This is the first of several emails Angie wrote to her friends and family when cancer treatment got going. Written December 3, 2025, after two lumpectomy surgeries and months of cancer diagnosis and treatment evaluations, she realized she needed to find a way to keep people updated without turning it into some homegrown social media reality show. 

<Big Sigh>

Disclaimer: The following missive contains reflections that are mostly in the moment. There is nothing "wrong" and nothing to do about what I am going to share, unless I say otherwise. <end disclaimer>

I have cancer. When I found out I would have told you "this is weird because I feel fine, healthy even. I'm not sick."  As this wears on, and I slow down to the pace of unfolding, I have learned to hold dueling truths. I am healthy in many ways. I am fit and strong. This past year I've felt better than I have in the past 5 years. I went months not taking any pain relievers-- remarkable given how much pain I was managing. 

And, I'm also not entirely well.  

Midsummer, I started feeling "off." Sleep disruptions. Other small but noticeable oddities. Like many women in their 40s, I initially chalked it up to perimenopause. It was hormonally related– just not in the way I thought. The substantive changes I’ve made to address the cancer have set off a cascade of things... the return of migraine headaches as example. These changes have shifted my thinking from "I'm healthy! I'm not sick!" to... "well, maybe there are some things to attend to?"  I'm not sick-- but I no longer claim to be unequivocally "well." I legitimately feel both "healthy" and "off"-- and I'm working to listen to my quiet inner voice that helps me interpret when there is something wrong that needs tending to, and when I'm riding a wave of physical recalibrations that come from cancer, surgery, and all the et ceteras. 

My first surgery was uncomplicated and I was healing well. Thank you so much for all the love and goodies and meals and well wishes-- we were overwhelmed with all the love.

I had a second surgery just before Thanksgiving, chasing a cancerous margin. My treatment approach is to physically remove the offensive material followed by other therapies "as indicated." I am still in the "remove" phase, waiting for pathology to clear me to the next steps, and also inform what those next steps could be. 

Given the state of the science, if my next round of surgical pathology comes back clear, one could suggest that I am "cancer free" and everything else we do is to keep it that way.  I like this interpretation best, so that's the way I think about it. It may not be clinically accurate, but it's psychologically supportive.

We are in a slightly protracted phase right now-- kind of a double wait-and-see. More surgery? Radiation? Chemo? Don't know yet. Ryan and I want to plan things, ski trips and holidays and dates with friends. And we don't want to because we don't really know what's going to happen, and don't want to have to manage cancellations and rescheduling stuff on top of the rest. We are trying to keep it simple. 

We didn't share the second surgery news broadly because I've been feeling reclusive, and don't really want to share ALL the sordid details of this thing. Turns out there are a lot of details, lots of choices, and not a lot of good answers or clear paths. There's a lot of steps. There's a lot of waiting. These things make sharing feel overwhelming, it's impossible to keep everyone up on everything, and I don't want to. This feels like an intimate and messy process, and not one I feel very social about. I don't want to share all the inner workings of my endocrine system so that someone can understand why I'm choosing to do X over Y. Sure-- there's plenty of other material to share and write about-- though I find I don't want to relive or replay it multiple times while living in it. 

I'm learning that our medical system is NOT the bastion of answers full of confident and benevolent care givers that I once believed it was. The system is as flawed and fallible as any of us, and I have to work to find doctors I have confidence in. I want people who will partner with me in pursuing good health, who will field my questions and work with me to find paths forward that fit for me and my family. People who will help sort the pros and cons of the choices, and not simply hand me a 100 page manual and ask me what I want to do next (yeah, that happened). The prospect of starting over and searching for those folks inspires panic and feels impossible. This experience continues to challenge my beliefs about healthcare.

I feel like my world is shaken up, and also, my world is the same. In our house, there's always SOMETHING going on. We have teenagers that we cohabitate with half time, and are invested in full time. They have school and sports to support. I am still adjusting to my new home executive role without an outside income. Ryan is still stewarding a commercial real estate company in a variable and unpredictable market. Friends have lost their children. People have been getting sick. The kinds of stability we once sought, and the ways we worked for it seem more fleeting and out of reach. This cancer stuff feels like another thing in a long list of ongoing unfoldings. I am becoming numb to the shock of disruption, like America is becoming numb to the violence in our day to day existence.

Except I'm not. I'm not numb to it. Usually I feel a forward propulsion to engage in the 100 different things on our list of life doings. There isn't a day without doing to be done! But recently I said to Ryan that "something is broken inside of me." I don't want to do anything. I sit down to write notes, and I stare out the window for an hour. I don't really want to watch shows. I don't want to plan next year's garden. I don't want to update my address list. It's unusual for me to NOT have some kind of forward movement.

Ryan replied "nothing is broken." 

But if it is not broken, then what? I sat with his response. He might be right, it isn't broken. 

Something has been unplugged inside of me.

I still have lists of things to do. I don't write them down. I don't act on them. My brain reviews all the things I still have left to do in the yard. There is no motor or pressing desire to attend to them. I simultaneously long to work on holiday cards, Christmas lights, gift making, and I can't find the motor to do any of it. I want to do it. I don't feel compelled to. And I don't really worry about not doing it.

I'm not broken, and I won't claim to be depressed. I probably have some depression, some grief, some unresolved stuff to work through, but Ryan is right-- I'm not broken. Nothing is broken. Close friends and family have long been advising me to slow down and rest, take a few ideas off the list-- and I think it's finally happening. I'm in the resting season now. Like an actual season of it-- not just a day or week of it. It's new and awkward for me. It also doesn't feel entirely of my own volition, hence the feeling of having been unplugged. I get the sense that it's temporary, but it might last a bit. 

I am both healthy, and not so. I am doing well, and also feeling low. I am simultaneously lonely, and I want to be alone. 

I write and share because I want to connect, but I don't want to call. I can't seem to bring myself to answer texts. Sometimes I can. Lots of times, I can't.

It's a bizarre time in my life right now. And I'm asking for...? Patience? Understanding? I don't know.

Please keep sending texts, pictures, letters, whatever. Feel free to reach out. Send missives. Random outreaches. They mean so much to me. I let them remind me that it's okay for me to take some quiet time alone, and that you'll be there, ready when I emerge from this cave. I may or may not reply. But I welcome the outreach.

Possible? 

I know too, that others have needs. You might be struggling and need friendship or support of your own. If you need me, just send a text or note that says "8 minutes." I'm told that often times, an 8-minute conversation or connection with someone can go a long way to easing what ails us. And while I'm in a funk-- I'm not incapable of showing up if you need me. I can find 8-minutes in the dark for you.

Thanks for reading this far, and for holding the light and love for me.

More soon,
Angie B.