September Newsletter

What changed in me at the Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center, Instagram break, and all that happened in the month of September.

A beautiful fall morning hike.

Hi everyone,

I am writing the first part of this month’s newsletter in the Maddie’s Room, the surgical waiting area at UCLA, where Ben is having his (hopefully) last procedure. It’s September 19th, 2024.

I won’t say too much about this, because what happened between the beginning of 2023 and the end of 2024 is the subject of Following the Breadcrumbs, the new book I am writing.

I mentioned his surgery because something in me changed forever in this very room, last year.

His surgery, on October 11th of 2023, lasted eleven hours. He stayed at UCLA for two weeks, not able to speak, breathe, or eat; every day, I would stay with him for hours, while my mom was with Catherine. We’d watch The Great British Baking Show or an episode of Yellowstone, and before heading home, depending on the time, I would have either lunch or dinner at the hospital dining commons.

“I am finally going to have the cilantro dressing again!”

I said to Ben with a big smile on my face, earlier this morning. I couldn’t wait to drizzle the thick cream on my salad.

I mentioned lunch because I just ate at the cafeteria: mixed salad with cilantro dressing, accompanied by a hot medium roast with sweet hazelnut creamer, which I only ever have either on a roadtrip, when I stop at a gas station, or at this hospital.

I mentioned this portion of writing being the first part of this month’s newsletter because, in a few days, I will be taking a week-long social media break, during which I will write the second part.

The break will end with the publication of the newsletter, on September 30th.

Something in me changed in the Maddie’s Room, one year ago.

Being in the same room, today, reminded of the person I was when we first discovered his cancer was back, aggressively, this time, after less than a year from the previous reoccurrence. Being in this room, today, brought me back to the beginning of this journey.

In the small back room of the waiting area there is me, and a woman a little older than I am; she is talking on the phone about a surgery; she is a visitor, from what I can tell looking at the orange sticker on her white shirt, but I believe she may be a doctor herself — her vocabulary knowledgeable, kind, but firm. I am facing the big motor that displays every surgery currently in process, about to start, or that just ended, but I am not looking at it: I know that his surgery, number 1783878, is colored in red — Procedure Start.

Maddie’s Room.