You sit on the edge of your seat during the call with Dr. Patel. “Recurrence,” “sarcoma,” “wait and see” swirl and melt into black. You Google the side effects of her promising new treatment and read “cytokine”, “neurological” — seven years ago, in the hospital room with faux wood paneling, you are just waking when you hear about seizures, sedation, intubation, how many days? They called your family, no guarantees you would wake up or be compos mentis when you did. Thinking clearly now, feeling the weight of waiting, you’ll be damned if you go down that road again.
Celeste Budwit-Hunter works for Johnson Space Center, where she edits procedures performed by astronauts and flight controllers. Having survived a rare cancer thanks to an unrelated donor, she celebrates life through photography, poetry, and hiking in the woods. Her writing has been published by Spider Road Press, Houston Writers House, in collaborations of Women in the Visual and Literary Arts, and upcoming in Synkroniciti.