The phone call came around 11 this morning. I was in my room, sitting by the window, scribbling a grocery list on the back of an envelope just as I answered my phone.  The moment his voice greeted me, I knew.

I knew. I knew. I knew.

And my thoughts immediately went to, I don’t want to be alone right now. Crap crap crap crap crap what do I do, I’m all alone and he’s going to tell me that it’s cancer.

I wonder what it’s like to pick up the phone and have to delivery that kind of news. I wonder if doctors do a little pep talk to themselves. I wonder if they imagine what their patient is doing at that very moment. I wonder if they just dissociate and mentally float off to a happier place.

Maybe they just think about what’s for dinner tonight. Not phased one bit.

Five seconds of small talk and he gets straight to it. They did find cancer. I’m sorry, I know it’s not what we were hoping for or expecting.

His tone is so kind. I try my hardest to be present in the moment and our conversation. I don’t want to let any detail slip past me. But I could feel myself drifting–like an astronaut floating slo-mo in space–and my mind went cloudy gray. I catch a few details:

Grade 3. Highly unusual characteristics. Colleagues and I are totally surprised.

I stare down at my grocery list I was making before I got the call.
carrots.
onions.
cheese.
Nodding and repeating “uh huh, uh huh” until I can’t anymore and the dam breaks loose.

It breaks when he asks if I want him to call J to relay the news. Um, no…well, uh…I don’t know…actually, okay, yes…can you please call him and let him know?

I’m crying and his discomfort is palpable in the silence on the other end. I try to hold it in. He’s a nice man, I don’t want to mess up his morning with my Ugly Sob.

I’m angry.  They were so sure it wasn’t cancer!  For the longest time, they didn’t even want to biopsy it.  Even during the biopsy they assured me it was nothing to worry about.

I thank him and hang up the phone.

For a moment, everything is frozen, quiet. And then it comes: waves of heavy, from-the-gut, deep ugly sobs. I grab a nearby pillow and heave-cry into it. I want to not be alone, I want to call someone and just cry—and I don’t know who. I imagine J getting the news right now, this very moment, and the heave-cries get louder. I don’t want to put him through this again. I want more than anything not to have to put him through this again.

The pup inches his way closer to me and cocks his head as his eyes lock into mine. I grab him and rock back and forth with him in my arms, sobbing in my armchair, by the bed that I laid in like a vegetable for weeks as I recovered from my TBI.

Why is this happening? I need someone or something to blame. My doctors? Me? Too much stress? Too much sugar? God?

I know that I’m not right in blaming God. I know this. But my mind automatically goes there. Why, God? This is so unfair! What did I do that you think this is what should happen to me and my family, again? How are we going to survive this? We’ve all had to endure too much…this is too much.

Too much.

Too much.