Some of you may be having a gag reflex. Some may be thinking Kathy’s brain cancer is hollowing out her skull; she’s losing her mind. (Give me time; it may happen yet.) Others of you may be thinking, oh good. At last someone sees 45’s greatness as the epitome of the American dream — a…

1. Chemo brain haiku: a midnight obsession with counting syllables. 2. Cool breeze caresses, wafting thoughts pass through my mind: a spiraling leaf. 3. The road whines louder. People want normal again but normal is gone. 4. Fantasy road trip: the pop up yellow camper California bound 5. Basin and range and Sierras beckon but…

RADIATION CENTO* What would you think if I sang out of tune?Would you stand up and walk out on me?Well there’s so many sinking nowrape, murder, it’s just a shot away, it’s just a shot awaythere must be some kind way out of here,You gotta keep thinkingYou can make it through these waveslean on me…

I am 11 years old at Radnor elementary school, huddled on my knees and elbows underneath my wooden desk. The sound of the air raid drill is far more disturbing than the one for the fire drill. Even though my arms are enfolding my head, I can peek around and see the other students ducking…

At the beginning of the year I wished for 2020 vision in all ways possible. I wished for us to be clear-headed and clear-hearted; clear in our words and actions; clear about our needs and priorities; clear about who we love and what we must do to protect our children for many generations to come;…

My fears have nothing to do with running out of toilet paper, the solution to which seems obvious; it fits nicely into the analogy of “deal with your own shit.” I’m not afraid of being “sheltered in place.” I’ve been practicing social distancing as a preference for many years. That’s why I’ve lived in tiny…

I’m a silver lining kinda gal, even if it’s only a sliver. If you have been following my journey with brain cancer, you know that about me. You will know that I’ve wrapped a black belt around my tumor and that I refer to it as sensei glioblastoma, and that I am on the hunt…

A few years ago, I drowned a very large rat in a trashcan of runoff from the roof. We had caught it in the garage where it had been happily chewing through grain bags and enlarging the small opening under the garage doors to make coming and going easier. The garage was its palace, a…

Sometime during this long cold winter, Lisa, my Yaqui traveler friend, called me up and asked, “well, are the bees gone?” She was referring to the distinct image/sensation I had during a couple pipe ceremonies last fall that the tumor was an agitated beehive, and that the smoke from the pipe was lulling them, calming…

I am sitting in an orientation meeting for an exercise program, the joint research project of the local cancer center and the university to determine—I’m not sure what: whether exercise improves our ability to survive cancer? Whether it improves the side effects from cancer like muscle loss, loss of appetite, depression? I am thinking that…