Dear Readers,
I should warn you: the level of vulnerability in this message may be unsettling. It is to me. I’m writing this from a hospital bed, a place stripped of warmth and distraction, where the sterile quiet leaves you alone with your thoughts. No noise to outrun them. No busyness to hide behind. Just reflection—whether you want it or not.
There’s a concept called a Significant Emotional Event. Something so jarring, so disruptive to your internal rhythm, that it forces you to reassess everything: your relationships, your habits, the way you spend your time, the stories you tell yourself about what matters. I’ve spoken about these moments before. I understood them intellectually. I didn’t realize how incomplete my understanding was. This experience cracked something open in me.
I’ve spent years standing on stages talking about vulnerability. About human connection. About relationships being the real currency of a meaningful life. I believed it as much as I could based on what I’d lived so far. When I moved away from the town where I’d spent my entire life, geography clarified relationships. I learned quickly who made the effort to stay connected. That was my first real education in sustainable connection—the kind that survives distance, change, and time.
But this moment reshaped the lesson entirely.
I still believe that relationships outweigh money, titles, or prestige. I’ve seen people with abundance in all the visible markers of success who are quietly hollow, starved of meaning and real connection. The people in your inner circle—the ones who know your flaws and stay anyway—are the lifeblood of your existence. Full stop. The imperfect people who forgive your missteps without casting you aside. The ones you fall into. That part of the equation hasn’t changed.
What has changed is my understanding of the other people—the ones you haven’t met yet.
Because there is a specific kind of hope that only arrives through a stranger who chooses to care. No fanfare. No obligation. Just a human being quietly doing something decent because they can.
I was rushed to the hospital with debilitating pain—the kind that collapses you inward. In the emergency room, everything followed the familiar script: triage, assessment, treatment. Efficient. Necessary. Clinical. Then I was told, matter-of-factly, that my CT Scan revealed a “suspicious mass on my pancreas that presents as cancer.”
And just like that, the room went dark.
How could it not? Those words don’t leave room for nuance in your mind. They land as a death sentence before anyone has time to explain probabilities or next steps. My thoughts raced ahead of facts. I assumed the worst. I planned my funeral. I decided who would speak. I rehearsed how I would tell my children. I negotiated with the universe in the quiet spaces between beeping machines and medical jargon. Fear filled every corner where hope hadn’t yet been invited.
I’ve spent a career operating in crisis. I know better than to jump to conclusions. And still, in that moment, my mind wrote a tragedy without evidence. This is what terror does—it collapses time and logic and replaces them with certainty where none exists.
And then something different happened.
The Physician Associate (PA-C) walked in. She listened. Really listened. She was compassionate, curious, and unhurried. She ordered the additional tests that were needed and told me she’d be leaving for vacation. I was grateful for that brief crossing of paths and thought little more of it. After all, this was her job.
Later, I was transferred to another hospital for a specialized test. The ambulance ride was quiet, and my mind filled the silence with catastrophic stories. We all do this—writing tragedies without evidence, letting fear run ahead of facts. By the time I arrived and was settled into a room on the Oncology floor, I was convinced this was the beginning of my end.
That night, my wife slept on something that resembled a medieval punishment device and refused to leave my side. And for the first time in my life, I asked her not to. This felt different. Serious. I lay awake making mental lists no one should ever have to make.
And then, at 7:05 the next morning, my phone buzzed.
A text message.
“I know it’s early, and I’m sorry if this wakes you. But I thought you’d want to know—your test came back normal. That changes the prognosis significantly. This is good news for now.”
It was from the PA-C. The one who was on vacation. She had accessed my chart remotely. She knew I was waiting for the pancreatic cancer marker blood test results. And she chose—while off work, while with her family—to close the loop.
I also learned that another doctor had called in a favor, rearranging an already packed schedule to make sure I didn’t have to wait longer than necessary for the testing I needed.
That’s when I broke. Not from fear, but from release. From the sudden weightlessness that comes when someone sees your terror and decides it matters. I wept at the power of people who owed me nothing and gave me everything I needed in that moment.
I’m still waiting on answers. But I know this much: there is a mass, and it is not cancer. I still have a challenge ahead of me, but it is not a death sentence. That distinction matters. And I hold it with both relief and humility.
Because I know how many people hear those same words and don’t get that second sentence. I believed I was one of them. For a moment, I carried what so many others carry—the terror, the finality, the sense that life has just been irrevocably divided into before and after. I was lucky.
That matters, too.
What hasn’t changed is how deeply cared for I felt. Skilled professionals pulled up stools and met me at eye level. They spoke honestly about possibilities and next steps. They didn’t rush the hard conversations or sugarcoat uncertainty. They replaced imagination with information. Calm replaced chaos.
And here’s what I know now: this is how they show up for everyone. When the news brings relief. And when it brings devastation. When there’s hope. And when there isn’t. The diagnosis may change, but the presence does not.
How people show up in those moments matters more than we can ever articulate. It doesn’t erase fear, but it makes it survivable. It doesn’t change outcomes, but it changes how those outcomes are carried.
And then there are my people. The reliables. The ones who check in and keep checking. The ones I fall into without explanation. The ones I trusted enough to say, out loud, that I was scared.
So no—this isn’t about my health.
This is about people.
It’s about the unflinching ones you know and the unexpected ones you haven’t met yet. The ones who show up quietly. The ones who overdeliver without applause. The ones who remind you that the world is still stitched together by decency.
This holiday season, hug your tribe. Hold them close. But also open your heart wider than usual. Overdeliver when you can. Receive kindness without deflecting it. Let yourself be cared for. Take it all in.
If there’s any disruption worth embracing, it’s this: choosing connection over cynicism, gratitude over guarding, and people—always people—over everything else.
With deep gratitude,
Kristen
This post is dedicated to the following medical professionals:
Paul Hiltz, CEO/President at NCH
Sheri Green, PA-C, Hospitalist
William J. Provance, DO, NCH – Gastroenterology
Dr. Stephanie Teets, DNP, CNL
Mark Bloomston, MD, Surgical Oncologist at Lee Health
Augustine Salami, MD, Director of Interventional Endoscopy
Eleonor Rongo, DO, Hospitalist
The Rn’s and CNAs at Gulf Coast Medical Center, 7 West Oncology Floor, who treated me with loving care.
