that and think, “There’s a 7 in 8 chance it won’t be cancer. And if it is, there’s all that research directed to treating it.”
And you would be correct, but when it’s your loved one, and the doctor’s call says, “cancer,” the statistic is 100%. That’s all that matters at that moment.
Now—sitting with Lori, taking in the news, processing her and my concerns—is not a time to reflect on the problem of good and evil, explore why bad things happen to good people or good things to bad people, or retell the story of Job—convincing ourselves that things could always be worse.
Now is the time to repeat Paul the Apostle’s words about being anxious in nothing and praying about everything. Now is the time to remind ourselves that we experience God and grow closer to him by gazing into the abyss, those mysteries hidden beneath life’s swirling waters, trusting God to take our hands and guide us through the storm, one day at a time, depending on him to “carry us in his arms” (Psalm 68:19) like the Shepherd he is.
And with an “amen” on our lips, we hop in the car, open the sunroof, play 70s rock music, let the sunshine in, and cruise.
And with an early fall breeze wisping in our faces, we enjoy this moment for all it’s worth.
For every day is a new day, with dreams to chase.
Even when the doctor’s call is not the one we want.