I was diagnosed with cancer yesterday.

This is how it happened.

The doctor opened and closed the door with ease, as if the hinges had just been oiled. He told me quickly. I did not appreciate the band-aid torn. In a fixed point in space my face was suspended, and the rest of my body hung under it.

There was a poster of anatomy in front of me. It was a human, split cleanly in half. The poster existed, and in the meantime, I nodded. I understood. Everyone had their shit, and my shit had arrived. The world wasn't fair, or was it? I wasn't above anyone else, so why couldn't it be me? And so it was. This dialogue went through my head as the doctor and the half human looked at me.

Now that the news is settling down, I've come to reflect on my relationship with health and love. It seems the two have been intertwined. Literally, I would meet someone, and then I'd get sick. Getting sick would have worked well for me, as I was usually searching for an excuse to dampen a connection, but I could never commit to a full abstinence and thus a full recovery, and I would find myself both sick and increasingly in love.

So inflamed and inflamed I would get.

Puffy, coughing, bloated, twitchy and tired, I would be.

But on the call with my date, my voice would brighten. I was getting good at hiding my ugliness — my forever sick body.

I could have stopped myself and focused on my health. If only, I hadn't thought each man could be it! The weekend would be just so nice with him!

And they were nice. The rest of the week I would suffer.

Only my mom saw the pattern. This was the slow development of cancer in a young woman.

This is a message to the ladies.

Stay abstinent.

Stay recovered.

And stay alone.

I was diagnosed with cancer yesterday.

This is how it happened.

The doctor opened and closed the door with ease, as if the hinges had just been oiled. He told me quickly. I did not appreciate the band-aid torn. In a fixed point in space my face was suspended, and the rest of my body hung under it.

There was a poster of anatomy in front of me. It was a human, split cleanly in half. The poster existed, and in the meantime, I nodded. I understood. Everyone had their shit, and my shit had arrived. The world wasn't fair, or was it? I wasn't above anyone else, so why couldn't it be me? And so it was. This dialogue went through my head as the doctor and the half human looked at me.

Now that the news is settling down, I've come to reflect on my relationship with health and love. It seems the two have been intertwined. Literally, I would meet someone, and then I'd get sick. Getting sick would have worked well for me, as I was usually searching for an excuse to dampen a connection, but I could never commit to a full abstinence and thus a full recovery, and I would find myself both sick and increasingly in love.

So inflamed and inflamed I would get.

Puffy, coughing, bloated, twitchy and tired, I would be.

But on the call with my date, my voice would brighten. I was getting good at hiding my ugliness — my forever sick body.

I could have stopped myself and focused on my health. If only, I hadn't thought each man could be it! The weekend would be just so nice with him!

And they were nice. The rest of the week I would suffer.

Only my mom saw the pattern. This was the slow development of cancer in a young woman.

This is a message to the ladies.

Stay abstinent.

Stay recovered.

And stay alone.