Cancer. What a chaotic word. It causes my mind to spiral like a tornado tearing through a town. Spiraling thoughts. Spiraling fears. Spiraling memories. Dumping me again and again back into the start of that terrible storm.

I sat, stiff and straight, on the edge of the exam table, silently nodding along while she talked through my chart. My belly bulged in front of me, but instead of rubbing it absentmindedly, my sweaty hands were clasped in my husband’s. The buzzing lights cast a bright, white glow and paper crinkled beneath me with every fidget. Finally, the doctor pushed her computer screen aside, rolled her stool to face me and said, “This is the cancer you have” while pointing to the bottom of her handwritten list. 

I remember I didn’t get it at first. My body suddenly felt heavy and her words jumbled into a buzz. “This is the most common and treatable up here, but you buzz, buzzzz, buzzzz…” The room wavered in an out of focus.  My husband’s fingers twined with mine: clear. The penned statistics: blurry.  The stretched stripes black and white across my belly: clear. The printed lab requests: blurry.

Then, like a rubber band stretched too tight, everything snapped back into focus when she said, “You’ll need to deliver as soon as possible – this weekend even.”

My voice shook as I asked question after question, but I didn’t cry. My mind raced as I thought about the risks to me and the baby, but I didn’t cry. My fingers twisted in nervous knots as we visited doctor after doctor to plan the early delivery, but I didn’t cry.

I didn’t cry until, hours later, we pulled into my parent’s driveway. My two year old sprinted off the front porch running straight for me, blond curls bouncing. Burying her wet face in my neck, she cried, “Mommy, don’t leave me.” Those four words broke me. But I decided right there, tears dropping into the dust, that I wouldn’t let it break us.