That day at work, I received a call from the surgeon asking me to call him and saying I should have him paged if he wasn’t available. The message alarmed me and I knew something wasn’t right. Over the phone, he told me that the lump he’d removed was malignant. I had to clarify what he meant: Was it cancer? When he said the words, “I’m so sorry,” I knew it was cancer. The diagnosis was a huge shock to me, my family and even the doctor.