Diagnosis

I get the call at six weeks. It’s brain cancer. Diffuse Hemispheric Glioma H3G34 mutation Grade 4. I don’t even think to ask about a prognosis and I don’t. She doesn’t give it to me either. I’m just absorbing “cancer.”

The next day around noon I get a call from my dad saying he just spoke to the nurse and he found out my prognosis. He says it’s not good. 18-22 months.

I choke on my quesadilla that I had been gleefully stuffing in my mouth moments earlier. Everything around me descends into chaos. My grandma is on the phone with my sibling when I start scream/wailing. I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe I had to hear that. To absorb it. To even fathom it.

My sibling came running in and I had to tell them. Verbalizing that prognosis was gutting. I called my best friend, my mom and I sobbed for hours. Then the next day or so I worked diligently down the list of my inner circle of family and friends to tell them.

My life was just a daze of appointments. Doctors, therapists, social workers - all consulting me on the scariest thing of my life. With every appointment attended, the family with me looked for any signs of hope. Reasons to hold out for a cure. Anything. Sometimes I think the answers of hope from the questioning was just from being worn down by all that glimmer in their eyes: the one that was searching for answers.

My state of mind throughout everything that happened had been so loosey-goosey go-with-the-flow and accept everything and just take each hurdle as it came by this point. I didn’t even think about anything except how to carry it and next steps up until this point. There wasn’t enough time to fully feel yet.

Yes, there was some fear behind surgery, but that was behind me now. I had a new set of challenges in front of me. Unimaginable challenges for someone who was just starting their life. The emotions stewed for a bit before I could verbalize them. Everything was fact for me. I didn’t have hope - I had facts, statistics, reality.