Patricia Gomez was an oncology nurse. She worked the cancer ward at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. She spent her days caring for people with the exact disease that had just been found in her body.
Cervical cancer.
The Diagnosis
The irony was not lost on her. She had held the hands of cervical cancer patients. She had explained the treatment process to frightened women in calm, measured tones. She had sat with people while they cried and she had been the steady, professional, compassionate presence they needed.
Now she was the patient. And every ounce of medical knowledge she had — every statistic she had memorised, every treatment protocol she had administered — did nothing to stop the terror.
The Fear
Patricia did not tell anyone at work. She smiled. She showed up. She cared for her patients with the same warmth she always had. Nobody noticed anything was wrong.
At home, she fell apart. She cried in the shower so her roommate would not hear. She lay awake at night running through worst-case scenarios with the clinical precision of someone who had seen those worst cases play out in real life. She knew exactly what advanced cervical cancer looked like. She had seen it. She had nursed it. She had watched it win.
"That was the worst part," Patricia said. "Most patients have the mercy of not knowing exactly what could happen. I did not have that mercy. I had seen it all. And I could not unsee it."
She was running from the fear. Working longer shifts to avoid being alone with her thoughts. Exercising until exhaustion to force sleep. Reorganising her apartment at midnight because busy hands meant a quiet mind. None of it worked.
The Encounter
Patricia's abuela — her grandmother — lived in El Paso, Texas. Eighty-one years old. Barely five feet tall. The kind of woman who had raised seven children, survived poverty, crossed a border, and never once lost her faith.
Abuela called Patricia on a Wednesday evening. She had heard about the diagnosis from Patricia's mother.
"Mija," she said. "You are hiding."
Patricia started to deny it. Abuela cut her off.
"Stop running. The fear cannot catch you if you stop running from it and face it with God."
Then abuela began to pray. In Spanish. The same words she had prayed over Patricia when she was a baby. The same blessing she had spoken over every grandchild, at every baptism, at every crisis for sixty years. Words so familiar that Patricia could mouth them without thinking.
"No temas, porque yo estoy contigo."
Do not fear, for I am with you.
Patricia broke. On the phone, sitting on her kitchen floor, she stopped running. She let the fear come — all of it, every image, every worst-case scenario, every clinical nightmare she had been avoiding for weeks. She let it come.
And then she let God come too.
"It was like the fear had been a dam," she said. "And when I stopped running and let it break, it rushed over me. But God was behind the dam. And His love was bigger than the flood."
The terror subsided. Not in a single instant — over the course of that phone call, about forty minutes, while her abuela prayed and cried and prayed some more from a living room in El Paso. By the time they hung up, Patricia was breathing normally for the first time in weeks.
The Healing
Patricia had surgery and follow-up treatment. Her medical team was thorough and her prognosis was good. Six months later, she was clear.
She went back to work on the cancer ward. But something had changed. She was no longer just a nurse who understood the science. She was a nurse who understood the fear. She could sit with a terrified patient and say, with authority that comes only from lived experience, "I know. I have been where you are. And there is something on the other side of this."
What This Means for You
If you are pretending to be fine — smiling at work, holding it together in public, falling apart in private — you are exhausting yourself fighting on a front that does not need fighting. The fear does not shrink when you run from it. It grows.
Stop running. Let it come. And then let God come too. Call someone who loves you. Let them pray — on the phone, in person, in any language. The prayer does not have to be eloquent. Patricia's abuela prayed the same words she had been praying for sixty years. Simple words. Ancient words.
Do not fear. I am with you.
That is enough.
