“There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan With the dawn of a new year, and my next scan date quickly approaching, I’ve been in reflection mode. March will make 10 years since… Continue reading Rebirth
“I’ve seen Jesus play with flames / In a lake of fire that I was standing in” – Sturgill Simpson, “Turtles All the Way Down“ Sturgill was singing about drugs when he saw Jesus, but to be fair, I was on copious amounts of Dilaudid when I saw him, so we’re probably even. Aside from… Continue reading six
HLRCC and its connection to kidney cancer was discovered in 2002. I was a freshman in high school. Roughly 10% of patients with HLRCC will develop kidney cancer. I had just turned 29 when I joined these ranks in 2016. If you are stage one upon diagnosis for any type of kidney cancer, you have… Continue reading cinq
My apologies to St. Dymphna. She is actually the patron saint of depression and anxiety. But, I might be giving her a run for her money these days. COVID isn’t helping, but it’s not just about a viral infection that could kill me, what with the damage to my lungs from the tumors that grew… Continue reading Laura, The Patron Saint of Scanxiety.
The last few weeks have been a roller coaster to say the least. I’ve always been brutally honest here, and I don’t intend to stop now. When I stopped Cabo in April, I knew it would be a shock for my body. I had lasted three and a half years on the drug, which isn’t… Continue reading The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Time. The one thing we never have enough of. The thing that flies by so quickly. The thing we don’t appreciate enough. I stand and look around my life, and I don’t know how time has passed so fast. Somehow, my kids aren’t toddlers anymore; they’re halfway through high school. Somehow, it’s been ten years… Continue reading 6 Months Later
Well, we’re here. I didn’t expect to see three years since my diagnosis, much less to see three years with yet another (thank God, literally) clean scan behind me. Three years ago, I felt the walls closing in around me. I summoned up a strength I didn’t realize I possessed. I did not go gently… Continue reading trois
No disrespect intended to Rage Against the Machine, but I need to get this off my chest, because I have been stewing on this since I got the call a month ago today from my aunt that I needed to get down to Baton Rouge as soon as possible. I literally dropped everything in my life,… Continue reading Vaccinating in the name of…
Every 3 months, it’s the same routine. Get the IV started. Flush the saline in, giving that nauseating, mildly reminiscent smell through my bones of a salty day on the Gulf. Surrender myself on the table again, offering my body up to the God of Science Experiments. Stare at the ceiling, contemplating the results that… Continue reading Carry On Breathing
In August 2005, as I was about to start college at Loyola University in New Orleans, a little thunderstorm made its way through the city and wreaked havoc on my life. You may have heard of it – Hurricane Katrina. For years after Katrina, I looked at many things in my life as pre-K and… Continue reading Life Post-Hurricane
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