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They don\u2019t know exactly what is wrong with you\u2026<\/p>\n
And this not knowing takes forever and never ends.<\/p>\n
For one thing, you have a purple rash from neck to wrist to ankle that will not budge from beneath the military-grade ointments you are required to slather over it. For another, some of your organs are failing tests, failing you, failing in general. You spend half of your one wild and precious life in your online patient portal looking at inscrutable graphs of the wrong concentrations of hematological components you\u2019ve never heard of. The absolute lymphs are too low! The absolute monos are too high! The immature granulocytes are juuuuust right. Since when did your blood become Goldilocks and the Three Bears?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cStay with your group,\u201d you can hear your fourth-grade teacher say on the museum field trip \u2014\u00a0and you would like to, you really would, but you seem to have wandered off and now you are lost and gazing alone at the ruins of Pompeii while everyone else sits in the cafeteria with their bologna sandwiches.<\/em><\/p>\n There, on your way to the bathroom, you run into your favorite doctor \u2014 the one you are there to see \u2014\u00a0and she hugs you and says, \u201cI was so happy when I saw your name on my schedule!\u201d Later, when you\u2019re sitting in your papery gown on her papery table, she will say, totally convincingly, \u201cWe are on it,\u201d even though they don\u2019t totally understand what it<\/em> is. <\/p>\n The phlebotomist in the black Pumas asks about your flying-chipmunk tattoo, and her eyes fill with tears when you explain that your daughter has the same one. She and her mom have matching tattoos, too, and she rolls up her sleeve so you can see the red of the heart on her biceps. \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about this before, haven\u2019t we,\u201d she says, and you laugh, and she says, \u201cDid I cry that time, too?\u201d She did.<\/p>\n In the CT scan waiting room, a lively and ancient man wearing more than one wool sweater clinks his bottle of clear contrast solution against yours and says, \u201cCheers, baby! To our health.\u201d<\/p>\n Afterward, your husband gets your ticket validated and holds you in the elevator of the parking garage while you cry a little. Then he takes you to lunch at your favorite caf\u00e9 in this hospital town \u2014 the place with the platters of Middle Eastern dips: garlicky tzatziki and earthy baba ganouj and tangy, vibrant muhammara to scoop up with warm, spice-freckled pita. Sometimes, while you\u2019re sitting there sipping your mint iced tea, the results start dinging into the portal, and he makes a yikes face to make you laugh.<\/p>\n Driving home you respond to the many texts from individual friends and friend groups, everyone checking on you, sending you nonstop heart-based emojis, offering to bring you soup, caring if you live or die. If you didn\u2019t keep these appointments a secret from them, your parents would call, too, and you would reassure them that you do, in fact, plan to outlive them, although the possibility that you won\u2019t hangs above your head like a bad lightbulb. You are approaching 60, and still it\u2019s possible that nobody will ever love you as much as these two. You cry into the cats\u2019 fur about it, and the cats lick your salty face even though your tears are a little deficient in magnesium.<\/p>\n Ten days from now, your daughter and her bestie \u2014\u00a0both of them living in your home like balls of actual sunlight \u2014\u00a0will take it upon themselves to remove the biopsy stitches from the back of your shoulder after they catch you trying to do it yourself in the medicine-cabinet mirror. They are science majors, they work lab jobs, they are fearless and knowledgeable, and they only start laughing when it becomes clear that the kitten has chewed through all of the sanitized packaging of the suture-removal kit. \u201cIt\u2019s fine,\u201d you say, \u201cjust wash it with soap and water.\u201d They use alcohol swabs instead. When you see their two perfect rosy faces bent so carefully toward your wound, you believe in something like the power of mystical healing.<\/p>\n Some days, yeah, you still feel like you\u2019re wandering around alone, studying the ruins while everyone else eats lunch and peers at irrigation dioramas. But you\u2019re not alone, and no one will let you forget it. So lean in. Reach out. Let the ashes rain down around you while you count your blessings.<\/p>\n Catherine Newman<\/a> is the author of the novels We All Want Impossible Things<\/a>, the New York Times-bestselling Sandwich<\/a>, and the brand new Wreck<\/a> \u2014\u00a0out today! \u2014 which, she says, \u201cis kind of like if this personal essay were turned into a novel, but funnier, ideally.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you for this personal essay, Catherine. Congratulations on your new novel<\/a>. xoxo<\/strong><\/p>\n P.S. Catherine Newman\u2019s joyful house tour<\/a> and her love of cold plunging<\/a> (\u201ca sea of thigh and boob\u201d).<\/p>\n (Photo by Nick Karvounis\/Unsplash.)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cupofjo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Wreck.GMACover.jpg\")
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