100 Days of Gladness, Day 9

The doctors, the donor, and the day Jet’s new heart went in.

tinalear
3 min readDec 12, 2023
image courtesy of stock.adobe.com

Jet is her nickname. She’s twelve. It’s 1984.
Hodgkins Lymphoma Stage 2.
Her family rallies. She fights. Anyone who’s been through chemo and radiation forty years ago will know. It’s not pretty. But she survives.

They tell her she will not be able to have children.

About a decade later, now in her twenties, she develops breast cancer caused by the treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma. She fights. She survives.

And somewhere in there, she marries and gives birth to two beautiful boys!

Then, it’s breast cancer again. Total mastectomy. There is enough suffering and perseverance for many books to be written, but this is not what we’re doing right now.

We’re only getting started. In her late teens, she qualifies as a lifeguard. Years later, she becomes a fitness instructor. One like you’ve never seen before. Here she is, teaching her water fitness class as Captain America. (Her people never know what to expect. She’s shown up as Cher, Lady Gaga, Cruella Deville.)

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tinalear

Novelist. Poet. Musician. Buddhist. Quilter. Animal lover. Visible grownup. Hidden child. Secret dancer when all alone. Makes good bread.