I don’t know where you were when you heard the words — maybe sitting in a chair in a quiet office, maybe holding your phone in your kitchen — but I know the feeling. The world tilts, the air gets heavy, and your body is still while your mind starts sprinting ahead into all the places you wish it wouldn’t go.
For me, it started with the smallest twinge. Nothing dramatic — just enough to send me in for a Pap smear I thought would be routine. But my doctor froze mid-exam, her eyes catching on something she didn’t like. She stopped everything and let me call my husband. We waited for him in silence before we even left her office, heading straight to the hospital to run tests.
I didn’t say a word. My husband started recording the screens so I could remember later, but I was barely there. I could feel the crinkle of the paper sheet under me, but my head was somewhere else — spinning through future conversations, imagining the look on people’s faces, picturing the version of my life I might lose. And even in that fear, I was more terrified of breaking the hearts I love than of being sick.
It’s Okay to Check Out for a While
I need you to hear this — you don’t have to be “on” right now. You don’t have to start making calls the second you leave the doctor’s office. You don’t have to hold space for other people’s reactions before you’ve even processed your own.
If you need to sit in silence for hours…
If you need to go through the motions on autopilot…
If you need to tuck this news away in a mental box until your head and heart catch up…
That is not weakness. That is self-preservation.
When I was diagnosed, I kept it to myself until we had all the information. I told family members one by one, and each time, it felt like I was detonating a bomb in their chest. It never got easier. But holding back in those first days gave me time to breathe, to think, to steel myself for the weight of their grief on top of mine.
The Road Will Not Be Straight
Cancer is more than test results and treatment plans.
It’s scan days that feel like report cards for your life.
It’s the quiet sobs you let out in the shower because it’s the only place no one can hear you.
It’s the anger that makes you cut your hair off because so many choices have already been taken from you.
Some days, you’ll feel almost okay. Other days, you’ll feel like you’ve been hollowed out. Both are normal.
You Are Still You
This disease will try to convince you it’s stolen everything — but it hasn’t taken you.
You are still loved.
You are still worthy.
You are still allowed joy, even now.
When you’re ready, come back here. This space is full of the truth — the messy, unpolished kind, mixed with the kind that makes you laugh on a day you didn’t think you could.
Click the toggle menu at the top to find the homepage — it’s full of resources, stories, and the occasional reminder from Mojo (my French bulldog and self-appointed emotional support staff) that life still has soft, silly moments worth holding onto.
If something here makes you feel seen, please like, subscribe, and share it — not for my sake, but for the next you who’s out there right now, hearing those same words for the first time.
With love,
Izzy
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