"Ms. Mitchell." The phlebotomist calls the name without any emotion. I get up from the waiting area and enter into a room with 9 stations. "Go to Chair #8," the phlebotomist tells me. I sit down in said Chair #8, and my gaze falls on some photographs on the wall across from me at Chair #2. How seemingly innocuous. How seemingly random. Yet, my visit for my six month oncology check up is further rattling me by one of the photos. Across the room, directly facing the anonymous "Ms. Mitchell" is a photo of my late husband.  A former and beloved patient of this same facility. In the photo he is conducting the University of Alabama Million Dollar Band in the National Anthem at the Alabama/Tennessee game of 2005. This is 2013. If anyone in the lab were to know me as the "wife" of the beloved man in the photo, the waters would part and people would become more engaged and highly sensitive and respectful of me. The photo is still there. And so am I.

2005, the same year of the photo on the wall, was the year this journey began for me. I strive to do no complaining, because I have life. When I step into CCI I go dragging fear of what might be revealed and the interruption this visit brings to my life as I have ordered it around living beyond that disease. I also step into CCI with gratitude that I am walking in healthy and robust, with my hair on my head (instead of down the drain) and more to my liking than ever before in my 55 years. I am not struggling to live. or to breathe. or to hope. or to think. or to walk out of CCI and get on with the life of my dreams.  I step in with a few extra pounds on my frame that I never fail to see as a great gift because my body is receiving and processing nutrition ... every six months I am reminded that many face the nightmare of food or drink refused by a body that can no longer coorperate with such "luxuries." I have no complaints.

I must be careful with the gratitude that I feel. It could be seen as haughty and prideful and insensitive to those patients there whose disease so defines their every moment and which is visibly seen by others. I am aware that as I step into CCI I look more like one attending and assisting a family member or friend who is a patient. The only visible indicator that I am "one of them" is the stretchy arm bandage covering the IV site and the lab work vein stick that I wear on my way out of the building. I feel myself wearing it almost like a badge or a war wound as I exit the building. With the visible sign that I, too, call oncology a familiar acquaintance, I feel camaraderie with those who more visibly suffer, and I feel more received by them. I feel authentic in that place.

And, yet, I am not authentic there. "Mitchell" is the name on the insurance card, but not the new name on the driver's license. It's the name on the chart. Dare not change for fear of confusion. It's a conflicting place to go every six months. I don't go easily. I know when I go there I am seen but not seen. I am known but not known. I am free but not free.

But, I AM alive and I AM alive. I AM healthy and I AM healthy. I WALK out and LIVE the life of my dreams. And I know life must not be measured or lived six months at a time.