Instead of the 1-2 week timeline I was told it may take to receive my results, the very next day after my biopsy I received a notification that a new lab result was available in my health portal.

Here was my answer! Is it nothing? Or is it a big something?

I frantically scrambled to open the app and watched unblinkingly as the page loaded.

My results read “Indeterminate”.

Indeterminate?? I couldn’t believe it! I knew there was a possibility that the test would come back unclear, but the thought of having this loom over me for even longer felt like the worst punishment.

I had prayed and prayed before this biopsy, not for it not to be cancer, but for me to have clear answers and directions. That is how badly I wanted clarity. I was sick of the “maybes”. I needed something solid. I needed a reference for myself.

Either the test shows its not malignant, so I’m okay. Or the test shows it’s cancerous, so here’s the plan. Indeterminate meant more waiting, and more questioning of what was going on inside me.

It also meant that it was not clearly not cancer. Meaning, something about my cells were off. Something was not quite right.

My report included words like “follicular cells”, “pseudoinclusions”, “nuclear crowding” “mildly pale chromatin”, “thick colloid”, “hemosiderin ladin”, and “frequent nuclear grooves”.

All of these words led to a conclusion saying “this specimen is best classified as atypia of undetermined significance”.

Undetermined significance.

Such weighty, mysterious words.

My sample was sent off for more testing. “Gene” testing. My results would come back either “benign” or “suspicious”.

Benign meant the chances of cancer were less than 4%, and nothing needed to be done. Just follow ups and monitoring its growth via ultrasounds each year. Suspicious meant odds of cancer were 50%, and that surgery was recommended to remove it.

A flip of a coin! I felt like I might as well be picking petals off a sunflower saying “I have cancer”, “I have it not”.

Either way, I would wait another two weeks as pathologists studied my genes to determine if my body was cancer leaning.

The waiting was unbearable! I refreshed my health app everyday. Checked emails constantly. Picked up every phone call on the first ring.

And then one afternoon, Thursday, December 3rd at 4:07 pm, I got the notification.

It read, in all caps;

TEST RESULT AFIRMA GENE SEQUENCING CLASSIFIER SUSPICIOUS

My heart dropped. I read it so many times. The format was so all over the place I thought I missed the actual test result. How could something as big as 50%-chance-you-have-cancer-and-need-surgery-to-remove-it result be reduced to the word “suspicious”.

I started sobbing after reading the whole page over and over again and finding no other diagnosis but that big all caps SUSPICIOUS.

I called my mom and could barely get the words out.

I called my doctors office and the nurse assistant said that my doctor had already left for the day. I told her that the test results were already posted and began crying. She apologized that I had to find out that way and assured me that my doctor would call me tomorrow.

Then I texted my boss saying I needed the night off.

I went to my parents house and was immediately sandwiched between them in the sweetest hugs. They held me as I cried and tucked me into bed.

The nightmare came true, and this was just the beginning.