On the Monday after the mammogram, I drove to the office of the breast specialist. The doctor was ill, but I saw her nurse practitioner, Heather.

I was put in a room and told to disrobe from the waist up and put on the gown provided. Heather did not leave me lying in the room for long. She came in with a cheerful smile. She sat down beside me and said, "Let's have a look at this lump." There was an ultrasound machine beside the table where I lay.

It did not take her long to find the tumor. I watched as she measured the jagged black spot in my breast. She said it was about 1.6 centimeters in size. Not a particularly large mass, but she was no longer smiling.

"It looks like you may have caught it early," she said, "but I'm going to be brutally honest with you. It looks like cancer." She pointed to the jagged outline of the anomaly in my breast. "Calcium deposits usually have smooth edges; cancers don't."

Her next step was to take a biopsy, which she did immediately. "It will take a while to get the results," she said. "We will call you as soon as we know something. Do you have any questions?"

I didn't. What could I ask when we didn't even have the results yet?

She checked my chart to make sure that she had my correct numbers. "I see that you work until late four days a week. Is it alright if we call you at work?"

"Sure. I'm in and out of the office. If I don't answer the phone, you can leave a message. I'm retiring at the end of the month, though. So after the twenty-ninth, you will have to call my cell phone."

Heather shook my hand and wished me luck. "Don't hesitate to call if you think of a question. I usually come up with several questions after leaving the doctor's office."

I had made the hour's drive to the doctor's office alone. I assured Wayne it would not be a problem. I suspected that the news might be ominous, especially after the reaction of the doctor who read the original ultrasound. Still, I saw no reason to make him take off from work just to find out the results. Now as I experienced a brain freeze brought on by the news, I wondered if perhaps I should have brought someone along.

I dressed and exited the office in a trance. When I got to my car, I laid my head on the steering wheel and let the tears fall. Even though I had suspected cancer, to hear Heather say it looked like cancer brought fear to my heart and tears to my eyes.

After indulging my tears for a few minutes, I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath. "Okay, God," I said. "We're in this together. Help me."

Although Heather gave little hope that the lump could be something other than cancer, others tried. My sister, Myra, informed me that she had experienced several breast tumors but all of them had turned out to be calcium deposits. Others told similar stories. Those who had experiences with breast cancers told me that since the lump was small, even if it was cancer, it would be imminently treatable. Some read up on breast cancer and told me how far treatment had come. Breast cancer is rarely fatal anymore, I was told.

I listened and hoped. But at the same time I remembered the three people that I knew personally who had fought breast cancer. Two were already with Jesus. The third, a friend in Canada, was undergoing chemo because her breast cancer had come back in her liver. She was losing the battle. Two of these women were heroes of the faith, as far as I was concerned. They believed without a doubt that God would heal them. Yet, one was dead and one was dying. I knew God sometimes chose to heal his daughters by giving them a heavenly body. I had to face this knowledge and be prepared for whatever eventuality God chose.

When I got home, I had the difficult task of sharing Heather's words with Wayne. He digested the probability that I had cancer. The emotional impact was similar to mine, although he did not shed tears. We prayed that God would prove Heather wrong.

January 29, 2015 was my last day at work. We had yet to hear from the doctor. Wayne was standing in my office door around 9am drinking a cup of coffee. My phone rang.

"RCC Education department, how can I help you?"

A strange voice answered. "Can I please speak to Deborah Cook."

When she asked for Deborah, I knew that it was someone who didn't know me well. Deborah is my birth name, and thus, my legal name, but I go by the nickname Andi.

"This is she."

"This is Dr. Legarde's office. Hold for Heather, please."

A new voice, one I recognized, came over the line. "Morning, Deborah. We got your test results back. I am sorry to tell you that the results came back as malignant."

"What's next?" I asked.

"I'm going to schedule you for an MRI and a PET scan. You need to start thinking about an oncologist. We can recommend one if you like, or you can find one of your own. We'll discuss all of your options when we have the results of the tests."

I hung up the phone and looked up at Wayne. "It's malignant."

He came behind my desk and took me in his arms. Even though the diagnosis was expected, my emotions once again overwhelmed me. I cried on his shoulder. I felt a few tears of his drop on my head.

There was a window between my private office and the larger education office where my two office tutors worked at computers, keeping up with the myriad paperwork needed to keep a large school organized. They knew something was wrong. They had both worked for me for years and were trusted employees, even though they were inmates.

Wayne went to the door and said, "Andi has cancer."

Eric, a Muslim, said, "I'll get Unk."

"Unk" with Andi & Wayne

His Uncle Arthur was an inmate Chaplain who had worked closely with Wayne. Even though Eric was not a Christian, he had watched our faith. He knew we needed prayer warriors.

Arthur came and brought the other four inmate Chaplains with him. My other office tutor, who was an elder in the prison church, joined them, as did Eric. They stood in a circle around Wayne and me, laid their hands on me and prayed for healing. I could feel God's presence in the room and was reassured that He was in control.

After they left, I looked at the list of things I wanted to get done before I left. I wasn't even a third of the way through the tasks I had planned to complete by 6pm, my usual departure time. Anything I left undone, my successor, Pam Ard - one of my teachers - would have to complete. I so wanted to leave her with a clean slate, but suddenly the list looked overwhelming.

All of my teachers and my teacher's aide were in Baton Rouge at a Department of Corrections' teacher training session. I knew that Pam had her phone with her. I called and told her the news. She said, "Andi, go home. You do not need to spend the rest of your day in the office."

I demurred. "I don't want to leave so many loose ends."

"I will deal with them," she said.

I told her there were a few things I needed to do, but that I would leave at noon.

I then went down the hall to tell my immediate supervisor. He too advised me to leave. I told him I planned to, at noon. I gave him the leave slip to sign.

I spent the next hour going from room to room, where many of my inmate tutors were working on lesson plans. Since the staff was gone, there were no students, but the teachers had left things for their tutors to do. I told all of them that I would be leaving at noon and why. Many of them stopped and prayed with me. Many had tears in their eyes. All assured me that I would be in their thoughts and prayers. I told them that I would keep Ms. Ard updated and that she would share my journey with them.

I worked a four-day week, but Wayne worked a five-day week. His last day would be the next day. When he went to tell the warden of my diagnosis, he told Wayne to take the afternoon off, so we both left at noon.

When we got home, I sent a What's App to the boys, "Call home." Wayne had made the mistake of letting them know I had a lump in my breast by text. They had chastised him, telling him to share that kind of news by voice. I knew that when they got the message, they would assume I had my test results.

One by one, they called. Aaron immediately asked if I wanted him to check with his wife Katherine about oncologists. Katherine was a physician's assistant, but her mother also had been battling breast cancer for thirty years. She had lots of contacts in the business. Micah assured me they would be thinking positive thoughts and praying. Caleb was so distraught that he asked for the afternoon off and went home where he could mourn in private.

I also called a friend, who was also the mother of one of my former inmate tutors. She had recently faced stage-three breast cancer and was treated in Covington, where my breast specialist was located. She prayed with me. She had kept an extensive diary of her movements during her treatment. She shared lots of information with me and was pleased to find that I was dealing with Dr. Legarde. This was the same breast doctor who had performed her surgery. She promised to pray for me and to help me through the maze that is cancer treatment.

Wayne's way of dealing with stress is to turn inward. Mine is to talk. We compromised. We talked for a bit. Then I began my last bit of packing while Wayne surfed the Net and read everything he could find on breast cancer.

The next day was a Friday. While Wayne worked, Aaron, our youngest son, and I were supposed to pack the U-Haul for the move to Carmen's, thus the last minute packing spree. All of the major stuff was already boxed and ready to go, but I still had some things that weren't done, like food and toiletries.

Wayne interrupted my packing to suggest we watch a movie. Although my preference was to bury myself in work, I knew a movie was a better outlet for him. We chose an upbeat movie and used it as a crutch to subdue our negative emotions for a couple of hours.

When we retired for the night, I tossed and turned. My mind is difficult to turn off under the best of circumstances. That night it ran in loops like a stuck recording. Prayer was unable to banish the myriad thoughts. Finally, I fell into a restless sleep.

The next day was so busy that I had no time to think about cancer. An inmate crew was scheduled to come to our house on the prison grounds and help Aaron load the truck. Wayne had to work; I'm sure he planned it that way. When Aaron got there, he gave me an extra long hug, but we didn't really talk about the diagnosis.

I had been taking loads of clothing to Carmen's every weekend for several months, but we still had enough stuff to fill the U-Haul. Because of my movie concession the previous night, I was still packing the kitchen and bathrooms, while they were loading the truck. All of the neatly packed and labeled boxes ended up in the far back of the truck, along with our heavy furniture. All the haphazardly packed stuff, some of it thrown in trashcans and other convenient containers was just inside the doors.

Moving proved to be helpful, not just because I would be closer to the cancer specialist... It gave me something to occupy my hands, not just that day, but for weeks afterward. I would have to unpack and try to merge two households.

Life, at this point, was filled with stressors. Psychologists tell us that stress, even good stress, is hard on our bodies. People who face several major stressors in the same year are more likely to suffer because of it. In just a few days, I was facing three of the major stressors on the list: 1) I was retiring; 2) I was moving; and 3) I was facing a cancer diagnosis.

And so my journey began.