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To the Woman Who’s Life Has Not Gone as Planned
On the table in the waiting room of the women’s clinic are gifts for new or pregnant moms labeled “Welcome to the Sisterhood of Motherhood.” The bulletin board in the exam room is covered in photos of babies that I’m assuming this doctor helped bring into the world. This is all ironic since I am here to ask the doctor, among other things, if she thinks my body will be able to bear children one day, or if the chemo has damaged it beyond repair. I rotate my head toward the opposite wall so I that I don’t have to stare at the baby pictures anymore. But the artwork is…
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What Depression Feels Like (For Me)
It is as if my mind is a computer program, but a virus has entered in and corrupted the code. Every now and then the original code comes to the surface, and the program seems to run normally. For example, when I felt proud of a friend who performed at an event at my school, I recognized that emotion as part of the original code. But on a different occasion, the corrupted code was running. I was with some friends, doing an activity I know that I love, and yet I was not enjoying myself at all. In fact I kept having to talk myself into staying just a few…
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Can You Hold My Pain?
Some people are afraid to interact with people who are in pain because they feel like they don’t know what to say or do. But often people do not need to say or do anything. They just need to be willing to listen. I am forever grateful to those who have opened up their hands, arms, and homes to me, creating spaces where all of me is welcome, including my pain. I am forever grateful to those who have simply listened, without judgement, without feeling the need to fix the situation, and without commenting anything more than perhaps agreeing that what I am going through is in fact very difficult.…
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Surviving
I was thinking the other day about how in most media portrayals of someone with cancer, the person dies in the end. It seems there are not nearly as many portrayals of what happens when a person lives. And I think it’s important to know that cancer isn’t over when the treatment ends. Now please hear me: Life, survivorship, is something that not everyone gets to experience. This is not an attempt at complaint or a plea for pity. Rather, I would like to share my experience of what it is like to be a survivor. The “fighting” doesn’t end once the chemotherapy or radiation is over. When I finished…
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Give Me Strength to do the Dishes
Today I found myself praying, “Lord, thank You for the strength to do the dishes.” It had already been a long day, and I had maybe only been awake for five hours. But by the time I got home after my morning activities, I was already spent. So being able to both cook lunch and clean up felt like more than I could even hope for, although I did have to push myself, saying “one more dish, you can do this, one more dish,” as though I was trying to make it through mile 26 of a marathon. As someone who likes to do ALL THE THINGS, and can easily…
