October surprise, a game-changing moment

I am nothing if not trendy. On Oct. 7, I underwent surgery for breast cancer following a diagnosis two weeks earlier. It is, after all, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I wouldn’t think of having cancer any other time of the year.

When the author Arundhati Roy said in “God of Small Things” that life can change in a moment, she got it right. It feels like this: You are driving along, all comfy and confident of the journey. The rest of your life lies ahead. Then, quite suddenly, the car lurches, the tires fly off, the gas tank catches fire and you go freefalling over a cliff, your hair in flames.

That was three weeks ago. I had gone for a routine mammography on Sept. 20, mentioned a node I felt in my breast and two hours later the diagnosis was confirmed, after a sonogram and a needle biopsy. I was shaking so badly that I couldn’t close the buttons on my shirt. There was both the terror of the moment and a clear awareness that my life had just taken a sharp, unexpected turn, and there was no going back.

The first thing I learned is that it’s nearly impossible to sustain a state of toxic anxiety for too long. You can remain emotionally paralyzed for a while, but then you take a step forward, and then another step. I moved through my days, met with doctors, gathered information and advice. Finally, I had to make critical decisions about surgery in less time than I once spent picking out dresses for my kids’ weddings or wallpaper for the bedroom. Why did I have to decide between mastectomy and lumpectomy? I didn’t go through med school and residency and fellowships for 15 years. I didn’t even get an A in biology.

Instantly I became cliché-averse. I didn’t want to hear people telling me to be brave or hopeful or live in the moment or find the silver lining in the diagnosis. If I wanted to lie in bed and cry for a day, dammit, I would. And then I got up and did what I needed to do and moved forward with treatment, keeping myself busy, doing my work and dealing with the ups and downs of my new normal.