Chapter 4

The Man With the Scalpel

Next up: the surgeon.

Not a surgeon in theory.

Not a name on a referral sheet.

My surgeon.

The man who would cut me open and rearrange my insides like an HGTV renovation special.

Remove the head of the pancreas.

The duodenum.

The gallbladder — already gone, bless it.

Part of the small intestine.

Part of the stomach.

Then stitch everything back together so my digestive tract didn’t revolt.

A Whipple.

Just a casual, eleven-hour renovation on the most delicate real estate in your body.

No big deal.

⸻

I didn’t hesitate.

He said he’d done a lot of Whipples.

And honestly? That was enough for me.

At that point in my life, if someone said, “I’ve tiled twelve kitchens and none of them collapsed,” I would’ve handed over my house keys and asked what color grout they preferred.

Repetition was the selling point.

He was close to home, too — which felt like a luxury because my mental bandwidth was roughly the size of a lima bean. I couldn’t research specialists across the country. My brain was busy juggling words like tumor, cancer, surgery without short-circuiting.

He explained it well. Calm. Confident. Almost reassuring.

For the most part, I felt prepared.

For the most part.

⸻

Then he dropped the line:

“Neuroendocrine cancer is incurable, but manageable.”

Manageable.

Such a clean word for something so messy.

Translation: tumors can show up. You remove them. If they show up somewhere inoperable… well.

We don’t sit with that part too long.

He was optimistic. He emphasized how rare my tumor’s location was. How slow-growing NETs typically are. He told me I probably wouldn’t have to worry about another tumor for twenty years.

Twenty years sounded generous. Scientific. Safe.

But here’s the truth nobody likes to say out loud:

Doctors don’t know everything.

Some know a lot.

Some know enough.

Some are Googling between appointments like the rest of us.

After diagnosis, you become your own researcher.

Not WebMD-at-2 a.m. spiraling.

Real studies. Real journals. Real patients.

Patients are the encyclopedias.

If you’re newly diagnosed — find them. Join them. Learn from them.

⸻

But here’s what wasn’t calm.

I was breaking down everywhere.

Maybe in the shower — where the water was loud enough to hide it.

Maybe folding laundry — something ordinary, something soft, something that should’ve felt safe.

And then it would hit.

Physically.

Like my chest couldn’t hold what my mind was trying to process.

I kept thinking about my kids.

Them so young… without a mother.

And then came the questions.

The kind no parent is ever prepared to answer.

“Are you going to die?”

Not dramatic.

Not whispered.

Just honest.

Straight through my chest.

“Are you going to be here for my birthday?”

“How long are you going to be in the hospital?”

“Who’s going to take care of us?”

And the worst one—

“Are you going to come back the same?”

I wanted to lie.

God, I wanted to lie so bad.

Wrap them up in something soft and certain and unbreakable.

But I didn’t know the answers.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I held them.

Hugged them longer and all of the time.

We watched all the movies we could, so they could cuddle while I was sick in bed.

I smoothed their hair.

I swallowed everything rising up in my throat and said things like,

“I’m doing everything I can to get better.”

“The doctors are really good.”

“I’m not going anywhere right now.”

Right now.

Such a fragile promise.

Those conversations broke something open in me I didn’t know how to close.

Because it’s one thing to be scared for yourself.

It’s another thing entirely to look into your child’s eyes and realize—

They are scared of losing you.

And you cannot fix that.

⸻

That thought didn’t knock politely. It kicked the door in and made itself at home.

It was a living nightmare that would not leave.

The kind that plays on repeat no matter how hard you try to change the channel.

I thought about my dad — the pain this would carve into him.

My husband — the silence, the emptiness, the weight I would leave behind.

And the worst part?

I couldn’t control any of it.

My heart felt like a melted puddle of something unrecognizable.

And every time I tried to be strong — tried to scoop it back together, hold it, shape it into something steady—

It slipped right through my fingertips.

⸻

While I was holding it together in appointments, my identity was quietly unraveling.

Cancer doesn’t wait for surgery to change you.

It starts stripping you the second you hear the word.

Mother. Wife. Daughter. Woman with plans.

All of it starts to blur.

I had no idea who I was anymore.

The emotions were overwhelming.

And suddenly… the race was on.

Not just to survive.

But to prepare.

Just in case.

Could I get all my passwords together in time?

Would my husband know how to pay the bills?

What about the automatic payments already set up?

Did I leave enough information so he could grieve without drowning in logistics?

Did I leave my kids with enough memories?

Enough laughter?

Enough of me… before it was too late?

⸻

And layered over all of that?

The hospital.

That smell.

If you know it, you know it.

Sterile. Sharp. Lingering.

It doesn’t stay in the building — it follows you home, settles into your nose like it signed a lease.

The bracelets stacked on my wrist, one after another.

Plastic. Tight. Itchy. Impossible to ignore.

Each one another reminder:

You are a patient now.

Bruises bloomed across my arms — little constellations from needles and blood draws.

Proof that my body was being studied, measured, prepared.

The Whipple procedure is one of the most complex abdominal surgeries performed.

Not routine.

Not simple.

This is the kind of surgery that reroutes your entire digestive system.

The kind with long hours, long recoveries, and risks that don’t fit neatly into a conversation.

And yet there I was.

Signing papers.

Nodding.

Saying yes to all of it.

Because the alternative wasn’t an option.

⸻

While I was trying to stay steady, my husband was unraveling in his own way.

He stayed up researching at 2 a.m., phone dimmed like that softened the reality. He’d clear his throat before speaking, like emotion was something he could push back down.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it…

We realized something we hadn’t been looking for.

Our marriage had cracks in it.

Not loud ones.

Not dramatic, throw-the-plates kind of cracks.

The quiet kind.

The ones you step over every day until suddenly the whole floor feels uneven.

And there we were—

Me, feeling like I was dying.

Him, panicking and preparing for the possibility that I might.

Trying to fix pieces of something while everything else was falling apart.

It was a mess.

The kind of mess you don’t have time to clean.

So you do what Southern people do best—

You sweep it under the rug.

Smile when people ask how you’re doing.

Say, “We’re good.”

And promise yourselves you’ll deal with it later.

Later became this fragile, unspoken agreement sitting between us.

Because right then?

Survival came first.

Everything else could wait.

Or at least… that’s what we told ourselves.

⸻

And then there were the calls.

So many calls.

Cancer turns you into community property.

People meant well — they really did. But my phone buzzed like a mosquito convention.

“What can I do?”

“When can I come see you?”

“We should get together before surgery.”

There’s a strange urgency people feel.

Like you’re leaving.

Like they need to see you now.

And maybe you are.

But when your body feels like it’s betraying you, small talk feels violent.

You’re juggling appointments, scans, unknowns.

Every phone call could be the one that changes everything.

⸻

Here’s the truth:

The people who love you will try to fight beside you.

They’ll send information. Stories. Hope.

And you have to love them for it.

But it can overwhelm fast.

If you’re the patient — set boundaries before your body does it for you.

If you love the patient — be gentle. Ask less. Sit more.

Because most of the time?

We don’t even know yet.

We’re tired.

We’re scared.

We’re learning how to exist in a life we didn’t choose.

⸻

Before surgery, there’s a strange in-between.

You are still whole.

Technically untouched.

But you know what’s coming.

You start noticing your body differently.

Thanking it.

Apologizing to it.

Memorizing it.

Fear doesn’t scream.

It just sits down beside you.

Pulls up a chair like it belongs there.

And you’re trying to eat dinner anyway.