“Which part of you will you let live again?”-Mary Lambert, “Sum of Our Parts” “Let ’em laugh while they can,let ’em spin, let ’em scatter in the wind.I have been to the movies, I have seen how it ends,and the joke’s on them.”-Brandi Carlile, “The Joke” The kittens arrived in early spring. Their mother birthedContinue reading “Breaking Through”
Author Archives: JW
Save Your Prayers
This is not a story about the loss of faith or its restoration (sorry, not sorry). This is the story of awakening. Of autonomy. Of going from closed to open. This is a story of reclamation. I was raised in a religious household. We called ourselves born-again Christians. My mom was a Sunday school teacher.Continue reading “Save Your Prayers”
Broken System
In 2017, my life, and the life of my sister, dramatically shifted, and it had nothing to do with cancer. We’d planned to visit our parents that Christmas. They’d visited us the year before, and we hadn’t seen them since. We decided to make the 14-hour drive rather than fly because our old pug couldn’tContinue reading “Broken System”
What Cancer Takes: A Trans Perspective
“when I introduce myselfI want to write in pauses with the momentsthat people see me and they see mewholethe moments they pause with mein unison, solidarityof my true identity…” – Fabian Romero, from “My Name,” Troubling the Line “you try to remember the first time you said i’m sorrywhen you should have said fuck you.Continue reading “What Cancer Takes: A Trans Perspective”
Scars
Today, I’m appreciating the resilience of this body as well as its vulnerability. It’s day 11 of my first cycle of chemo. The bone pain from my Neulasta shot has faded. The nausea is gone. Despite the anemia, I have more energy than I have in a long, long time. I still have my hair,Continue reading “Scars”
Cancer Humor
How could I bear any of this without humor? Without unexpected moments of levity startling me back to the joy of life? Moments that I hold on to when the needle bites, the medicine burns, the nausea rolls, and eyes that are precious to me fill with tears I’ve caused, whether I meant to orContinue reading “Cancer Humor”
Privilege, Ableism, and Cancer Etiquette
When I finally shared the news that I have cancer, I was touched by the outpouring of love and support from friends, family, coworkers, and even strangers. Their open, generous responses gave me strength. And I have so many heroes: my sister, who really is #1; my friends who write me lovely letters; Jane, whoContinue reading “Privilege, Ableism, and Cancer Etiquette”
Harbor
This is a poem I wrote before I knew I had cancer. I don’t have time anymore to wait for gatekeepers to decide if my poem/essay/manuscript is good enough. Cancer has taught me I never really had that time. Harbor Sometimes it’s not even a closet.It could be the shell of a giant, old tirehalf-sunkContinue reading “Harbor”
The Long, Long Road to an Imperfect Diagnosis
Total time between when the mediastinal mass was found and I received a “definitive” diagnosis: 130 days Procedures and scans to get there: 7 chest x-rays, 2 CTs, 2 full-body PET scans, 1 MRI, 1 FNA/bronchoscopy, 1 CT-guided core needle biopsy, 1 bronchoscopy/thoracotomy What I owe (not all procedures have been added to the billContinue reading “The Long, Long Road to an Imperfect Diagnosis”
"When did all this start?"
Medicine, I said, begins with storytelling. Patients tell stories to describe illness; doctors tell stories to understand it. – Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of all Maladies An impossible question, but each new doctor asks it. A question I’ve answered over and over again since they found the grapefruit-sized mass in my chest almost five monthsContinue reading “"When did all this start?"”
The Final Silence: Cancer Walks 