When Cancer Isn’t Just a Bad April Fool’s Joke

"...We’ve all done it. Made bad jokes in poor taste. Laughed really hard only to find out what we were laughing at wasn’t a joke. Well, it was April first 2013, and I was sitting in a cold, sterile room at the Cleveland Clinic with my mom and my eight-month-old baby, Lucy. It had been a little over a week since my intense six-hour surgery to remove an extremely rare and aggressive paraganglioma from my carotid artery.  We were waiting to see what else the surgeons had found while they were in there. Hopefully nothing. My neck was the size of a football, I was swollen, sore, and I had trouble taking off my coat, so I just left it on. I was perched awkwardly on the edge of the tall, vinyl patient’s chair, staring across at my mom who was bouncing Lucy on her lap, because I couldn’t....."

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