My husband handed me the piece of paper that had the results. I read the words over and over again, not quite absorbing them fully. The doctor saying I’ve got bad news didn’t quite hit me at first either. It was like someone said I have two shoes. It was simply information.

I’ve pored over a gazillion medical journals over the last few weeks, reviewing the initial results of my husband’s biopsy. When it came out as atypical, it meant they basically didn’t have enough information to determine if it was benign or malignant. More tests had to be done, which is why there was an excruciating two-week wait for the final results. In the meantime, I was finding a sense of control in knowledge and information. I looked up every word, read up on the tests, tried to understand what the terms meant in relation to each other. I know, I know, don’t Google. But I wanted to inform my anxiety instead of let it get out of hand with imagination.

That’s why when we were handed the results of the additional tests, I knew what the words meant; it was as I had figured in my layman brain. So when the doctor discussed it with us, there was no surprise. My husband nodded, I nodded, we said, mm-hmm, okay. It felt both empty and heavy at the same time. The knowledge I had softened the blow, but the diagnosis still landed like a punch in the gut.

Encapsulated follicular variant papillary thyroid carcinoma. My husband has cancer.

Out of all the outcomes in this scenario, he has the best possible one – no metastasis, excellent prognosis, often no recurrence. Removal of his thyroid essentially is the cure. Of course we hoped for it to be benign but are grateful that this is what he has. It is unfortunate that he has to go through radioactive iodine therapy, but they have to make sure the cancer is nowhere else in the body, and so they have to destroy every single thyroid cell that might be lurking elsewhere. The only way they can do that is to turn him nuclear for a couple of weeks. The idea leaves a hole at the pit of my stomach, but it is what it is. I look at my husband and he’s his usual self- calm and centered, ready to take the next step towards recovery.

I can’t quite put a finger on what I’m feeling. Rough seas ahead. My friend said this to me earlier, and I appreciated it. Let’s hope he experiences the good parts of a not-so-good experience. Amongst the well-intended it’s the best kind and good thing he got the friendly one, it felt good to have recognition of the fact that the next couple of months will not be at all normal. That there is a kind of upheaval of the every day that is about to take place, and it’s going to require more from all of us, and most from my husband. We’re approaching the crest of this wave, and right now we can’t see the shore. Thankfully, we’re armed with full knowledge that it will be there when this swell finally ends.

For a moment, I wondered to myself if I was being dramatic. Tried to gaslight myself into thinking that other people have it worse, and maybe I should just sit in the corner and be glad he has the friendly one. But I look at my husband and it becomes very real how close cancer has come to us. I have slept beside it, shared meals with it, watched The Rings of Power with it. That realization has shaken me to the core, and I can still feel it heavy in my chest. It’s like a shadow figure that has always been in the corner of my eye, but now it has awakened me in the night, lurking grotesquely. It was hiding all along inside the man I love most in the world, and even if soon it will be exorcised from his body, it will leave its mark.

Tomorrow I know I’m going to feel different. I know that all the gratitude will pour out of my heart. I can feel all the praises I will sing to the Lord for making sure we are in a good position for this to happen now. I will always be happy for that incidental x-ray that caught that curious thing in his neck.

But tonight there is a rock in my throat and a hole in my stomach. I will sleep with it and pray it doesn’t give me night terrors. Tonight, I will have my cry. We’ll leave the dancing for tomorrow.