Shrapnel

"All you got is this moment, twenty-first century's yesterday. You can care all you want. Everybody does yeah that's okay. So slide over here and give me a moment, your moves are so raw. I've got to let you know, I've got to let you know, you're one of my kind."

- INXS, "Need You Tonight"

Here's a funny little story about how I really am a very special kind of twisted ...

In 2008, when my treatments were complete, I couldn't get my damn port taken out quick enough. I hated it. It was a constant reminder of all things cancer and I was intent on exorcising ALL the pink demons. Then they came back to haunt me again in 2012. Dirty little pink fuckers.

So, when my treatments ended in 2013 I asked to keep the port that was being removed. I didn't know why, I just wanted it. Like a battle scarred soldier who wakes up to find the removed bullet, that left behind a nasty scar, rolling around in a hygienic little jar beside the bed, I wanted my shrapnel.

The port sat in a screw-capped plastic container, labeled with both mine and my doctor's name, in a drawer on my bedside table for a year now. I knew other patients that had theirs turned into a pendant or elaborate piece of jewelry but that didn't feel right to me. Then I met another sistah, who is definitely "one of my kind" that just very off-the-cuff mentioned she may turn her port into a Christmas ornament when they finally remove it.

BINGO!

Now I knew exactly what I was going to do.

Here is my shrapnel, and every year that I am here to hang it on my tree means another year I've said FU to cancer.