The Minute Someone Tells You You Have

I Have Been A Depressed Person Most Of M Life. I Was Always In The Throes Of Self-hatred.

I Came Out Of The Nine-hour Surgery And I Had Tubes In Every Direction, And Those Nurses At The Mayo Clinic, I Could Cry For Four Days At The Kindness Of Those Nurses. The Care, The Detail Of The Care, The Attention That Just Never Wavered, Never Complained. The Love.

I Got To A Nine-hour Surgery, I Lost Lots Of Body Parts And Rearranged, I Got Really Months Of Infection That I Lost 30 Pounds. But The Idea Of Pumping Poison Into My Bloodstream Just - I Couldn't, I Couldn't.

The Cancer In Me Became An Awareness Of The Cancer That Is Everywhere. The Cancer Of Cruelty, The Cancer Of Carelessness, The Cancer Of Greed.

We Have To Bridge And Join Our Struggles And Understand How We Can't Fight Violence Against Women Without Looking At Racism, We Can't Fight Violence Against Women Without Looking At Economic Deprivation Or Climate Change. All These Struggles Are Interconnected.