There are moments in life that become dividing lines. Moments that separate everything into before and after. For me, one of those moments happened in November 2014.
Driving home from an appointment I was hit with severe abdominal pain unlike anything I had ever experienced. By the time I got home it was coming in waves so intense that I was screaming. I was nearly passing out. My husband drove me to the emergency room because we both knew something was very wrong.
At the hospital, I was given morphine to manage the pain. The pain would ease and then return. Nothing else was done. No tests were ordered, no scans were done, and no blood work drawn that uncovered the cause.
After examining me, the doctor told me I was constipated and sent me home with laxatives. I wanted to believe him. After all, he was the doctor. I was simply relieved to be leaving without something more serious. At the time, I had no idea that my life had already begun to change.
The Diagnosis That Changed Everything
Over the following months, I continued searching for answers. Eventually, I received one I never expected: Stage IV colon cancer.
My world stopped. Suddenly everything I thought I knew about my future disappeared and the life I had carefully planned no longer existed. Instead of thinking about vacations, career goals, and growing older with my family, I was thinking about chemotherapy, surgeries, pathology reports, and survival. Like so many people diagnosed with cancer, I spent a lot of time asking questions. I wanted to understand how this had happened and could this have been found sooner if someone had listened to me.
Those questions don’t have easy answers and some never get answered at all.
The Unexpected Reunion
In August 2015, I was one month out from my liver resection surgery. One night I woke up with a swollen, burning foot. It was throbbing so badly that I knew I needed to go back to the emergency room. As I sat waiting for the doctor, I wasn’t thinking about the past – until he walked through the door. I recognized him immediately.
He was the same doctor who had seen me during that first emergency room visit almost a year earlier. I told him that I recognized him and the circumstances under which we had met. For a brief moment, neither of us said anything. Then he looked at me and asked, “How did that situation work out?”
I answered simply with “I have Stage IV colon cancer.”
The room fell silent. His face changed. I could see the realization settle in. There was nothing else that needed to be said. It was one of the most surreal moments of my walk with cancer.
The Story I Told Myself
For a long time, I believed this story was about a missed diagnosis. I replayed it over and over in my mind. What if tests had been ordered? What if someone had looked a little deeper? What if my cancer had been found sooner? Those are understandable questions. They’re questions many people ask after receiving a cancer diagnosis.
Over time I realized something important; even if I spent every day replaying that moment nothing about it would change. The past wasn’t moving, only I was.
The Real Adversary
For years I thought the adversary in this story was the doctor. Eventually I realized it wasn’t. The real adversary and conflict was the belief that my future would always be controlled by what had happened in my past. That belief quietly shaped how I saw everything related to not being heard and seen by the medical world. In the early days it invited anger, bitterness, and resentment. Not because those emotions were wrong, but because they kept pulling me back into a moment I could never rewrite.
Cancer had already taken enough from me and I didn’t want that moment to keep taking more.
Choosing What Happens Next
People sometimes misunderstand forgiveness. They think it means pretending something didn’t happen or excusing someone else’s actions. That isn’t what forgiveness came to mean for me. Forgiveness was never about saying the missed diagnosis was acceptable. It wasn’t. Forgiveness became the decision to stop allowing that moment to dictate the rest of my life. I realized I had a choice. I could spend my future asking, “What should have happened”, or I could begin asking,”What am I going to do from here?”
That single question changed everything. It shifted my attention away from a past I couldn’t change and toward a future I could still shape.
What Cancer Taught Me
Cancer changes us. Sometimes physically. Sometimes emotionally. Sometimes spiritually.
It introduces losses we never expected. Some are visible while others are invisible. One of the invisible losses is trust. Trust in our bodies and in the future. Trust that the people caring for us will always get it right. When that trust is broken, it’s natural to feel anger and grief. It’s natural to question and it’s important to know that those feelings deserve compassion.
Eventually we reach a crossroads. Do we allow what happened to define the rest of our lives or do we begin writing a new chapter?
Healing isn’t pretending the past didn’t hurt. Healing is refusing to let the past become the author of your future.
A Reflection for You
Perhaps your story isn’t about a missed diagnosis. Maybe it’s about something someone said, a treatment that didn’t go as planned, a relationship that changed, or a dream that disappeared. Or it’s simply the day life stopped feeling familiar.
Whatever your story is, I want you to consider these questions.
- What experience am I still carrying?
- What emotions have I been reliving over and over?
- What would become possible if I stopped letting that moment define who I am today?
- What kind of person do I want to become because of what I’ve lived through?
You don’t have to erase your story or minimize your pain, but you do get to decide what comes next. And that choice is more powerful than you may realize.
One Final Thought
Looking back, I no longer see that emergency room encounter as the defining moment of my story. It actually became the beginning and the defining moment came later.
That day was the day I decided that someone else’s mistake would not determine the person I would become and that decision gave me something cancer never could.
My future.
If you’re carrying a story that still hurts, I hope you’ll remember this:
What happened to you is part of your story.
It does not have to become your identity.
And no matter what has happened behind you, you still get to write what comes next.
Ready to get support in building a life that feels aligned and healing after cancer? My THRIVE coaching and resources are here to guide you. Let’s walk this path together.
If you would like to know more about the concept of living with cancer, I have written a book all about my personal experience with moving from survivor to thriver. In my book I offer anecdotes and strategies that will encourage you to learn how to thrive with cancer. You can get a copy of Living to Thrive: a holistic guide to living with cancer here.
The Cancer Thriver Pathway is a supportive community for anyone navigating cancer, whether you’re newly diagnosed, in treatment, living with metastatic cancer, in survivorship, or caring for someone you love. For just $27/month, you’ll gain access to support, resources, and a compassionate community that understands what you’re going through. Learn how to reduce overwhelm, rebuild confidence, manage fear and uncertainty, make informed decisions, and create a life you don’t have to put on hold because of cancer. Become a part of the Cancer Thriver Pathway today because you don’t have to wait for tomorrow to begin living again.
Kathryn White is a Cancer Coach who supporting cancer survivors to turn their cancer diagnosis into a thriving story one day at a time.
