What It Feels Like to Be Diagnosed with Breast Cancer

Singer-songwriter Tracy Bonham got the call no one wants to receive on a Friday night. Here’s how she took the news—and everything that followed.

- Sandra Rilova

LOOKING BACK, I guess I knew something was wrong. I’d actually felt a little lump about a year and a half earlier. It was really hard to find, and I didn’t flag it because it never showed up on mammograms. As so many women have been told, I have dense breasts; there are a lot of benign cysts in there, and you can feel them, so I didn’t think anything of it. But there I was, in 2024, wrapping up a terrible divorce. I was on my ex-husband’s insurance, and I needed to see as many doctors as I could before it was cut off. I had also been pretty sick with a lot of intestinal stuff—a wild bout of colitis and then this infection called Helicobacter pylori. Just awful stuff that caused me to lose about 14 pounds in two months.

I was so tired of all the doctors. I had my regular mammogram coming up, but I needed a break. I called to reschedule, and the woman on the phone asked if there had been any changes. Normally I would say no. I don’t know what made me say yes. I just had this mentality of being super thorough. I figured this was my time to speak up. I felt so stupid saying it, though. I trusted the previous mammograms! To my surprise, the woman said I’d need a referral for a diagnostic mammogram. I didn’t even know what that was. (It’s a more detailed X-ray.) My first reaction: I didn’t want to bother my doctor with this paperwork. She’s busy! I eventually realized that was a silly concern women often have, and I called to “bother” her.

I scheduled the special mammogram, but I wasn’t freaked out. I was just like,