“Am I supposed to call someone? I heard him talking, but I don’t remember anything he just told me?”


The moment we received Duncan's cancer diagnosis was surreal. We weren’t sitting at a desk in a quiet room like you see on tv. We were behind a curtain in the middle of a busy post-op recovery room hearing other patients being told everything looked good and they could head out to get something to eat. I’m not sure how many of them heard the news we were receiving. The news that they had to end the procedure prematurely. The news that they couldn’t get past the “large cancerous mass” they’d found. 

As Duncan cried, I did my best to process what the doctor was telling me, trying to think of the questions I should ask. The only one that came to mind was if he could recommend an oncologist. He started to give me suggestions until I looked at him and asked, “Could you possibly write that down for me?” At this point, I think he realized I wasn’t quite in the frame of mind to hold on to anything else 30 seconds after being told my husband has cancer, so he wrote it down on top of the discharge paperwork and handed it to me. The rest of the conversation sounded like the teacher speaking in a Charlie Brown special.

Getting Duncan out of that place became my only focus, and I will be forever grateful to the nurse that helped me do so. After we wheeled him out and got him into the car, I turned to her and said, “Am I supposed to call someone? I heard him talking, but I don’t remember anything he just told me?”

In that moment, she looked at me and said, “I am going to go back in there and find out exactly what needs to happen. You get him home, and I will call you to let you know.” 

I thanked her and did exactly as she said. As promised, she called moments before we pulled onto our street and told me someone would call to set up appointments within a day. What she did for me in that moment, is what I would come to wish for in the weeks that followed. She stepped in, took what she could off my plate, and allowed me to focus on comforting Duncan, trying to process for myself what we had just learned and what was about to happen to all of us, and do my best to take care of myself and my family at the same time.

Diagnosis day and the weeks that followed were among the most disorienting I’ve ever experienced. While many well-meaning people asked what they could do to help, I had no idea what to tell them. After sharing with some friends how overwhelmed I was feeling with laundry, cleaning, hockey games, etc… as we navigated appointment after appointment to finalize a diagnosis and treatment plan, a friend offered to wash our laundry, driving to my house, picking up a huge stack of towels, and delivering them hours later, washed, dried, and folded. It might seem like a small thing, but it was monumentally helpful in that moment. It allowed me to breathe and gave me time to focus on one of the many other things I was trying to balance while it felt like my world was spinning out of control.

I hope by sharing my experience on that first day, as well as the days, weeks, and months to follow, I can help shine a light on the often unseen elements of a caregiver's experience in an effort to help us all better help caregivers and their loved ones. As such, I will end each post with a few ideas to consider based on my personal experience.

Ideas to consider: