Blessed is the fruit
“You will be 100% infertile.”
The words reverberated in my skull as I took the receipt from the hospital’s parking deck turnstile. My anger radiating through my knuckles as I gripped the steering wheel tighter with each passing minute. My vexation only heightened by the fact that I just paid $15 for parking. All to be told my new treatment plan would leave me unable to conceive children on my own.
My dinner guest
Why do I even invite her? I think, as the ceramic dinner-plate cathunks as I set it not-so-gingerly on the lopsided wooden table, my mind pre-occupied as it runs through the seemingly mile-long to-do list before dinner. These visits seem to most frequently fall during bouts of unrelenting stress or after I see advertisements for tropical getaways…You’d understand if you met her. Though I hope you never do.
We’ll Be back tomorrow
Our hands hold his, praying they will squeeze back. Wishing his eyes will open and offer one more of his sly winks, as if this was one last joke of his. His grand finale. We keep the door to his room closed, hoping we can keep Her at bay a bit longer. Her distant footfalls echo down the hall outside. They seem louder than when we were here last. Closer.
DWIGHT STREET
There we sit, with merely the dull crackle of the Furnace and tap tap of falling leaves hitting the warped glass of the House’s old windows. Windows that have stood vigilant over the neighborhood for the last century. Windows that watched my Mom and her Brother grow up and then eventually my sisters and I.
NOT LIKE THE OTHERS
Us Cancer Patients are connected in more ways than we often realize. Yet, for an experience that binds us beyond words, we still often feel so alone.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel
From Crypt Keeper to Accountant: A Reflection on Hair from a Cancer Patient’s Perspective.
