I “beat” ovarian cancer four years ago. I was lucky, because statistics were not on my side. I’d had a routine gynecological exam that January, and two months later felt a slight tenderness in my abdomen. In April a co-worker happened to tell me that her mother-in-law had just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I made a doctor’s appointment and the rest is history. There was surgery to remove the tumor, chemotherapy to finish off any remaining cancer cells and second-look surgery to make certain I was free of disease.

This time the routine is pretty much the same. The call comes from the surgeon two days after the lumpectomy. He asks that my husband also come to the phone. When he does, the words “invasive ductal cell carcinoma” enter our lives.

Having cancer is an old story for me, and one that I am tired of telling, but there are family members and friends who must be informed and reassured. “The good news is that it’s not related to the ovarian cancer,” we tell them. (Talk about looking for the silver lining.)

I prepare for chemotherapy with a sad calmness. Four years ago a friend accompanied me to an afterhours session at a hair salon where I got a humiliating crew cut; afterward we cried together in her car. Now I sit on the edge of the bathtub with sewing scissors and let the hair fall into the wastebasket. My husband crops off the rest a few days later. Four years ago I took pains to never let him see me without a hat. This time, three days into near-total baldness on a 90-degree summer day, I ditch the hat. I am a real beauty–sparse white tufts of hair protrude from the top of my head. I am a cross between Yoda and Marley’s ghost in “A Christmas Carol.”

Chemo is harder this time. A device is embedded in my chest wall to administer medications. It triggers the metal detectors at airports and I must carry an explanatory note to avoid being detained. In addition to losing my hair, I now have mouth sores, fatigue, nausea and a chronic runny nose. But I do not complain. Instead, I marvel that drugs that fight cancer cells exist.

I visit my gynecological oncologist for a routine visit near the end of chemotherapy. He says it’s likely I have a cancer gene to have experienced two major cancers at a fairly young age. He does not advise genetic testing due to my childless status. Instead he recommends that I continue to be vigilant about getting checkups. He tells me where the cancers I’ve had typically spread–ovarian goes to the abdominal cavity and intestines, breast goes to the bones, lungs, liver and brain. As I drive home, I am hard pressed to think of one malady that I may develop that I will not fear is cancer- related in the middle of the night.

In preparation for the radiation that follows chemotherapy, I meet with the radiation oncologist. He says that I am the poster woman for the importance of yearly mammographies. He shares his philosophy that people get cancer to learn a life lesson before realizing that I am dealing with a second site. This seems to throw him and we both chuckle silently. Apparently, I still have lessons to learn.

So what do I think now? I think our time here is fragile. The playwright Tom Stoppard wrote, “Life is a gamble, at terrible odds–if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it.” Toddlers fall into pools and drown, planes fly into skyscrapers. There is a terrifying randomness to life; indeed, why couldn’t I get cancer again?

I take comfort in a God who I believe knows even the number of hairs on my head (an easy assignment at present), and I feel lucky to have seemingly caught two cancers in time. And I am also thankful–for pills that fight nausea and friends who send teddy bears and for a husband who tells me kindly that I look better bald than some women do with hair.

Life goes on. It is not usually the things that keep you awake at night that get you in the end. And somehow, this thought is a comfort to me.