What I Found While Packing Changed Everything!

The living room was filled with stacks of cardboard boxes that represented the basic outline of the life that Dan and I were meant to begin. A lakeside house with a wraparound porch and soil that promised a bountiful vegetable garden was our ideal home, and we were just a few days away from moving in. However, a sudden, persistent tug in my right side caused me double over as I wrapped up the remaining utensils. Dan, ever the optimist, argued that the hefty lifting had simply pulled a muscle. By the third day, the dull aching had turned into a scorching, rhythmic pulse, and I wanted to believe him.

I drove to urgent care against my own resistance. Although the CT scan revealed a different picture, the doctors used terms like “appendicitis” and “strain.” At first, the nurse refrained from using the word “tumor.” She used clinical terms like “masses” and “further investigation,” but her refusal to look me in the eye told it all. The world I had been so meticulously packed away seemed to be crumbling in that sterile chamber.

A few days later, early-stage cancer was the diagnosis. I recall feeling the weight of the silence as I sat on the kitchen floor of our partially furnished flat, holding a bundle of tea towels. Dan didn’t use platitudes when he discovered me there. His presence was a silent anchor in a tempest I hadn’t anticipated; he just sat on the linoleum and held me. We postponed the move. Like gravestone monuments of our derailed plans, the boxes remained stacked. With the exception of my cells and the horrifying speed of the medical device, everything was on hold.