You Did Not Teach Me What You Thought You Did

Abstract: This is not the story of my leukemia diagnosis, nor of my subsequent stem cell transplant. Those are harrowing stories that make excellent Facebook click bait: “A mother of three!” “A doctor herself!” “Diagnosed at Christmas!”

It is more mundane than that.

It is the story of being chronically ill, while working among the well. It is the story of being diseased while wearing the healer’s white coat. It is, most painfully, being fully human among those who know human bodies most intimately.