When The Doctor Calls on Your Birthday to Say You Have Cancer

*song lyrics alluded to in this post are authored by Bob Fitts, Lauren Deigle, and Michael W. Smith

My doctor called me on my birthday (June 2nd), to tell me I have breast cancer. 

“Unfortunately, the biopsy revealed cancer, and it looks to be the serious sort. The nurse will be calling you shortly to set up an appointment with a breast surgeon who will likely operate and then refer you to an oncologist to get started on chemo and radiation. I’m really sorry.” 

My thought during and after that phone call? 

My heart during and after that phone call? 

Tachycardic. 

Confusion, anger, panic, and a host of other emotions raged through me. I was glad the doctor told me over the phone, because had he been siting across a desk from me, I would have been sorely tempted to sucker punch him in the throat, or chew him out, or cry all over him. Maybe all three. 

I was a hot mess. My entire birthday was spent trying to sort out the facts, because what the doctor told me turned out to be completely different than what the nurse told me. Doc said cancer, nurse said pre-cancerous papilloma. 

I didn’t know who to believe, what to believe, who to trust. 

But the doc and nurse agreed on at least one thing: I would meet with a breast surgeon who had clearly made up her mind that I was headed to surgery for a more extensive, excision biopsy. 

I’m fairly confident, after reading the pathology report myself, that the initial biopsy is non-malignant. But there’s always a catch, and the breast surgeon says there are several reasons to still be concerned about my unusually large papilloma that reveals an odd change in tissue. She is not at all convinced I’m cancer free.

And so, on the 21st, I’ll go in for an hour and a half long surgery to remove a good size portion of tissue. Large olive size (aka half of my breast – ha!) is the plan. More if something looks suspicious. If the results come back okay, I’m free to go home and keep all my body parts. If it comes back as cancerous, well … I don’t even know what. 

Every morning since my birthday, I wake up with a terrible sense of dread. Even if it’s not cancer, I still dread the surgery, the uncertainty, the medical bills. It feels as though a gavel has been raised, and I’m just waiting to hear what the judge declares as he slams it down with a deafening ssssssmack. 

Many people who have had a doctor call to tell them they have cancer say it felt surreal. I personally think it hurts with a pain that is very real. It hurts to think you may leave this earth at the young age of 44. It hurts to picture the love of your life who doesn’t do well alone, alone indeed. It hurts to think of leaving your kids and grandkids without a mom and Marmee. It hurts to think you may not be here to watch your first granddaughter grow up to twirl in pretty dresses, or to have sweet, spring time talks with her on the back porch while she gnaws on a melting fudgesicle. 

It’s not that I’m feeling overly important or significant. I learned a long time ago that if I’m taken out of the picture, life goes on. When Andrew was five, I was bedridden for ten long months. Someone else ironed. Baked the birthday cake. Filled the car with gas. Took the kids to school. Read the bedtime stories. 

I am not irreplaceable. 

Well, I take that back. I am irreplaceable. There will never be another one of me, because everyone is one of a kind. But the hard fact is that my duties and responsibilities can be handled by someone else. 

So why does is it painful to think of leaving this earth, it’s beauty, chronic illness for goodness sake, the kids, the kids-in-law, the babies, my better half, my responsibilities and privileges? 

A good Christian doesn’t cling to earthly things, right? And we hold those dear to us loosely, in case God pries them from our fingertips, right? No hesitation. No struggle. Just lay it all down. Your thoughts, your will, your people, your life. Live out Philippians 2, like a good Christ-like model.

Together at Piney Point Lighthouse, Maryland

The mammogram tech …. her name was Philippa. I can’t hear any word or name that resembles Philippians without thinking of Christ, who chose to lay down His life for me and you. Through two long mammograms, I wondered at the name Philippa, who talked small talk with me while she tugged and pulled and squished until I felt like taffy at a taffy pulling party. But my heart was not in the small talk. Even through the tugging and painful squishing, my thoughts were on God who knows the way my mind works, and saw fit to put me with Philippa when He knew very well her name would remind me of Himself and cause me to question whether He was preparing me for a possible laying down of my own life. 

Does God work that way? I don’t know. All I know is that my encounter with an adorable, petite, black nurse named Philippa got me thinking, wondering, and a little concerned for my life. 

My mid-mammogram thoughts were the first thoughts that the biopsy could be abnormal. I truly wasn’t worried up until that point. A little nerve wracked, maybe. But not worried. And even then, the worry didn’t crush me. It weaved in and out of my life like a wispy butterfly. There, but uncatchable. 

And now? Now I’m faced with a lot of the unknown, and it’s caused me to wake up to the fact that the unknown is everywhere – in every one of my plans. I can write all I want in my planner and God has the power to sit right behind me and erase as I write. And then write in something new … something better. Why then, should the unknown scare me? Why should the possibility of an early death sting? Why do I worry about anything? The times I think my time on earth is far from up, I tend to worry about food and clothing and health care. The times I am scared about possibly being on my way out, I worry about my loved ones living life without me. 

And the entire time, God is impressing on my heart to can my thoughts. To look at Him, look at Him, look at Him. To know deep down that whether I stay on earth or get whisked away to Heaven, He’s there. With me. He’s my all. My strength when I am weak. My treasure that I seek. 

I think that’s what this trial is all about. Just seeing and knowing and enjoying that no matter what, He is with me. That nothing can separate me from His love. Not biopsies. Not a heart attack inducing call from the doctor. Not breast cancer. Not death. 

Nothing means nothing. 

Throw anything at me, Life, and it can’t separate me from my Lord.

Of course, this is easy(ish) to believe and live out when you have a chance of not having breast cancer. But I know now, that when you believe with all your heart (because you have no reason not to) that the doctor is right, that “it’s cancer and of the serious sort”, it’s harder to believe. Everything is harder to believe. God gets harder to trust, and trust, as we know, is the foundation to any good relationship. No trust, no real relationship.

So if you are the praying type, you can pray that whatever happens on June 21st, I will trust the One who never breaks His promises. That even if I run smack into an immovable mountain and impossible-to-part waters, that I will find the strength to entrust my earthly life to the God I’ve already trusted for eternal life.  

I have asked myself many times how I could possibly trust God with my eternal wellbeing, and yet not trust Him with my earthly circumstances. I don’t know the answer. It’s insanity to trust Him with something as huge as life everlasting, but not life as an earthling. And yet that’s what I find myself doing.

Trust isn’t a head thing. It’s a heart thing. And if I have cancer, the strengthening of my faith will be an inward journey of learning to let go of this world and those in it whom I love if need be, trusting God more every day, and likely many more lessons I’m not even aware of yet. 

As John Piper says …. God is doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them. 

I know God is working in my waiting, sanctifying me. I have a lot of fear, but His perfect love casts out fear. Since June 2, I wake up every morning with an overwhelming sense of dread and I have to work hard at thinking Biblically to get on a level plane. I am usually successful by around noon-ish, when once again, I believe in His sovereignty, and that His ultimate plan is to prosper me. It’s a struggle, but He’s meeting me in my morning mourning. 

This trial is beyond my understanding, and yet I know He is with me through the fire, through the flood, and He is worthy of my trust. But it is a battle. A struggle I’m not feeling worthy or ready to fight. So I do covet your prayers, your thoughts, and your hugs if we are privileged enough to have something deeper and more tangible than a cyber relationship. 

Of course that is a pre-surgery statement. Nothing but awkward friend hugs post-surgery!! Ha!

Thanks, all. For listening. For praying. And for being here for me in what is the possibility of a pre-mature death sentence. If you’re reading this, perhaps God has prompted you to be involved in my journey, whether the journey is short because I am cancer free, or whether we are looking at more surgery, more pain, more struggle, and possible death. You’re with me. He’s with me. He’s near us. And I’m betting this journey is meant to grow more people than just myself. 

May His promises be our delight through this trial, and every trial He lovingly assigns us. 

Yours now and forever, come what may.

~Brenda