Like every one of you, I’ve lived through some dark and dismal days. Along the way, I’ve collected quite an assortment of coping mechanisms to see me through. One of the key pieces of equipment in my personal Toolbox of Sanity is language. Time and again, words have been there for me. Over the years, … More No Language in our Lungs
As kids, we spend a lot of time imagining what we want to be when we grow up. But now here we are, all grown up, and I notice nobody seems to be daydreaming about what kind of old person they want to be. Everybody fears growing old, but believe me, we are all just … More Advanced for my Age
Ah, spring in South Carolina–a time of sunshine and flowers, birdsong and bunny rabbits, pastel colors and jelly beans, the time of year you spend many a cold, gray dismal winter day dreaming about. Everyone loves spring,* and who can blame us? But there’s something that’s always bothered me about the promise versus the reality … More Solving Spring
One of the buzzkills of breast cancer is that I’m supposed to go see my surgeon once a year for the rest of my life. It would make more sense for the oncologist—whom I’m not scheduled to ever see again—to do these follow-ups rather than the surgeon, but then again, I realized long ago that … More The Naked Truth Award
This is probably TMI, so you may want to avert your eyes now and move onto some more appropriate, impersonal, less cancery corner of the internet while you have the chance. This is the sort of thing I should be writing about in the top secret Book of Doom (our nickname for the black leather … More Rockstar of Radiology
I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions, but I have made and kept life resolutions at random points in time unrelated to the calendar. In these final hours of 2015, as part of a promise I made to myself last spring to focus on the positive and to celebrate the small wins, I … More New Year, Same Old Wins
I tend to think of myself as an easygoing, carefree type of person. Do you know why I think that? It’s because, clearly, the version of myself that exists inside my head has never met my actual self. In reality, I am often anxious, self-critical, obsessively analytical. I am frequently tense without even being consciously aware … More The Yoga Apologist, or How to Conquer the Raw, Rough-around-the-Edges Days
For the tenth time in as many months, a medical professional has deemed me a Good Patient. I’ve earned this title of honor–first and foremost–by having an unusual number of health problems for a person of my age. The typos in my genetic code, coupled with my accident-proneness and plain old-fashioned bad luck, make me … More The Good Patient
After my mastectomy and reconstruction last March, my mom came to stay with us to help out during my recovery. I decided–after a few long, dull days of writhing in pain and wallowing in Netflix, at a point in time when both of my JP drains had been removed and I was feeling thin, having … More Dressing Room Wrestler
Maria Linn 