Taking Charge of My Story as a Cancer Patient at the Hospital Where I Work
Being an “interesting” patient who also happened to be a trainee made me a morbid little celebrity.
Being an “interesting” patient who also happened to be a trainee made me a morbid little celebrity.
“I feel like I’m hyperventilating. I can’t stop crying and I can’t breathe. I’m afraid I’m going to drown on dry land.”
The opioid crisis has made it risky for doctors to prescribe pain medications to suffering patients in need.
You think you’ll never take wellness for granted. But, despite your best intentions, you do.
For seven years, I lived afraid of my own mind, only to learn it had been a mistake.
“I am terrified that one day we will not pursue a treatment our son needs because we can no longer pay for it.”
“I’ve fervently wished to see women who look like me and have lived through this.”
“Even in that happy space, doubt, disbelief, and a gnawing sadness started to swirl, rise, and create confusion.”
“My mother assumed I must have done something to bring a rare blood cancer upon myself.”
I have never been anything but this ragged, medicated self; I have never been less aware of the ground beneath my feet.
There’s the lingering fear that I’ll no longer be able to hear my son’s voice.
It had all started about five or six years earlier, around the first time I fell in love. I didn’t know when it would end.
Sometimes I’m convinced no other person will ever know my fragile heart the way I do.
“She touched my hair with fingers fluent in love.”
“Our ability to attach layers of memory to sound makes us human.”
“Perhaps the point of a labyrinth is not to find the exit.”