The familiar feeling of anxiety turns my stomach hot as I approach Emory St. Joseph hospital. A routine part of post-cancer care, I arrive for bi-annual scans and bloodwork. I know these nerves, bubbling and fermented. I’m not worried I will receive bad news, 17 months cancer-free today, but I cannot keep memories from rushing my mind. Then, pre-COVID, I visited this hospital multiple times a week, mask-free and occupied with the disease inside my body, oblivious to what swam in the air outside it. Pre-COVID, I stayed in the hospital for a full week following the operation to remove the tumor in my colon. Now, patients undergo surgery and get released as soon as possible, sometimes even the same day. The seventh floor accommodates patients receiving cancer care where I stayed in room 733 overlooking Peachtree-Dunwoody road at dogwood trees blooming the first greens of spring. I knew God was with me then, and I know God is with me today as I return to one of the most depressing places on earth.
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The closing of my Go Fund Me Campaign:
I have waited to share this story with you amidst the current gravity of our public health crisis with COVID-19, and more recently, the devastating deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, which have sparked protests and unrest around racial injustice in our country. My prayers and support remain with the friends and family members of those who have died, and I pray that we find a way to show compassion to each other, to recognize injustice when we see it, and always lead with love. As Martin Luther King Jr. said best, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” If I have learned anything in my process of dealing with and healing from cancer, it is that the only way to truly heal is with love.
Read MoreA new year reflection, shared in celebration of Pi Day
The onset of a new year and it began as so many gone by already did. How are we—creatures of habit, born of man, but made of everything that has ever been and will ever be, rising and falling each day as slaves to societal norms—too busy to see the earth and the universe on and in which we live as the wholeness of everything and the only thing that really matters?
Read MoreI am sitting on a railroad track. I have never been here before. I have never felt the grit of this dirt beneath me, but I recognize the faces in the crowd— I see my sisters, afraid and angry; my mom and stepdad, urgent, diligent; my father; aunts and uncles; cousins; friends, both old and new all crowd among faces I’ve never met. In the distance, a speeding train races towards me. The sound of metal against metal squeals in my ears and the hiss of the engine grows louder. If I turn my head to watch, I will see the front of the train—the face of a silver bullet called Death.
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I woke up in the middle of the night lying in a pool of blood. That’s how it started. I had spent the weekend in Vermont skiing; visiting with old friends and classmates; and had nailed the job interview I’d made the trip up from Atlanta for—my first since finishing grad school a few months prior. I thought my life was about to take a turn for the better. Read More
Breanne Ross 