Wigs and Things

“What exactly did the last doctor tell you about your biopsy results?”. I immediately had a bad feeling. “He told me ‘Atypical cells likely due to severe inflammation’ and when I asked if that meant benign he said that it did”. “Well, that is true. There are Atypical cells. And most are benign. But there are some that we don’t know what they are. And with you, with your history, we can’t not know.” I stood there on my front lawn, bouncing my toddler on my hip. My older children swinging on the tree swing. It was Friday afternoon, Spring Break. And this doctor had just pierced my bubble of domestic bliss.  “How serious is your concern?”, I asked, nervously. “Serious enough for you to meet with a team of specialists at the STAT clinic on Monday. We want to discuss options with you, but it’s looking like surgical removal.” Surgical removal. SURGICAL REMOVAL. I was just told a week earlier my lung biopsy came back as benign. No cancer. I was so hap

I seldom discuss my views on the matter. But even I am not impervious to “God”, whom or whatever the entity most people believe in in some form or function is.  .  Today was the first time I have been to a church in six years.  It’s the same church’s steeple I see from my porch everyday.  It’s the same church whose bells I hear everyday.  I felt with all of the praying done on my behalf I ought to go in and formally say thank you to “God” in “His” house.  I felt it was rude of me not to.  As a matter of fact, I almost began to feel as if it was taunting me. The church. What with its steeple and bells and everything. I thought with it being so long I’d have forgotten how it works. But I didn’t. It was just like riding a bike, but less comfortable and with a a lot more elderly people. The last time I was in a church was for my brother’s funeral. I remember asking then, “If you exist, where were you as my brother injected a let

That's the number in millimeters my lung nodule now is: 12'9. It grew from 5'3 mm in November, nearly tripling in size. I was in tears in the stall of a middle school bathroom as my pulmonologist said the words, ''I'm very concerned''. Another teacher came in and watched my class for twenty minutes so I could pull myself together. And the rest of the day ensued, with students sitting there oblivious to my plight, ignoring my requests to quiet down, to stay on task, one even asking me to walk over and hand back her work because she was ''too tired''. And all I could think, all I could honestly think, was how much I wanted to be with my own baby. How I could be standing there with breast cancer in my lung and die prematurely and should be spending every precious moment with my toddler who was in day care, so maybe, he might have some memory of me. And instead I with my students, working under an administration who replace me in two da