Following the shock and horror of a cancer diagnosis, the patient faces a number of decisions. For me, told a week before Christmas that I had Stage IIIB ovarian cancer and would need chemotherapy, the first decisions included, Who do I tell? How? Whose Christmas shall I ruin as mine has been ruined?

In the religious tradition I grew up in, we circumvented difficult situations (such as breaking up with someone) with the phrase “I had no peace about it.” That summed it up for me—I had no peace about telling friends and family that the original “no cancer” diagnosis had been premature. I had assented to the chemo regime my doctor recommended, even though, watching a friend a few years earlier undergoing treatment, I had sworn I never would do so. I was so frightened, and the doctor was so kind and solemn, assuring me that this would simply be six months out of my life, that I agreed. But how could I tell others?

I need to protect others, to make everything okay for them. This may go back to my adolescence, when I’d decided that I was not only smarter but also emotionally stronger than my parents. Humility has never been my gift. So even with my priest, whom I decided needed to know, I began softly. Not trusting myself to talk, and always more comfortable with the written word, the night of my diagnosis I crafted a rather lighthearted e-mail and sent it with the heading, RATS. She told me later that she’d taken me literally, expecting to read about rats in the apartment. So much for the light touch.

My priest offered to make phone calls to two dear friends who had most rejoiced in my early “no cancer” words. But before she could make those calls, our deacon died suddenly, so that I ended up calling one of those friends and listening to his sobs. I asked my sister-in-law to tell my brother, who was having major problems of his own, at a time when it was in her judgment convenient. That got bungled. Clearly, the communication system wasn’t working very well.

I remained dry-eyed. I’ve always been one to fall apart only after the crisis has passed. I cried in the gynecologic oncologist’s office, but not telling my friend who had driven me to that follow-up appointment (and to and from the hospital for surgery). At the Christmas Eve service, I did not cry, though I was tempted when a friend sat down next to me, demanding the truth, then held me close, kissed my hair, and asked, Will you lose your hair?

Oh yes, my hair and my dignity. But I was more worried about losing my life.

Still, it was one of the best Christmases I’d ever had, in terms of an outpouring of love and friendship. I looked for reasons to be grateful and found them everywhere, even beyond my doctor’s confidence that chemo would work.

I had a paying freelance job with a looming deadline to distract me. When I became overwhelmed, I retreated into research on the Mesopotamian Empire.

And my friends: one who’d been to see me the week before diagnosis again drove nearly 400 miles round trip to ensure I wouldn’t be alone on Christmas day and took me to a nearby art museum. Another stopped by with a Swiss chard tart for our lunch. Motivated by love and fear, friends came from several states to see for themselves that I was okay. “Sense of humor still intact,” one commented on leaving. Another asked if there were anything I wanted to do or places I wanted to go that I wasn’t sure I had the strength for. She took me to a conservatory an hour away, where the lush greenness and decorations soothed my winter weariness.

I hadn’t sent Christmas cards with the annual letter I regularly produced. But right on liturgical schedule, on January 6, I had an Epiphany as to how to handle this unwelcome truth. I wrote a belated letter, giving an outline of the facts and the timeline of treatment, quoting from one of my favorite prophets:

The words of this morning’s first reading from Isaiah 43 seemed especially apt for me: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”

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