Selected excerpts from My Terminal Life

There are moments in a person’s life that are forever imprinted in memory. I have a vivid recollection of sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table doing homework after grade school with my same-age cousin Michael, munching on her homemade chocolate chip cookies between hurried scribbles on my papers because the faster we finished our homework, the faster we could get outside to play, of course-that was the rule! Taking gulps of sweetened iced tea, (the…

Dear Lung Spots,

First, I must start off by expressing my hatred for you and the countless ways you’ve impacted my life. You are dreaded, you are awful, you are terrifying, you are insidious. You came upon me completely unexpectedly. Just as I was beginning to feel like I could handle this “whole cancer thing” and everything that the last 7 months had brought me (death of my grandmother on March 30th, diagnosis of cancer just 10 days later, bilateral…

I stormed in the door hot and dripping with sweat from my slower-than-normal- 3 mile run with my unruly dog, and my unrulier thoughts, and announced in an icy tone to my mother that I was in a terrible mood. She asked what she could do, and I shot back hastily, my voice fraught with teenage angst, “Nothing, I need my water and I’m going to sit outside.” I unleashed the dog, grabbed my bottle off the counter and the door slammed behind me (was that the wind, or…