Chapter 3 SHOCK DIAGNOSIS

The hospital smelled cold that morning — not the usual sterile, lemon-chemical cold, but something sharper, like chilled metal and fear soaked into the walls. Patients from the night shift were being wheeled through the corridor, nurses buzzed like exhausted bees, and the early light from the windows felt too bright for how heavy my chest was. I walked faster than I meant to, clutching the clipboard like it was armor I didn’t know how to wear anymore.

The oncology department always felt different from the rest of the hospital. Emergency carried chaos, the maternity ward carried hope, the surgical wing carried precision and power — but oncology carried silence. The kind of silence that sat with you, crawled under your ribs, and stayed even after your shift ended. I had handled patients with terminal illnesses before, spent nights holding their hands, explaining treatments, and memorizing that thin line between honesty and comfort. But today felt like something was hunting me — not the department, not the diagnosis, but the truth waiting on the other side of a door I didn’t want to open.

The nurse at the desk, Hannah, lifted her head when she saw me. She offered a small smile — the kind people give when they don’t know the full story but sense the storm.

“Good morning, Doctor,” she said softly.

I nodded, attempting a smile I couldn’t complete. “Morning. Is everything ready?”

She glanced at the file on her desk — my file — before sliding it toward me. My hand trembled, and I forced my fingers to stop. I didn’t want the world to see my fear. Doctors don’t break. Doctors don’t shake. Doctors don’t cry before results.

At least, that’s what they taught us.

I opened the file only halfway, enough to see the words “urgent recommendation” printed at the top. My throat tightened.

“Room 14 is prepared,” Hannah whispered, her eyes soft with the kind of empathy that only develops when you’ve seen too much.

“Thank you,” I said, though my voice was barely more than air.

My mind raced while I walked down the hallway. The same hallway I had escorted other women through. Women younger, older, mothers, students, wives, lovers, fighters. Women who begged God for time, women who surrendered to the inevitable, women who searched for meaning. Did I ever imagine I’d walk it not as the savior, but as the headline?

Inside Room 14, the walls felt narrower than usual. The AC hummed in a constant low tone, and the stainless-steel surfaces reflected my face too clearly — like mirrors designed for judgment. Dr. Collins entered moments later, her expression carefully composed, professional but heavy. She had been my mentor for years. I knew her emotional breathing patterns better than I knew my own.

“Aliyah,” she said softly, pulling up a chair rather than standing — the first sign that the news wasn’t good. Doctors don’t sit for good news.

I exhaled through my nose, collecting whatever pieces of strength were still attached to my bones.

“You have the results?” I asked.

She nodded once, sliding the folder toward me, but instead of allowing me to read it, she kept her hand there — firmly — as if she needed me to hear the words, not see them.

“We confirmed invasive ductal carcinoma, early stage but aggressive in nature,” she said. “Your scans show abnormal cell activity on the right breast, and we need to begin treatment immediately.”

My ears rang like a fire alarm detonating behind my skull. I heard every word but processed none of it.

Cancer.

Aggressive.

Immediately.

The words hung like sharp icicles over my head.

“How… how advanced?” I managed to ask.

“Not late,” she assured me, “but fast-moving. The timing is critical.”

“What’s the treatment plan?”

She inhaled slowly. “We’ll begin with targeted therapy combined with chemotherapy cycles. Surgery will be the next discussion depending on response.”

Targeted therapy. Chemo. Surgery.

I swallowed. I tasted metal.

Every patient I had ever consoled flashed in my mind — their fear, their resilience, their artificial smiles, their shaking hands, their midnight breakdowns. I had memorized the academic explanations but never the emotional ones, because I thought I’d never need them.

“How long will treatment last?” I asked, needing something measurable, something I could hold.

“Between six months and a year for initial management,” she replied, “maybe more depending on progression.”

Six months. A year. Possibly forever.

I nodded slowly, even though part of me was sinking into the floor.

“When do we start?”

“Tomorrow,” she said gently.

Tomorrow. As if tomorrow wasn’t just another date, but a doorway separating who I was from who I’d become.

I stared at my hands. They looked like someone else’s. The hands that once saved lives now trembled at the thought of trying to save mine. I asked the one question I feared most.

“Will I survive?”

She met my gaze, and her eyes glimmered — not with pity, but truth.

“We will fight,” she said. “And we will fight early.”

I exhaled — not in relief, but in surrender.

When she left, I remained seated, staring at the wall, my heart pounding so loud it could have been heard from the hallway. Tears finally escaped, warm and slow, but silent. The type of tears that didn’t come from weakness, but from acknowledgment — that life had just rewritten itself without my permission.

I wasn’t afraid of dying.

I was afraid of living unfinished.

PRIVATE JOURNAL – The Anatomy of Us

Date: Unknown — mentally unmarked

I spent years studying the anatomy of pain, thinking I could measure it through graphs, charts, and tumor markers. But now I finally understand — pain is not medical, it is personal. It does not sit inside the body; it sits inside the meaning you attach to it.

I always thought heartbreak was the worst form of suffering.

It turns out the body has its own betrayal planned.

If survival is a choice, then so is identity.

And I am not done being someone yet.

— A