Making It Count

I recently received a fundraiser request for an old high school friend and her husband, who are each receiving treatment for cancer at the same time. They are parents to three young people, and my friend was one of those people I remember as always having a dimpled smile on her face and a glint in her eyes. She was kind, and though our paths haven’t crossed in decades, I assume she has passed through the milestones of motherhood and adulthood with similar grace and style.

While there is growing evidence that illness and disease have a mind–body component, this is also a reminder that cancer and illness do not discriminate: it doesn’t matter if you’re kind or unkind, working your dream job or grinding through each day. But it reminds us that every day counts, and we get to choose how we spend each of those days.

I’ve been binging small-screen series—part writing research, part entertainment. This has included the previous and final seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, The PITT and  White Lotus on Max, and Your Friends & Neighbors on Apple TV, while I wait for Jason Bateman’s newest, Black Rabbit, to drop on Netflix. The writing and dialogue in these shows are tight—fast-moving and quippy, catering to our collective diminishing attention spans. After finishing The PITT, I tried watching the pilot of  ER —the first smash-hit medical series that launched George Clooney into superstardom—and it felt like watching paint dry.

Our lives are on tilt—whether it’s accumulating wealth and things and waking up in lives we don’t recognize like Jon Hamm’s character in Your Friends & Neighbors, or like the fictitious Ratliff family in season 3 of White Lotus. Watching these two series make a statement about our superficial lives while putting Issue #16 together—containing the depth of our lives, our authors and families at their most vulnerable, dealing with life and death, living with illness, helping a child with autism live his best life while discovering her own neurodiversity, or sitting with a parent while dying—makes me wonder: What if what we think matters in this moment really doesn’t? Every day counts.

Issue #16, What If?, began as a tribute to the patient advocates and the Patients for Patient Safety US group I’ve supported over the years—many of whom have either inspired my healthcare narrative career or contributed their stories to the telling. Like every PSM  theme, it takes on a life of its own when all of you—readers and writers—submit your stories and continue to participate in the healing that comes within this community and, we hope, extends out into the world through our global readership.

In Nonfiction, Zoran Naumovski personifies the weight and reality of delivering care, I Left My Wife on Valentine’s Day. He writes:

“I left my wife on Valentine’s Day …
… to bury you. You were dead. Yet you were still alive. You haunted me since the day you died. And I had to bury you, to rid you from my life, my family, to move on. So, I left my wife on Valentine’s Day to dispose of you, to lose you. You were dead, but you still had a pulse. You were dead, but your mind still terrorized mine. You were dead, but you still appeared in my dreams … or were they nightmares? Just for the record, nightmares are dreams too …”

Doctors, while imperfect in their humanity, donate their own resources—financial, physical, mental—to care for us. Five years after a pandemic, many suffer from PTSD, but the sad reality is that they were at the breaking point long before the first COVID patient hit the ER. One thing that seems to have changed since 2020 is the level of disrespect—not only toward caregivers but also in how we treat one another, in little ways and in bigger ways. The PITT, like Naumovski’s work, does an excellent job of providing a glimpse into the soulful weight of care delivered five years later—making the original ER seem even more like Fantasy Island. The good news? Life is full of second chances, as my wise, younger brother once said. Things can change on a dime if you stay open to becoming a better version of yourself.

All our nonfiction writers cover things that matter, like Monica Edwards in Unreliable Witness,  who gives life to cancer and the anxiety that comes with her diagnosis—even when “it’s the good kind.” And Sara Golden, who carries the guilt of an innocent mother caring for her son with autism the best she can in What If We’re Beautifully Wired Just the Way We Are? In Dear Driver, Kalani Padilla reflects on her value in this world through the canvas of a letter written to the driver of the “other” car in an accident she survived. And Hari Venkat wrestles with the effects of using pharmaceuticals to manage anxiety and depression in the poetic For the Clouds I Do Not Know. He writes:

“Is Lexapro my god? One of my gods? One of those almighties walking around in the clouds above, looking down with judgment? Those who assuage our fears about whether we’ll pass that test or whether we’ll make that interview on time or whether that kid in Gaza gets their head blown apart. If not for the wall of clouds resolutely blocking my view into the heavens, I would know. Are you there, Lexapro? I wonder if the clouds know.”

In Fiction, read Walking Alone by Shanti Chandrasekhar, who hits at the core of why PSM exists—so that those who suffer in silence can be seen and find companionship in the words of others who walk in her/his/their shoes. She writes:

“Peas of the same pod,” Ted said of you and me whenever I complained of overwork, citing debilitating symptoms; symptoms I powered through, driven. “He’s clueless,” you said. But it wasn’t just him. When coworkers remarked, You look good, my invisible pain winced. I thanked them; smiled, even.”

And, “What if everyone could believe our hidden truth? What if everyone could hear our silent scream? What if everyone could see our invisible agony?”

Read highlights from our always exceptionally curated Poetry Section in Steve Granzyk’s Poetry Editor Letter. Be sure to read and listen to Francey Grossman’s tribute to her fearless daughter, Joe Cottonwood’s poetic narratives and observations on life, and Joe Bisicchia’s reflections on what really matters in the healthcare system through the lens of someone working as an administrator and coach within it. In “Lesson in 307,” he writes:

Delirium goes to the heads in the many beds. May there be no mistaken belief on any part, thinking the cure, the treatment, is the killer rather than the disease. Be genuine with them about what to expect. Let there be no cause of death as hubris over bad communication on your part midst pricked arms at their sleeves. I hope you’re able to hear me, unless this is all just a delirious dream.

And in Art, a big shout-out of thanks goes to R.C. (Russell) Barajas, who came to the rescue with her artwork for our cover, Sarah Sideways. R.C. was also featured in Issue #6—Bias, November 2020. In her Artist’s Statement for Issue #16, she writes:

“…Each iteration of ourselves could be thought of as a living collage existing in that moment. We are, maybe, shifting composites of ourselves—constantly varying in color, shape and awareness, a veritable ‘What if …’ of possibilities.”

Over twenty years ago, someone said to me, “You need to divorce from the outcome,” and I struggled with what that meant. We want what we want when we want it. At the time, letting go seemed weak. Letting what was supposed to happen just happen? But today, in a shifting composite of myself … a veritable what if of possibilities emerge. Unlimited second chances? Does what I think matters really matter after all? Making every day count seems to matter most. I have begun divorcing from the outcome, and the freedom that comes with that mindset is a gift.

The idea of what makes each of us feel “Free” in this life—whether living with or recovering from illness, living in general, or caring for others—is also the inspiration for our Fall 2025 Issue #17.

Join us on Instagram (@pleaseseemelitmag) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pleaseseemelit1/) and let us know what resonates from this issue. Thanks for reading.

Tracy Granzyk is the editor in chief of Please See Me.