"I have cancer??! Oh, okay, thanks for calling..."

I had been taking so much time off from work that it was starting to pile up. I’m an Executive Assistant for a large Internet Consulting franchise company, and I work directly for one of the head honchos who you will undoubtedly hear more about. He has been a catalyst in my ability to cope with what is now my life, but anyway, working for him and the whole department of franchise development has kept me very busy and on my toes for the last year. We had our quarterly breakfast meeting approaching that week, which I organize so I thankfully didn’t have much time to sit around and worry about what was happening with me. I had awards to order, presentations to edit and organize, liaising with the catering dept of the hotel we were holding the meeting at, the DJ to coordinate with, certificates to print, department heads to bother about their deadlines for presentations, you get the gist.
The morning of the breakfast meeting, I was too involved with the day to really concentrate on the fact that either that day or the next would be when I may get a call from the doctor with results. I sat as I always do, right up front with all the big wigs at their table. My boss is the one who emcees the event and does most of the talking, so I’m up there for anything he needs. The awards are being handed out to staff and in my head I’m thinking, “Y’know, I’m handling all this very well, I’m keeping my emotions in check and I’m just being the strong person I am, not letting on at all that this is happening to me. I’m soooo tough!” Of course, that is until the President of our company gets to the podium to hand out the awards and then give out the big FD award, which is the Outstanding Achievement award. From my understanding from my boss, we weren’t giving out that award this quarter as there was really no one in FD that he felt had truly earned it, but he asked me to order one anyway and we’d just get it engraved later if he chose to use it. Made sense. Now I’m sitting listening to my companies President talk about this award, and how the person receiving it is the one who makes (my boss) look good, they don’t have a slide for her in the presentation because she’s the one who puts these presentations together and all this happening as I look around (peripherally of course) to feel 100+ pairs of eyes boring into the back of my head, the red creeping up my neck on it’s way to my face while trying not to notice the owner of my company who’s sitting right next to me smiling at me with amusement at my reaction. Yeah, it’s me. My boss, who knows what I’m going through medically, decides that now’s a good time to make me go to the front of this huge room with all of my co-workers and give an acceptance speech! He must really believe that I’m strong to be able to handle all that, but he’s right, I am strong enough to get up there and accept this award, and that is exactly what I do, even though I’m on auto-pilot and can’t remember the crowds reaction or what exactly I said up there, but I do know that I got a standing ovation (as I was told later). I decided on funny as opposed to endearing ‘cause I didn’t want to cry like a little girl in front of my entire company! Apparently my speech was good; I’ll take their word for it. It was an honour to win that and I do hold a lot of pride for that accomplishment in a company my size.
I went back to the office after the meeting, kept receiving congratulations, feeling embarrassed yet admittedly chuffed about all the attention and recognition. I had to get right back to work as the owner asked me if I’d do an online survey and send it to all, so I tucked my head back into my laptop and went about my business.
I got the call just after 2pm. It was the receptionist at the doctor’s office telling me my results were in and she was going to get me an appointment to go in and discuss the findings. Now, it was Thursday and there were no available appointments for Friday but she would do what she could to get me in on Monday even though she’d had to bump someone else, but in her words she knew I was anxious to hear what was going on so she’d do her best. I asked was there was no way I could get in tomorrow? I didn’t want this plaguing me all weekend! She kinda started fumbling over her words and saying that I knew I’d be getting surgery either way, and the doctor would be discussing this with me and I retorted yes I knew I was getting surgery and I wasn’t concerned about that. All at this point I wanted to know was whether or not I had cancer! She asked me if I wanted her to have that conversation with me now, and I immediately without hesitation said yes, of course! She stated that, well, that I am positive for breast carcinoma aka breast cancer. huh.

Of course today wasn't gonna be remembered as the day I won the Outstanding Achievement Award...