Author : Identifying details have been omitted to protect the privacy of the individual in accordance with HIPAA.
The doctors talk in numbers. Percentages, milligrams, millimeters. I have started collecting them like stones in my pocket, heavy and cold.
I used to think about college. Now I think about light, the way it comes through the hospital blinds in the morning, striped and slow, landing on my hand like it’s trying to tell me something.
My hair is gone. My appetite is gone. But the window is still there, and the light is still there, and some mornings that feels like enough.
I don’t feel brave. I feel tired, and seventeen, and very small in a very large bed. But I pick up my sketchbook anyway. Draw the light. Draw my own hand inside it.
The doctors talk in numbers. I talk in lines.
Thank you for sharing your story. As a caregiver in a hospice center, I can deeply resonate with every word you shared.