The Year Arrives with a Cancer Diagnosis in the Family

Doctors said this was urgent and serious.

I’m still reeling from the shock of a cancer diagnosis. We didn’t expect the test results from my daughter-in-law’s biopsy for another week. The doctor said it would take 5 to 10 days. But just two days later, my son texted me: She has lymphoma.

When I think back over the past year, I realize part of me suspected something was wrong. Just two months ago, I mentioned to my partner that I was worried about her health. Cancer swam to the surface of my thoughts, but I suppressed the idea and rationalized her frequent illnesses away.

I reasoned that anybody in her shoes would be tired. She has a career and three children. She works hard and plays hard.

My daughter-in-law is the epitome of an extrovert, deriving her energy and joy from being around people. When she and my son don’t have friends or family in their house, they’re going out or planning their next adventure.

I love the way she embraces people. She never judges or criticizes but accepts people exactly as they are. She invited my partner and me, along with her parents, on many of their vacations, and she surprised me by flying into town for my 70th birthday. She is the sort of daughter-in-law every mother-in-law wants.

Wouldn’t anyone get sick with a schedule like hers? Didn’t her frequent illnesses mean she should take time for self-care? Yet her colds and fatigue seemed excessive, even for a mother of young kids.

When she and my son were getting ready to visit us for Thanksgiving, they divided their responsibilities. He went to pick the kids up from school, but she fell into a deep sleep without getting anything done. She laughed about it later, but I felt a shiver of uneasiness. Something must be wrong for her to be so tired.

I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind, and then doctors discovered her cancer by accident.

She had a friend who needed a liver transplant, and my daughter-in-law decided to be a donor.

I was skeptical, but she explained that a living donor transplant means a portion of the liver from a healthy person is placed in someone who needs a transplant. The donor’s remaining liver returns to its normal size and functionality within a couple of months.

What a wonderful, unselfish thing for her to do.

My son wasn’t 100 percent on board because of the risks, but that discussion became a moot point when she went in for testing. Following blood tests and an MRI, doctors stopped everything and told her she couldn’t be a donor. She wasn’t healthy enough. She had a swollen lymph node that needed to be investigated.

The medical team emphasized this was urgent and that she would need to be put under general anesthesia for a biopsy.

My daughter-in-law didn’t seem alarmed. A couple of months passed before she was able to schedule the biopsy. Doctors with the VA (my DIL is a veteran) postponed her appointment twice, and she grew impatient because she wanted to get it over with. Then, finally, the day after New Year's, she got in.

I called my son that evening, and he said, “She’s doing great. They just finished the biopsy, and I’m taking her home. We should have the results in 5 to 10 days.”

That was two days ago.

On the evening of the second day after her biopsy, my son texted me this alarming message: “B cell lymphoma of follicular origin. Setting up an appointment to discuss what that means and options.”

I tried to contact him. He texted that he would call as soon as he got the kids to bed. My DIL had gone to a movie with a friend. Later that night, I finally talked with my son, but they wouldn’t know much until they met with an oncologist.

This turns their world upside down, as it would anyone’s. They were planning to sell their house and move out of the country, becoming digital nomads. My son works from home, and this would be a great adventure. They had already enrolled their kids in school at their chosen destination.

We move along with our plans, our lives, our daily concerns, and life blindsides us. A tornado touches down, smashing to pieces the fragile structures we have so carefully constructed.

They don’t know what their plans are now. Everything is on hold until they see what the doctor says. No one expected a vibrant wife, mother, and career woman to be diagnosed with anything serious. Why would a woman in her thirties get cancer?

A few weeks ago, I read an article about increasing cancer rates among young adults. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said cancers in the under-50 age group could foreshadow an “emerging pandemic.”

Cancer patients in that age group are parents of young children. They’re at the peak of their careers or struggling to be breadwinners for their families. Sometimes, they are caught between caring for young children and elderly parents.

When I heard about my daughter-in-law’s diagnosis, I did what everybody does these days. I turned to Google. That’s where I learned there are dozens of different kinds of lymphoma. My daughter-in-law has non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which increased by 81 percent between 1973 and 1997. It’s now the fifth most common non-skin cancer in the United States.

My friend, a nurse, sent me some encouraging information. She wrote: “This is typically a slow-growing form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and while not curable, it is considered to be a chronic condition and carries an extended life expectancy. It accounts for 1/5 of lymphomas in the US. In some cases, no treatment is required. Sometimes, physicians recommend an approach referred to as “active surveillance,” also known as watching waiting. Studies have shown that patients treated with this approach have survival outcomes similar to those treated early in the course of their disease. In patients requiring chemotherapy, physicians may use one or more chemotherapy drugs such as the monoclonal antibodies.”

We won’t really know anything until my daughter-in-law meets with her doctor. She is optimistic and hopeful, which is her typical response to life’s challenges. She believes the discovery of her cancer in such an accidental way is a miracle. She has strong faith that everything will be fine.

It bothers me that I can’t help them because of distance. We live over a thousand miles away, and if they move out of the country, that distance triples. If they don’t move, she will be surrounded by a large network of family and friends, which is something to consider.

Like my daughter-in-law, I lean heavily into faith and tend to have a positive, hopeful attitude. All we can do is wait for the next step and see where it leads. No one expected 2024 to bring a cancer diagnosis, but life is like that. It throws a wrench in our best-laid plans.

After the biopsy, my son said, “She was so much younger than everybody else at the VA hospital.”

I hope her youth will give her an edge. I hope the cancer hasn’t advanced much. I hope she doesn’t need terrible, vitality-robbing treatments. I hope if she does need them, the treatments work. I hope she and my son hold onto their faith. I hope she experiences a miracle of healing. I hope…I hope…

Thank you for reading my sad story.