So… I found something from 2023 tonight.
Before anybody says ew, hush. 😂 Some moms keep baby teeth. Some keep hospital bracelets. Apparently I keep tiny medical devices that tried to jumpscare me during chemo.
I found one of my old Neulasta on-body injectors.
And for about 2.5 seconds I was like, “Aww, look at this little relic.”
Then my brain said, Oh, you wanna remember?
And suddenly I was right back there.
I could vividly remember that thing stuck to my stomach, knowing that somewhere around late afternoon it was going to go off. The nurse had told me every single time, “You’ll hear beeping about 30 seconds before it injects.”
Ma’am.
Respectfully.
That did not help. 😂
That is basically the medical equivalent of somebody saying, “I’m going to stab you with a thumbtack, but don’t worry, I’ll give you a countdown first.”
No thank you.
Do not count to three.
Do not warn me.
Do not give me 30 seconds to tense every muscle in my body and reconsider every decision that led me to this moment.
Just do it. 😅
It’s funny what your brain holds onto, though. Not always the big dramatic moments. Sometimes it’s a sound. A smell. A tiny plastic box. A beep.
And suddenly you’re standing in a completely different year.
I looked back at a picture from then and then looked at a picture of myself now, and whew. That was a strange little flashback I wasn’t exactly planning on having tonight.
But I think that’s why I keep some of this stuff.
Not because I enjoy remembering every part of it.
But because somewhere along the way, those things became trophies.
Tiny, weird, slightly questionable trophies. 😂
Proof that there was a version of me who wore that thing on her stomach, waited for the dreaded beeping, got through the shot, got through the day, and then did it all over again.
So yes.
I kept it.
And no, you cannot make fun of my trophy collection.
Okay, you can.
But I’m keeping it anyway. 😂
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