It’s been so nice to be home the last few days. I walked a few blocks into the park this morning and it already feels like late spring. The first round of chemo went smoothly. While I’m having some minor discomforts that I didn’t expect, eating, sleeping and walking are pleasures I can easily indulge in. I definitely don’t feel normal but I don’t feel sick either. My mind searches for easy categories to describe my experience and finds none.
I wrote this in the hospital:
Strong Medicine
When they tell me to do my laundry separately,
because chemicals will leak out in my clothes,
I know I am taking strong medicine.
I think of my copal wood snake with the lump
in her middle. She reminds me that anything can
be swallowed and transformed.
Normal shifts along a spectrum of extremes. An IV
pole has become my constant companion, portable asp
tethered to my breast by two needle fangs.
One drug rubies, toxic to the heart.
The other, clear silent, discovered at war
kills tumors along with their soldiers.
Both seep into my blood as I watch TV,
eat dinner, walk through the halls.
Yet all feels safely familiar
This journey I am taking that will not repeat again.
Living Well - Ongoing Adventures in Uncertainty 
Good, I was planning to e-mail today to make sure you were home. Safe and sound so far.
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Evokative writing. Hope you can bring this to the group next Monday!
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Terri, thanks for this and your earlier poem. I, too, am glad to hear you’re home. Can’t remember whether you’ve contributed in the past to the online journal, “Pulse.” If not here’s a link: http://pulsemagazine.org/Submissions.cfm. Your poems might find another home there.
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Glad you are home! Wishing you love and all good things.
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Sending you love and hugs Terri. I so wish this was not what you have to go through. And I feel blessed that you have shared all you have, it unveils the mystery of wellness battles that many keep privately to themselves. I look forward to more of your writing. – Erin
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Powerful images of regeneration. Thank you for posting them.
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