How to be sick

  My dogs were recently hit by a car. They escaped from a dog sitter who stopped paying attention and they got badly hurt. One of them needed her leg amputated. In the days and weeks leading up to her surgery I agonized over the decision to amputate. Were we taking away her chance at […]

3 months

On Friday it will have been 3 months since what was hopefully the last of many brain surgeries.While I am quietly hopeful at the thought of resolution, it is not easy for me to inhabit my skin, this body, or this world with this new news. While everyone acknowledges alongside me that this will be […]

Number Ten

I was doing great. I was upbeat, I was present, I think you could even have called me peppy for a bit. I was unphased by my 10th brain surgery (11th surgery overall). I was singing Jason Mraz’s “Everything is Sound,” and taking the uncertain and unwritten future as a reason to stay firmly in […]

Why I write

The night before my official diagnosis with an acoustic neuroma I had an idea of what I had based on my sister (a doctor) and I’s amateur analysis of the MRI over the phone. She graciously told me what I had and told me not to worry and wait for the doctor to advise. I […]

In defense of trying: redefining thriving for a new body

I figured something out about myself. I’ve stayed, in a way, frozen to a version of myself. I used to think I was stuck in a protracted childhood because my tumor caused me to regress, but then I was like, mehhhhhhhh, that sounds like a lot of psychoanalytical pucky. But I knew I was stuck. […]

How are you feeling?

I used to look in the mirror before I got in the shower, looking in quiet observation of the curves of my body. I would marvel at the strength I had put into the contours of the muscles. Strength that took time to build, strength that helped my internal self push harder and longer. I […]

The Whole Damn Thing

I’ve been in a foul mood. I’ll admit that. Until now I’ve been unwilling to admit why. I act like it’s because I am an unwitting victim of a brain tumor and that the universe is out to get me. I don’t really believe that, and that’s not really why, and I really figured that […]

Just a Blood Vessel with a Helmet On

I’m working on a small project, my dissertation (NBD) and it focuses on how we make meaning online. How we negotiate things that aren’t generated online and don’t live exclusively online using the tools and affordances of this particular medium. I’m interested in this because it is the affordances of this technology among others that […]