October 3, 2015

Today was a hard day.

Four and a half hours of sleep were not enough to prepare me to see her face. Her hand, frozen in a position ripe for holding. Her hand moving toward my face as my labmate raised her arm to make way for his scalpel. I sliced off her breast and put it in a plastic bag to save for later. It felt wrong to toss the other in the waste bin, to separate the two. Later, in the shower, I would look down at my own breasts and imagine them being cut away, now knowing what they looked like inside.

Four and a half hours were not enough.

Spent the evening with warm, loving people. But when I close my eyes I see fascia. The split tree trunk on the side of the road is the long and lateral heads of the triceps brachii. And every time someone passes me a dish at the dinner table tonight, I see her hand.