Welcome to Planet Cancer

One diagnosis, a whole new planet.

My husband has cancer. The father of my toddler. My best friend since high school.

I’ve read the stories before — young person, rare cancer, blindsided. I always thought that won’t be us. We’re healthy. Informed. Supported. But it was us.

Two weeks ago, we were living a normal life. Toddler chaos. Work deadlines. Groceries. Date nights. Then came a dull pain under his ribs. Maybe gallbladder? Something antibiotics could fix, we thought. But instead, we got tumors — multiple, grapefruit-sized.

Everything changed in an instant. One minute I was meal prepping and booking swim lessons; the next, I was standing in a hospital room, listening to somber doctors tell us that this is “bad”. What followed was a blur of biopsies, scans, vague possibilities, and a deep gut sense that things were not okay. We clung to hope but prepared for the worst. We spiraled on Reddit, avoided Google, flew to New York for opinions, and cried ourselves to sleep.

And then, we got the words no one ever wants to hear: Cholangiocarcinoma. A rare, aggressive cancer in the bile ducts.

During one of those early, shell-shocked conversations, another caregiver welcomed me to “Planet Cancer.” And it clicked. With one diagnosis, we have suddenly found ourselves on another planet — one with its own language, its own rules, its own version of time. A place you don’t understand until you’ve been dropped here, unprepared, unwilling, and desperate to leave.

Now, I find myself navigating hospital systems and insurance paperwork instead of birthday parties and playdates. I’m advocating for my husband, weighing treatment plans, questioning everything, and trying not to fall apart. I’m still a mom — still changing diapers, wiping blueberries off the floor, and singing bedtime songs — but all of it is happening from this strange, disorienting place.

On Planet Cancer your life isn’t your own anymore. You lose control, suspended in a constant state of limbo, filled with uncertainty. Life outside of the diagnosis seems trivial. You stop caring about your job, your to-do lists, or the small annoyances that used to take up your time. All that matters now is survival. You’re stuck in purgatory, unsure of what the future holds, and suddenly grappling with questions that feel too big to answer: What will life look like in a year? Where will we live? How do we navigate this with our toddler? Should I stay at work? Take leave? Is our insurance enough? Do we put him on a plant-based diet? Is he with the right doctor? Has it spread? How do we afford this? How do we survive?

But the reality is, I’m living in both worlds. I’m still a mom to a busy toddler, trying to keep up with life on Planet Earth while also surviving on Planet Cancer. My priorities have shifted, and I can’t always explain that to people who can’t fully grasp what it’s like. I’m not the person I was before, and I may never be again. This new world is disorienting and overwhelming, and the things that once felt urgent now seem small in comparison.

And yet, somehow, in the middle of all this, there’s a strange kind of clarity. You realize what matters. You hold your people tighter. You learn to live inside the moment, even when the moment hurts like hell.

So if you’ve just landed here too — if your world has flipped overnight — please know you’re not alone. This new planet is harsh and unfamiliar, but there’s a village here. A quiet strength in knowing others have walked this impossible path too.