Tag Archives: Tribute

I’m not so good at saying goodbye. Once you wiggle your way into my heart, I want to hold you there for keeps.

But these past few weeks I’ve been faced with a heartbreaking question: How could I ever say goodbye to the man who saved my life?

Our story begins in June 2011, when my parents and I found ourselves in Baltimore. It had been a tough year for me, with one of the biggest blows being severe and enigmatic hematologic complications that nobody could explain. With this addition to my lengthy list of eccentricities, I had all the earmarks of an underdog. And soon enough I was beginning to think that nobody wanted to deal with an underdog. The major medical center in my area turned me away, saying I didn’t have leukemia or lymphoma, so they couldn’t help me. So there we were, sitting in the pediatric hematology/oncology clinic at Johns-Hopkins, on what felt like our zillionth-and-second medical trip. We were in for quite a surprise… This visit would be entirely unlike the zillion-and-one before.