1 Year

1 year ago, I was in surgery getting my thyroid removed. It has officially been a year without cancer. A year in which I have accomplished many things. Recovery, radiation, first full time job, financial independence, purchased an apartment, and traveled. 1 year, and my scar is still here, questions are still asked. My nerves have finally decreased when I go to the hospital alone. I still imagine it, the frailty of a body, infested, like maggots gorging themselves on a plum. The simplicity of becoming sick. A body failing.

I went to the hospital on Wednesday night with a Christian Scientist. She's a middle hitter on my volleyball team. She landed on a girl's foot off a block and sprained it badly. She had prayed her entire life for illness to go away, for ailments to be cured by her God. The last few weeks she has been questioning her faith. I had asked her on a trip back from an away game, what she would do if her appendix was about to burst. Do you pray? Do you get surgery? She said, she never really thought about it.

Until you become sick, it's all speculation. Fifty percent of the poetry I read each day is about mortality in one way or another. We break- we fail- we die. And there is a sadness and a beauty around that fact. It drives us forward, and holds us back, makes us cautious/reckless. But mostly, we ignore it. There is nothing before, and nothing after. There is only what we are today. Similar to what someone said to me yesterday. I exist in this moment. After this moment, there is nothing but possibilities.

I went to get acupuncture on Wednesday. It was wonderful. The doctor called it a tune up. To get my body's energy flowing properly. He pushed different parts of my body asking if there was pain. I said no. He responds, "You're healthier than I am." I work out, I'm active, I eat well. I got cancer. There is no why. There is just 'is.' I have this second. And my whole life will be limited to those bits of time where my body functions as it is supposed to. Right now, there could be something wrong with me. I could be ill. It was a fluke we found the nodule last time. My mother made me get tested. I would still be silently and actively ill if I hadn't lost all that weight.

In 3 hours 1 year ago, I will have woken up and asked my parents to hold my hands while high on morphine. My brother will feed me ice chips for hours at a time, and Plosk will visit while we watch the vice presidential debate. He brushed my hair, and helped me stand, and loved me silently with his actions. Friends visited and called, and my family stayed with me. Tonight I'll go to the park with Plosk and a blanket and we'll quietly lay out under the sky.