PART ONE

Chapter 1

“Anger does not solve anything; it builds nothing.”

– THOMAS S. MONSON

How does one react to news of a sixth cancer diagnosis? Is there even an appropriate or socially accepted reaction other than rage? When a routine mammogram revealed a cancerous lump in my breast, I was blindsided and in an instant, became uncharacteristically disheveled. Not because it was cancer per se but because it was breast cancer number three. The second had come back after nine years, and this one after eight more. This was my third breast cancer but my sixth in general. Over the span of the past seventeen years, I have also had two tongue cancers and one head-and-neck cancer, the last of which occurred concurrently with the second breast cancer. Both had been diagnosed as stage IV metastatic, the comeback from which had not only been grueling but also unexpected. After surviving the five, I was convinced that I’d paid my dues. I mean, how many times can one go through this? Was I a pawn in some cruel cosmic joke?

I’d heard the same diagnosis five times before and had different reactions every time, ranging from unemotional acceptance, surprise, and disbelief to shock, but all I felt this time was rage. Rage at the disruption it would cause not only to my life but also to my family’s. Rage at the incomprehensibility of it. Rage at not being able to pursue my interests. Rage at my body for doing this to me again. We’d barely recovered from Covid 19 lockdowns and now this? Hadn’t life been disrupted and put on hold for long enough?

The rage was bubbling up inside of me and spilling over like an overflowing pot that had been left on the stove unattended. It was so vicious and all-consuming that I couldn’t help feeling this crippling reaction was due to something deeper than just a cancer diagnosis. I wondered if this wasn’t accumulated PTSD from the previous diagnoses, but I didn’t have it in me at that moment to analyze unresolved feelings. The rage had taken over all reason, and I didn’t care why I was experiencing it because all I wanted to do was scream. For the first time in my life, I allowed myself to feel the full impact of my emotions.

The new year was rapidly approaching and all hopes of embarking on new adventures, all hopes of happiness and excitement that accompany the start of each new year, were shattered with a few words from my oncologist,

“I’m sorry the cancer is back.”

So was I.

My routine mammogram had been scheduled after Thanksgiving in the midst of the holiday season. I’d thought about postponing it till January but decided to just get it over with. It was after all a routine; one I had been following annually for the past twenty-five years or so, and it wasn’t that big of an imposition on my time. After the nurse completed the scans, she told me to sit there for a few minutes until the radiologist cleared me to go and left the room.

I surveyed the vase full of red roses by the door contrasting with the stark whiteness of the room and picked out the partially bloomed one I would take home with me. I thought it a sweet gesture to be given a rose after a mammogram. Who doesn’t love flowers? It would just be a few more minutes and I would be on my way, or so I thought. When the nurse returned, she informed me that she needed to take a couple more pictures of my left breast.

“The doctor just wants to make sure everything is okay.”

I didn’t think much of it and slipped the gown off my shoulder as I stepped up to the machine again, allowing her to position my breast. After completing the additional shots, she said she would be right back and left the room. Once again, I