If the first step is knowing, the next twenty are realizing.

                When you tell people you have cancer they usually ask one of two questions.  When did you know?  How did you realize?  I had never really thought about it before, but I understand now that knowing and realizing are two separate things that don’t necessarily coincide.

                How I knew I had cancer is a very simple story.  One Wednesday I felt a lump.  It wasn’t just any lump.  It was a large mass that suddenly you could see just by looking at me.  By Friday it was painful and swollen so I went to the doctor.  My doctor told me to cut down on caffeine and I should be fine, but he sent me for an ultrasound just in case.  The ultrasound doctor said he was fairly certain it wasn’t cancer.  Seventy-five percent sure as a matter of fact, but he said I needed a biopsy just in case.  The biopsy doctor said it seemed harmless enough, but wanted to verify my phone number just in case.

                By the following Friday I was at work when my doctor called.  He asked me to come in and see him.  I told him I was at work and that he could give me the results over the phone. 

He said, “I don’t want to have to.”

                That is the moment I knew I had cancer.

                Realizing I have cancer, however, is a much more difficult story.  It hasn’t come in one defined moment, but instead it comes in waves and takes the form of panic attacks. 

                When you first know, you don’t actually think about having cancer.  You have thoughts that surround cancer.  You think about money and your apartment.  You think about telling your loved ones and how you will get them through this difficult time.  You think about the plans you had for next week, next month, next year.  You think about your husband and you hate, hate, hate that this is happening to him.  You think about your looks changing and wonder how self conscious you’ll feel.  You think about work.  You think about your pets.  You think about insurance.  You think about doctors and hospitals.  You think of everything except cancer. 

                When I was young I went to the beach for a family vacation.  It was a small island off the coast of South Carolina and the only way to describe this beach is beautiful and aggressive.  The shores were lined with as many shark teeth as sea shells and the waves were notorious for their strength during storms.   

                One afternoon I was swimming in the ocean when a storm started to develop.  I noticed that the waves were getting higher and carried more force.  I loved the way they felt as they crashed on my body, and it became a game to see how long I could withstand the ocean’s power.  I stood in the water and buried my feet deep into the sand and waited for each wave to take their turn.  Sand and debris between my toes, muscles tensed, and face uplifted I would watch them come, and privately laugh at the others who ran for the shore.  When they hit I would lose balance momentarily, but I held my ground and I reveled at my own strength. 

The first thoughts you have after knowing you have cancer feel like those waves.  Money.  Crash.  Apartment.  Crash.  Family.  Crash.  Friends.  Crash…but you are strong enough to stand your ground.  You feel proud of yourself.  You feel you have everything under control, but what you don’t know is nature is not above making you feel safe just to tear you down.

                It seemed that the waves were so slowly increasing in size, that I didn’t realize I was in trouble until it was already too late to back down.  One moment I am standing there feeling strong and proud, and then the next moment I was filled with dread and fear as I saw the size of the wave that was already starting to crown over me.  The wave hit me with such force that I felt the wind get knocked out of me and my body was completely submerged under water.  I tried to swim, but the undercurrent was pulling me further away.  Panic set in.  I couldn’t breathe.  My mind was firing off random thoughts and I frantically tried to fight against the ocean as it unleashed the fury of this wave and all the waves that came before it.  I felt like I was going to die. 

The big wave is what a panic attack feels like.  One moment you are fighting the brave battle and the next moment you realize you have cancer and the weight of that thought and all the surrounding thoughts you have already had come crashing down to destroy you.

                When the big wave hit me that day on the beach, I was fighting so hard against what was happening.  Soon, however, my body was exhausted from fighting a battle I would not win.  Suddenly I thought a very simple thought, “Just don’t fight it.”  My body began to relax and my mind just kept chanting it over and over. 

When the last ounce of fight had gone, the wave carried my body on its natural course.  I was washed up on shore.  I was beaten down.  I was exhausted, and maybe even a little humbled, but I was alive.

It took me accepting the path that wave was taking me down to come out the other end.  It’s the same thing I’m learning to do when I have a panic attack about cancer.  I tell myself to let it run its course.  Sometimes it is easier than other times, but slowly I’m doing it.  So when people ask, “How did you realize?” I will tell them instead how I knew, because realizing is a storm that is still currently brewing and I’m still learning to not to stand and fight it.