Looking Back at Cancer and Coronavirus
Writer Darcey Gohring reflects on how the combination changed her life forever
I found the tumor in April 2020, weeks after Covid-19 descended on New York City. I was forty-six, extremely healthy, and had no family history of breast cancer. I’m still not sure what changed me more — experiencing breast cancer or having it happen at the onset of a pandemic. In the end, the two have become so connected in my mind, I will always remember them as one.
At the time, we didn’t know how coronavirus was transmitted. Going to the hospital felt like entering an epicenter of germs that were all waiting for a host. But I had no choice — it was either let the cancer grow or risk getting the virus.
I made my way past the police checkpoints outside and walked into what appeared to be an apocalyptic ghost town. The hallways were eerily dark. Kiosks sat empty. The harried staff was in head-to-toe PPE. There were no elective procedures taking place. Thus, in each waiting room, I was the only person.
After each visit, I came home, stripped off my clothing, and took a hot shower scrubbing my skin raw. I would not let my husband, who has asthma, touch me until I was clean and in fresh clothing. Then I would collapse onto him sobbing, simultaneously needing the comfort and also worrying that I might be imperiling him.
A surgeon officially confirmed the diagnosis. As I walked into his private office for the consultation, he picked up a pink pashmina shawl wrapped in a label with a picture of a breast cancer ribbon on it. He offered it to me as I was sitting down, and I muttered a thank you. I knew it was supposed to be a comforting gesture but instead it felt like an invitation to a club I didn’t want to be in. As he began to speak, I looked down at the shawl. It seemed like a relic from the past, what you’d wear to a summer party or a wedding, not something that fit into what the world had become.
We sat across from one another, faces obscured by masks, as he rattled through a list of things that made no sense at the time — if the tumor was hormone receptive, lumpectomy versus mastectomy, lymph node removal, and radiation or chemotherapy. He said there appeared to be no genetic link. In other words, it was a fluke —one that occurred at the worst possible time. He mentioned I’d probably be able to keep my hair.
As he talked, a picture kept running through my mind. A few weeks earlier, celebrating my twins’ seventeenth birthday in a crowded restaurant surrounded by family. That life was gone now. He asked if I had any questions, and I shook my head. All I really wanted to know was something he had no answer to — would I ever be that person again?
Moments come back in flashes — the way my blood went cold the first time my fingertips grazed the lump, walking empty hospital hallways, having some of my life’s hardest conversations with no one beside me, laying on metal tables fighting back tears.
Cancer was when lockdown really began for me. My only job was to stay healthy so I could get through treatment without complications. Before the surgery even took place, there were days of tests — more prodding and poking. What I noticed most was that the staff seemed just as uneasy as I did. There was no small talk, only the requisite questions and answers. Occasionally, I would hear a story about the things they had witnessed in the past few weeks. I tried to forget the fact that all of it was happening in the same building just a few hallways away, in the newly appointed “Covid wing.”
As word spread to friends and family about my diagnosis, I received a slew of texts, emails, and phone calls from breast cancer survivors. They shared their stories and assured me I would get through it. I wanted to believe what they said, but all I could think about was how different it had been for them. They didn’t go through it alone, and they didn’t have to worry about navigating a pandemic at the same time.
Surgery day seemed like the biggest hurdle. It would require absolute faith in the medical team to keep me virus-free while I was under anesthesia. That morning, I stood on the sidewalk outside the hospital crying as I said goodbye to my husband. I hugged him one last time, wiped the tears, put my mask on, and steeled myself as I walked through the doors. I could fall apart again when I got home. Here, I vowed to keep it together.
I sat on the hospital bed as doctors and nurses in what appeared to be space suits hooked up machines and performed pre-surgery protocols. Each moment felt like a fight with the fear brewing inside. At one point, I read a text from a friend and I could no longer contain it. I began weeping uncontrollably. A nurse handed me a tissue and left so I could collect myself. Somehow that felt worse. The machines humming around me as I sputtered through breaths wondering if it was better to get my mask wet or take it off altogether. A few minutes later, I welcomed the anesthesiologist knowing sleep would be better than sitting alone with my feelings any longer.
I woke after surgery, blinking my eyes open. “You need to put that back on,” a nurse said immediately, as she pointed to a mask on my chest. I felt fuzzy, but I managed. As I got my bearings, I registered that my left breast and underarm were wrapped tightly in bandages. All I had thought about before surgery was not getting coronavirus. For the first time, I wondered what my body would look like underneath.
I spent the following days recovering in solitude. Typically, the hospital offered cancer patients services to help with recovery — things like massage, reiki, and support groups — but none of it was happening because of Covid. My only lifelines to friends and family were texts and emails, but a reaction to the surgery left me with vertigo and blurry vision. For the first few days, I could barely get out of bed and couldn’t look at my phone for longer than a few minutes. I wished more than ever that friends could simply visit in person.
As spring turned into summer, I began to prepare for radiation treatments. I was lucky and would not need chemotherapy. With each step, I expected to feel relief but it never came. Covid always seemed to be there as an invisible threat that could derail everything. Worry became my constant companion.
Halfway through radiation treatments, my neck seized, and I began getting severe headaches. The doctors told me it was my body responding to trauma — a physical manifestation, not of the cancer or the treatments, but of the stress. Outside, I looked like the same person I had been just a few months prior. But by the end, I felt like a shell of her.
I still haven’t arrived at the life I knew before cancer and coronavirus. Far from it. Even now, memories from last year hit me unexpectedly. Moments come back in flashes — the way my blood went cold the first time my fingertips grazed the lump, walking empty hospital hallways, having some of my life’s hardest conversations with no one beside me, laying on metal tables fighting back tears.
And yet, I’ve learned not to fear these flashbacks, but to greet them with hope. When I look back at the past year — my personal trauma, and the trauma experienced by the rest of the world — I can see just how far we’ve come.
Darcey Gohring is a freelance editor and writer based outside New York City. She specializes in memoir and personal essay. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, Insider, HuffPost, Zibby Mag, among others. She is a contributing author to the anthology book, Corona City: Voices From an Epicenter, and recently completed her first novel. Darcey leads writing workshops and has served as the keynote speaker for conferences all over the northeastern United States. Visit www.darceygohring.com to learn more.
