A young physician's journey of recovery from surviving breast cancer to coping with the traumatic stress of providing front line care during the COVID pandemic
This evening I sit on the beach watching the waves crash against the shore. My Aussie leans her weight against me. Her ears twitch as she eyes the sandpipers dashing through the waves in front of us. The sun slowly sinks behind me as the sky turns a soft pink. This is the “magical hour” …
This morning is muggy and humid. Saharan dust has made its yearly pilgrimage across the ocean and suppressed our normal summer tropical systems. Our heat index is predicted to be 112 degrees today. At 8:30 in the morning I am already sweating. This morning as I walked the sidewalks of the neighborhood village, I came …
This morning I am laying on the couch staring out the window at a gorgeous summer day. A light breeze rustles the palms. The sun is shining, the sky is blue. It is a perfect day for a picnic or trip to the park. I, however, roll over and groan struggling to scrape together the …
This morning I walk on the beach but I am not on vacation. I am here to say goodbye to a place I have known and loved since childhood which within three months will be sold and gone forever. I can not say I am happy about this, it is just one more loss on …
Today started peacefully enough, a walk at sunrise, some work in the garden. My mind was quiet as I carefully set up a new solar watering system for the tomato plants. The birds were singing. A light breeze rustled the leaves of the trees. A few butterflies flitted and floated through the yard. I was …
Dear cancer fighter, I think about you often. I wonder if you are out there thinking about me. Life has been hard for you and I and it has been very unfair. While the world turns normally for everyone else, we are fighting for our lives. We are picking up broken pieces. We are struggling …
It is foggy this morning. It is a Sunday so I will be one of the only walkers this early. I pass the Sunday morning gathering outside of the church pantry. Times are hard, many people gather to receive food staples. The skyscrapers of downtown disappear into misty clouds. The bay is calm and glassy. …
Living through cancer is hard. I mean really hard. The kind of hard where some days you deserve a medal for even waking up in the morning. But I made it through that. And here I am. I’m considered, at least for now, cancer free. I was lucky. I didn’t have to go through chemo …
The rays of the sun are just cresting over the bay. I listen as the seagulls screech overhead on their daily commute from the waterfront inland to what I can only assume must be a Walmart parking lot or a restaurant where the patrons toss them French fries. My sneakers pound the pavement. I walk …
I have always been a runner. As a child we lived outside of town on wetlands blanketed with ferns, cypress trees, and longleaf pine. Our driveway measured just over half a mile. Isolated and with nothing much to do, I ran up and down the driveway. Up and back, up and back, through the fields …