Now What?

I tossed my hospital gown and buried it under the apple tree. I made my scars invisible, grew my hair curly and wild, and gained my energy level back to normal. I’m just like everybody else.  Nobody could ever tell.

Yet I wake up at night and feel the presence of poison-filled plastic tubes, the flickering pale green light, and that god-awful dripping faucet. The images come and greet me whenever I’m afraid of life.  Like clockwork, at 4 AM. Not to mention those special purple cells going through my bloodstream. The ones who got me in this mess in the first place. I hope they’re doing fine and aren’t plotting on pulling out one of their stunts again. A joke that lasted for a year and a half. I’m still laughing.

Halfway to One

This is what a six-month-old looks like. With a headful of hair. Happy Birthday to me.

Is It January Yet?

Pants down, bra off. The nurse hands me a hospital gown and I tiptoe into the scan room barefoot.

The room is divided into two parts. The machine and I on one side. The doctor and the nurse on the other. We are separated by a screen that protects them from the very rays that I am about to be exposed to.

I climb onto the machine, lie down, close my eyes and wait for instructions. Hold still, hold your arms up, hold your breath. The camera of the machine starts rolling. It speeds up as though it were about to take flight. I, meanwhile, am thinking positive thoughts. Tumor shrinking thoughts. Normal cell activity thoughts. This time it has got to work out. After everything I've been through. After almost two years of hell.

I'm not ready for my world to fall apart again.