healing through words

Finding out you have cancer is hard. But telling your loved ones – that’s the most difficult thing in the world.

Even now, it still pains me to think of how my husband looked at me that night. How we sat silently on the floor of my study, the weight of uncertainty pressing down on us like a suffocating blanket. We didn’t cry. We didn’t speak for the longest time. We just sat, hands clasped tightly, our bodies leaning into each other, clinging to the invisible thread of love that had held us together through so many ordinary years, now being tested by something extraordinary.

I had told him about the pathology report. Just words on a page, recommending an urgent biopsy. No official diagnosis yet. No certainty. But it was enough to shatter the illusion of safety. Enough to turn the ground beneath us into quicksand.

I assured him, perhaps foolishly, that either way, it was going to be okay. That we would stay strong as a family. He made me promise that night that I would fight as hard as I could. He made me promise not to leave him. Not to leave our son. It wasn’t just a conversation – it was our raw souls speaking to each other without pretense. Eyes locked, skin against skin, breath shallow and uneven. That was love in its most primal form: desperate, terrified, and infinite all at once.

It was the first time in my life that I had been seriously ill. Until then, my body had carried me without question. Now it felt like a stranger. And I had no idea what to expect. Maybe it was best that way. Sometimes ignorance is a kind of mercy.

The biopsy was an initiation into a world I never wanted to enter. They tell you there will be anaesthetic, and you think it will make it bearable. It doesn’t. It’s a gun, really; a spring-loaded device with a thick, hollow needle inside. They press it against your breast and it fires into the tumour, snatching out pieces of flesh. The sound is sharp and violent, like a nail gun in a workshop, but this time it’s inside your body. They do it again. And again. Each shot reverberating through me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and promised myself I would be brave. I whispered silently that I would get through this. I didn’t know how, but I had to. That promise became a mantra, looping in my mind like a protective spell.

A week later, we drove to the hospital to meet the surgeon. It was almost ten years to the day since I had been there for the birth of our son. Back then, the halls had echoed with new life and possibility. Now, they smelled of antiseptic and fear.

The waiting room was small, beige, and strangely quiet. Just my husband and me. Ashen-faced, clutching each other’s hands, waiting for the truth to drop. We still dared to hope – hope that it was all a mistake. That it was just a cyst. That the surgeon would walk in with a reassuring smile and send us home. That life would return to its safe, predictable rhythm.

Fifteen minutes later, the surgeon arrived straight from theatre, still in scrubs, surgical cap tilted slightly. He waved us into his office with a casual cheerfulness that felt cruel in its brightness. As I followed him down the hall, something inside me broke. My knees buckled, and I struggled to breathe. My mind freefell into darkness, a spiralling void where I already knew the truth. I was about to get the worst news of my life.

The surgeon spoke. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear him. The fluorescent lights above glared into my eyes. A piercing ringing filled my ears, drowning out his words. It was as though the room was underwater, his voice muffled and distorted.

I caught fragments: triple negative breast cancer. Aggressive. Fast spreading. Limited treatment options. Mortality rates. Then more: chemotherapy, surgery, radiation. Catheter surgically implanted into your chest, delivering potent chemicals directly into your heart. Lumpectomy or mastectomy – you’ll need to decide.

Each word was like a hammer blow. My brain tried to reject them, but my body absorbed every syllable, locking them deep into my bones. And then, something strange happened. I didn’t feel sadness. I didn’t feel fear. I felt rage. A hot, searing fury rose inside me like fire. How dare this disease enter my body? How dare it threaten my family?

The surgeon paused, meeting my eyes with a rare gravity. “Be strong,” he said softly. “You will get through this.” I nodded. Not because I believed him, but because I knew I had no other choice. Falling apart was not an option.

Finding out you have cancer is hard. But telling your loved ones – that’s the most difficult thing in the world. I couldn’t face it in person. The words were too heavy, too jagged to form in the air between us. So I picked up the phone and called my mum.

“Mum…” My voice cracked. “It’s cancer.”

There was a gasp. Then silence. Then her voice, trembling but firm: “Okay. It’s going to be okay.” And then she hung up, because she couldn’t bear to hear her only daughter say those words out loud again.

I couldn’t go through that with my friends. I couldn’t hear the shock in their voices, the grief in their pauses. So I sent texts. Short, blunt, cowardly texts. I emailed my colleagues with the same flat words. The replies came quickly – anger, disbelief, sadness spilling through the screen. And then, in a moment of misplaced bravery, I wrote a lengthy Facebook post.

I crafted it carefully, as though I could control the narrative by controlling the words. I assured everyone I would be fine. That it was just six months of chemo, then back to regular life by Christmas. Too easy. No problems at all. I wanted to believe it myself. How wrong I was.

Looking back now, I see that telling my loved ones was an act of violence in itself.

Each word I spoke was a blade, cutting into their hearts. My husband’s face in my study that night still haunts me – the silent devastation in his eyes, the way he held on as though I might slip away at any second. I sometimes wonder if that moment was harder for him than for me. Because while I had the distraction of procedures and treatments, he had only the helplessness of watching.

Cancer doesn’t just enter one body. It seeps into every relationship, every bond, every home. It lives in the eyes of the people who love you, in the way they hesitate before asking, “How are you?” It multiplies not just in cells, but in fears.

I thought I was protecting them by saying, I’ll be fine. I thought I was protecting myself by posting optimistic promises on Facebook. But really, I was building a fragile wall of denial. A wall that would crumble, brick by brick, in the months to come.

Still, I don’t regret making those promises to my husband that night on the study floor. I promised to fight. I promised not to leave. And in that moment, promises were all we had.