2018

A fertility clinic sent me for an ultrasound to “explore the scene.” I’d removed my IUD and tried to conceive for six months.

The tech was Eva.

She read my file. Warmed the gel to ease the shock to my belly. Placed the doppler and glided.

Then she stopped. Darted her eyes. Stood up. Ran to lock the door. Spun the screen around.

“I’m breaking protocol.”

She pointed to an object poking through my uterus toward my spine. An IUD. A twelve-year-old hormonal IUD left to nestle when the next one arrived. My family doctor had chosen not to remove it, or had forgotten. The result was the same.

Eva wore a necklace with a moon pendant. Tough eye. Direct. Dry humor. Stares lasting two beats longer than comfortable. She’d been bored when she walked in. Going through the motions. Then she crackled.

Game on.

Steady breath, firm tone, focused on my body. She pulled the garbage under me milliseconds before I heaved bile. She refused to unlock the door when colleagues knocked. She coached me to call my doctor’s clinic on speaker, taking notes while we guided the locum through my file.

On the date in question, the locum read: “IUD inserted successfully.”

No mention of the other IUD removed.

The taste of bile and Eva’s accent set off a memory of dark nights in Prague. Vodka at breakfast. Mental snaps in clubs when men approached and my brain jolted: he is not safe.

Eva chose to break protocol. She chose me over procedure.

2020

My doctor called in sick. Dr. H. is the ObGyn on call.

I expected a woman. My entire system expected her. I relaxed and waited. Nerves vibrated.

Dr. H. entered the transfer room. A tall, loud man. Is this the right room? Will he find my blastocyst? I don’t know this man. I scanned for a file in his hands, a name tag confirming his identity. I scanned him head to toe.

He wore fun-dad socks with a fried egg pattern.

What happens when we go through our days by rote? We forget the personal in our professional routines. The women on the table search this room for symbols and signs, desperate for predictive meaning. I tried to summon the most inappropriate sock pattern I might wear that could jar my own students during a lecture.

I couldn’t.

Fried egg socks in a fertility clinic, worn while transferring blastocysts. There are no rival socks.

Dr. H. spoke in a whisper. He told me my blastocysts were “good-looking.”

As he inserted them and sang under his breath, I stared at the ceiling. I remembered the moon pendant. Zoomed in to hold back bile.

2020

A woman’s body holds the genetic remnants of others, even after the bundle leaves, blood, bits, baby. The memory of others swirling and shifting the DNA.

Things linger inside of me. I can’t get rid of them. Even if I want to.

Ginger’s grandmother: Scrappy and quick-witted, survived the loss of two children. Turned her despair into calm and love but also clear demands to a room.

Golden:. A photo of her on top of a mountain, arms up and open. Bossy and intrepid. Not a pleaser. A creative and a traveller. She chose to give. I wear gold now, not silver.

Coffee: The aunties and grandmother. Spiritual strength. Stillness. Strong hands. Cumin and sumac, fresh plums with salt. The coffee grounds stuck on the side of a small cup showing a future path. I close my eyes when B is sad and channel her. I do the same when I’m scared.

Copper: Ouch. All the broken bits, scrapes, and scars. Scar tissue and shifted hormones. The elemental ships in my womb: you cannot trust anyone. Stay vigilant. Protect yourself.

2025

March

In the third week of March, I found a lump on my upper left thigh.

I went to my doctor that day.

July

In late July, a tumour on my upper left thigh was diagnosed as high-grade, dedifferentiated liposarcoma. Three months of ultrasounds, MRIs, a biopsy.

I did not expect the news: it’s cancer.

August

On Day 9 of radiation, I wore a Steve Miller Band t-shirt. That morning, I thought: I’ll email him back later today.

An hour after radiation ended, I learned my brother, Erik, had died of a heart attack in his kitchen in Ontario.

Fly like an eagle.

September

I wore a Ramones shirt to Day 16 of radiation.. Band shirts became a way to bring Erik to the clinic with me. Six months to live. We talked about bands and hiking. Jacob sat across from me in the waiting room most mornings. We talked about what it’s like to be a patient when you’ve spent your whole life as a person who doesn’t need care. Who has never had to wait, still, for strangers to tend you. Who has never had to trust that they will.

Jacob chose his funeral songs before he died. He told me the Ramones didn’t make the cut, but just barely.

October

I distrust operating room nurses. The last OR nurse I interacted with was later jailed for forging a nursing certificate and practicing without a license.

Going into surgery, I was most nervous about the OR head nurse.

Within seconds of meeting Mark, my fear disappeared. Calm, confident, careful, curious. He asked questions beyond the technical and clinical. As he wheeled me toward the OR, he asked what I’d normally be doing in the third week of October.

I told him: finishing a course, submitting grades, packing for somewhere with trees.

He said: look into Cape Scott. Twenty kilometres. Not too steep. You’ll be able to handle it after this.

I arrived in the OR the opposite of scared.

Once inside, Mark announced to the room: we have Kari here. She’s the most important person here today. Why don’t we all come and introduce ourselves.

Everyone sprung into action.

Right before the anaesthesia, I asked: can you tell me what music will be playing when the tumour comes out?

Mark treated this as a normal question.

“We have two residents, two fellows, a student nurse. This will be more like a classroom. Dr. Clarkson can’t always listen to music when he’s teaching. But if he does, 80s rock.”

I fell asleep smiling. Not because I’d won the guessing game. Because the OR would be a classroom. As a teacher learning to be a patient, I liked knowing the sounds during surgery would be the sounds of teaching.

Three hours later, Mark pushed me down the hallway to post-op recovery.

“Everything went well. He did play one song. Dancing in the Moonlight.

2026

My oncology physio Kate calls the clear scans credible evidence of safety. A term from pain neuroscience research. The body’s nervous system weighs evidence of danger against evidence of safety.

For ten months, my body became expertly attuned to credible evidence of danger. Something felt not-quite-right for a long time. Muscle spasms. Unexplained tiredness. Feeling off balance. Then finding the tumour. Then waiting between scans, four months of compounding worse, then worse, then the worst news. Danger from life-saving interventions, too. Radiation beams targeting my leg. Intentional surgical trauma. Six days in a hospital trauma ward.

Danger. Danger. Danger.

Clear scans are the opposite signal. Proof the threat is gone. Kate shifted my rehab goals to nature-based experiences. A walk through a cedar grove. Uneven terrain. Moving through trees. Walking on sand and small rocks on the beach. Inviting my body to find balance under its feet.

For the first time since March, I can see past next week.

Dancing in the moonlight.

Anna K. Ekim teaches at a university, where her courses explore creativity and communication. She holds a PhD in Curriculum and Pedagogy and researches how people narrate identity during times of transition. A cancer survivor, her personal writing examines medical systems, patient experience, and the relationship between the body and care..