I haven't posted anything recently because, for better or worse, there's nothing to really post. More for the better. The wait used to terrify me. The enormity of time, its slow passage, all those seconds and minutes to ruminate and conflagrate. But the fires are still, and time plods on with small, child-sized steps. I see my patients, and things largely feel normal. I return home, spend time with my husband, our daughter, and things largely feel normal. The follow-up scan i

My father went to the ER in April 2020 after developing an unrelenting fever and worsening shortness of breath. At the time this all happened, the COVID diagnosis was not surprising, but still, I felt the floor give way beneath me. From the phone calls letting me know my father had fallen ill to the phone call informing me he had passed, I was in free-fall. Even afterwards, I kept falling. The wind was whistling by my face, and it became the song stuck in my head as the groun

Radiation is done. The bell has been rung. Temozolomide, complete...for now. One road has reached its conclusion, but what lies ahead is murky. Follow-up scans, follow-up appointments, and taking next steps. The bump is all but vanquished. That is the mantra we murmur in whispers when we wake up in the morning and before we retire for the night. The neurologist is still in charge. All the compartments are reinforced with lead and steel. The larger compartment has her clinic s

A poem about who we are, and what we own of our pain and ourselves.

It is strange, being in the routine I’ve had for years after some time away. The trees are starting to explode into color, a marked shift from the steaming heat the last time I was seeing patients. My tiny car is parked outside, and I watch it from my office window, its color starting to match the emerging fall palette behind it. It’s the same car I’ve had for 8 years, one of the few things that hasn’t changed. I run to the restroom and look in the mirror. My hair is crazy,