Blindsided

Exactly seven years ago, a doctor I had met only once broke the news to me that I had breast cancer.

He did it over the phone.

It was a Monday, and Zach and I had spent the weekend on tenterhooks. The previous Friday, I had gone in for what was supposed to be a baseline mammogram and walked out bruised, bandaged, and utterly blindsided, with a sonogram and biopsy added to my tab.

The same doctor told me that 80 percent of the time, breast biopsies were negative, so we spent the weekend being logical and rational, not getting ahead of ourselves when the statistics seemed to be so persuasively on our side.

We hibernated, not wanting to talk to anyone else, not wanting to answer the most pedestrian conversational questions about how we were or what was up, not wanting to needlessly worry our families.

We did everything we could to distract ourselves until the phone rang, detonating the cancer grenade that had landed in the middle of our lives.

Two weeks, six books, and three surgical consultations later, I was in the O.R., about to be relieved of half the reason I'd been wearing a bra for the past two decades.

And a month after that, I rolled up my sleeve and watched the first dose of colorful poison drip into my soon-to-be useless vein.

Here I am, seven years removed from that initial jolt and still so connected to the anguish that followed.

Perhaps some moments arrive with such force that their impact never fades.