My husband uses his suitcase for months after we travel. Not as luggage—no, no. As a dresser. As in: it sits open in our bedroom like a sad, navy blue clamshell he lives out of by choice. I have never understood this. I’ve asked questions. I’ve investigated. I’ve stared at it the way archaeologists stare at ruins, hoping the past will whisper answers.

And before anyone comes for me, yes—there is a massage chair in the corner of our room that I don’t use because I’ve turned it into a textile museum of clothes, blankets, and the occasional rogue tote bag. But that is not the point.

Sometimes I genuinely wonder: Does my husband’s perpetually open suitcase signal that he’s preparing to leave me?

Probably not, since he keeps asking me to fetch his Milo’s artificially sweetened tea. I assume if you’re planning a dramatic marital exit, you stop requesting beverage service.

But I will admit—his system is convenient.

When we went to Myrtle Beach, packing took him all of six minutes. Just toss in what he needed and boom—vacation-ready. Meanwhile, I was over here doing laundry, checking weather patterns, and making sure my skincare didn’t exceed TSA guidelines even though we were driving.

Now we’re leaving for Ireland next month (because apparently we enjoy cold, damp weather that slaps you in the face), and I guess he’ll be ready.

The suitcase is already open.

The man is perpetually half-packed.

He might actually be the only one of us prepared for international travel.

Myrtle Beach gave us many things—ocean views, quiet mornings, and three moments I will be processing for the rest of my natural life.

First, at Brookgreen Gardens’ Night of a Thousand Candles, a woman in front of us let out a fart so forceful it could’ve shifted the jet stream. If it hadn’t been raining and she’d passed anywhere near a candle, we would have witnessed a brushfire that would go down in South Carolina history. Jeremy and I stood there blinking, unsure whether to laugh, run, or consult the forestry service.

The next morning at Blueberry’s Grill, I baptized my sweater in maple syrup. I thought I’d gotten lucky with just one small spot on my jeans—cute, manageable, something I could pretend didn’t happen. Then I looked in the mirror. A full syrup rivulet ran from neckline to hem like I’d been anointed by Mrs. Butterworth herself. And as if fate wanted to emphasize my humiliation, the Christmas song playing overhead was filled with enough sexual innuendo to make Santa sound like he needed an HR department.

And then there was the radio. In the span of one short drive, we heard a cheerful midday hiring ad for Treasure Club (the gentleman’s club), followed by a DUI lawyer confidently declaring, “When life gets bent, better call Trent.” But the real showstopper was learning that one of the local stations runs something called “The T&A Morning Show.” I don’t know what the T stands for. I don’t know what the A stands for. I don’t actually want to know. All I know is that if I had named a show that, the FCC would have personally escorted me out of the building.

But honestly? We still had a wonderful time. Myrtle Beach may not behave, but it certainly knows how to make an impression.

We knew this trip was going to be interesting the moment we hit construction on the drive down. “Detour ahead” would imply actual instructions, but that would require too much coordination for South Carolina roadwork apparently. Instead, we got a single man standing in the middle of the highway holding up a stop sign for absolutely no reason I could decipher.

Across from him? A cotton field.

Beyond him? A massive piece of construction machinery parked sideways across the road like it had simply given up and decided to spend its remaining days communing with nature.

There were no detour signs. No arrows. No cones. No driveways. Nothing. Just us, a blocked road, and a man doing traffic control in a location where no traffic could possibly go.

Meanwhile, Waze—using the spicy gingerbread man voice, because why wouldn’t it—remained silent, unhelpful, and completely unbothered. We were on a cosmic scavenger hunt with no clues, praying that whatever vague alternate route we found wouldn’t send us looping back into the same cotton field from a different angle.

By the time we reached the Hilton Myrtle Beach timeshare, I naïvely thought the worst was behind us.

Reader, I was wrong.

We pulled into the covered entryway and immediately got stuck behind a woman who could not, for reasons known only to her and possibly her luggage cart, move her vehicle forward even one inch. Jeremy parked close enough to the wall that I was wedged in place like a human doorstop—and, of course, I had to pee. It was the perfect trifecta: trapped, immobilized, and acutely aware of my bladder. If divine intervention had shown up in the form of a forklift, I would not have asked questions.

Dinner that night came with a bonus feature: a front-row seat to the world’s most painfully self-impressed job interview at the table in front of us. The candidate was the sort of man who speaks like he’s narrating a documentary about his own greatness.

“We had to let go of a lot of smart people,” he announced with the confidence of someone who absolutely did not make the cut himself.

He went on to explain how much he loves working—sixty, seventy, maybe eighty hours a week if the moment calls for it. He loves small companies. He loves big companies. He loves work. He just really, really loves to work.

The woman sitting across from him—presumably part of the hiring team—looked like her soul had slipped quietly out of her body and was waiting in the car. If I’d run into her in the restroom, I would have whispered, “Please don’t hire that guy—he sounds like a real asshole.” Of course, with my luck, she would have been his wife. Honestly? Even then, I think she would’ve agreed with me.

We didn’t get to see the ocean from our table—the glare on the windows was so intense we might as well have been sitting in a dentist’s office—but we did get a live-action National Geographic moment when a cat launched itself at what I’m fairly sure was a rat darting underneath the restaurant.

Nature is healing, I guess.

After escaping dinner theater, we headed to the hot tub back at our timeshare, which was—mercifully—lovely. Both tubs supposedly overlook the ocean, though it was pitch-black, so we had to take Hilton’s word for it. Still, it was warm, peaceful, and blissfully free of corporate interviews, cats, rats, or roadside construction personnel holding signs for no reason.

The true highlight so far, though? This morning’s breakfast.

A mimosa, a Starbucks gingerbread latte, eggs, bacon, and toast with Kerrygold butter—all made by Jeremy for thirty dollars instead of the seventy-five Myrtle Beach restaurants believe eggs are worth. It was calm. Warm. Sane. A rare oasis in this swirling coastal fever dream.

And then—because the universe enjoys contrast—it started raining. The “partially indoor” hot tub now contains shards of glass because workmen broke a window trying to replace it. The concierge would love to “give us a gift,” which is Hilton for “please spend three hours letting us sell you points.” And Forensic Files II is looking more and more like a respectable afternoon plan.

And the best part?

We’re only on Day 2.

Stay tuned. Something else is absolutely going to happen—it’s just a matter of when.

I walked into Kohl’s this morning with $60 in Kohl’s Cash, a sense of purpose, and the kind of optimism that only someone who hasn’t yet spoken to their customer service department can possess. My plan was simple: buy two sweaters, leave feeling accomplished, and maybe even get home in time to live the rest of my life.

Naturally, none of that happened.

I started at the Tommy Hilfiger sweaters—buy one, get one half off. Beautiful. Tempting. Beacons of preppy joy. But then I wandered over to the Izod section, where the sweaters were cheaper and marked down another 20 percent. It felt responsible. Mature. Financially savvy. So I grabbed two Izods and headed for the register.

This is where Kohl’s decided to play games with me.

The cashier scanned my sweaters and informed me that, between rewards points and Kohl’s Cash, I actually had ninety dollars. Ninety. At that moment, I absolutely wished I’d gone with the Tommy sweaters, but I told myself I’d made the smart choice. Sensible. Practical. Adulting at its finest.

I paid, went to my car, and prepared to move forward with my day. Except I couldn’t, because during my stroll around the men’s department, I’d also gone looking for Levi’s in the incredibly specific size 30×34. The Levi’s employee explained that while the store didn’t carry that mystical unicorn of a size, I could get it online for the same $49.99 price. Perfect. Easy. Foolproof.

I sat in my car, opened the Kohl’s app, and bought the jeans.

And the app happily ignored the fact that I had $25 in remaining rewards.

So I called customer service.

The connection was crystal clear on my end, but on her end it sounded like she was phoning me from inside a dryer full of spoons. I repeated myself endlessly because I knew if I hung up, I’d spend another thirty minutes trying to get someone else on the line. We finally got the rewards situation sorted out. I was seconds away from freedom when I looked down and noticed a 40 percent off coupon that expired today.

Of course, I asked about it.

She told me she couldn’t apply it to the Levi’s since they were already on sale, but I could go back inside and use it on something else. So, like the obedient bargain-chaser I apparently am, I marched back into Kohl’s.

I grabbed the Tommy Hilfiger sweaters I had emotionally abandoned an hour earlier. With my 40 percent coupon in hand, I waited in a line that lasted about fifteen minutes and presented my sweaters to the cashier… only to be told that Tommy Hilfiger is an excluded brand.

Of course it is.

But then she offered a creative solution: I could go back out to my car, return the Izod sweaters I’d just purchased, come back inside, and rebuy them using the 40 percent coupon. This made no sense. Absolutely none. Which is precisely why I did it.

I trekked back outside, retrieved the sweaters and my receipt, came back in, waited in an even longer line—now closer to twenty-five minutes—and explained everything to the original cashier.

She listened, nodded, typed a few things, and then delivered the final blow: I couldn’t use the 40 percent coupon because I’d used Kohl’s Cash on the original purchase. It didn’t matter that I was returning the items. Kohl’s Cash had tainted the entire transaction like a cursed relic.

I took my sweaters and left the store a broken but wiser woman.

When I got home, I couldn’t decide whether I’d gotten a deal or lost four hours of my life to a department store that runs on coupons, chaos, and a vague sense of emotional manipulation. It may have been the most absurd shopping trip I’ve ever taken. And that includes the time I accidentally bought jeggings thinking they were “flex denim.”

Kohl’s won today. But I will rise again.

Here’s the honest truth about college football, one that Ole Miss fans keep trying to forget even though the universe repeatedly slaps us with reminders: coaches are temporary residents. They show up, hang a visor on the back of a chair, charm everyone with a smile and a few big wins, and suddenly we’re all pretending they’re settling in for the long haul. They’re not. They never were.

So Lane leaving? That part was never surprising.

What was surprising was how dramatically he managed to do it. It wasn’t a clean exit. It wasn’t a quiet exit. It was the kind of exit where everyone is forced to hover over Twitter like they’re monitoring an incoming tropical storm.

And the only way I can truly explain how this felt is by comparing it to something that happened in my own house this Thanksgiving.

Lane Kiffin is the green bean casserole we found sitting in the oven the next morning—not because we forgot him, but because he became something we could no longer serve.

The casserole was innocent and, at first, delicious. But once everyone had eaten their fill, we stuck the leftovers in the oven while we tended to the rest of the Thanksgiving chaos. Winnie was acting feral, there was no counter space left, twenty things were happening at once—the oven was off, it was safe, it was supposed to be temporary.

Then we opened it the next morning and saw what it had turned into: cold, unrecognizable, weirdly sad, and definitely not something that belonged on the table anymore.

That part?

That’s the metaphor.

Not the forgetting.

Not the hiding spot.

Not the logistics.

Just the truth of it: Sometimes something that was perfectly fine yesterday becomes absolutely unusable today—and not because of anything you did.

Lane didn’t transform. He didn’t suddenly become someone new. We just finally saw what was always there—the part he was never going to hide for long.

Lane is exactly the same—just a more chaotic, self-involved version of the casserole. Lane wasn’t ruined by us; Lane was Lane from day one: a walking, talking ego in a visor, a man who can call brilliant plays but couldn’t commit to a single ZIP code if you stapled him to the welcome sign. He arrived with one hand on the playbook and the other already scrolling Zillow, because loyalty doesn’t live in Lane’s world—attention does.

And the audacity—the full, uncut nerve—of thinking Ole Miss would let him coach us through the playoffs after he’d already whispered sweet nothings to LSU?

Peak Lane.

Peak narcissist.

The kind of delusion only a man who adores his own reflection could muster.

And now he’s poaching our coaching staff too, clearing out the silverware drawer like he’s entitled to whatever isn’t nailed down.

Lane didn’t change.

But here’s what he will never understand: no matter how loudly he centers himself, no matter how many bridges he lights on fire behind him, he is not the main attraction.

He’s not the entrée.

He’s not the tradition.

He’s not even the dish anyone shows up for.

In the end, he’s still just green bean casserole—a gloopy, lukewarm side item most people don’t even like. (I can confirm that because I’ve surveyed them.)

And THAT is why his exit didn’t feel like discovering a forgotten dish.

It felt like discovering the raccoon who kicked the casserole aside also helped himself to whatever else he could grab on his way out.

Chaotic. Messy. Predictable.

And exactly what we should have expected from him.

Even the air-traffic-controller “Hotty Toddy” as he flew away had the same energy as the universe gently tapping us on the shoulder to say, “Sweetheart… it’s time. Take the pan out. You know it’s over.”

Let LSU scrape the edges, add seasoning, and convince themselves this is a fresh start. They can dress it up however they want. They can embroider “heaux” on a hand towel and pretend it’s a personality trait.

But here at Ole Miss?

We’re cleaning out the oven.

We’re throwing away what expired.

And we’re making space for something new—something warm and reliable and not dependent on whatever emotional temperature Lane happened to be that day.

Sometimes the bravest thing a fanbase can do is accept that something has outlived its usefulness and let the trash bag do its job.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve. I should be basting something, but instead I’m planning historical cosplay.

Next Thanksgiving, Jeremy and I are going as Pilgrims.

Not “haha, funny idea” Pilgrims.

Not ironic, not tongue-in-cheek, not something we’ll forget about by Easter.

No.

Actual, full-commitment, buckle-hat, bonnet-wearing Pilgrims. I am completely serious. I’m already looking at costume options. Jeremy doesn’t know he’s committed yet, but he is. This is marriage.

I started thinking about this because the more I learn about the Mayflower, the more obvious it becomes that I would have died almost immediately. The ship was basically a floating petri dish full of smallpox, scurvy, pneumonia, and people who considered bathing an occasional suggestion. Half the passengers died before they even built a house. Meanwhile, I can ride the Metro like a seasoned commuter, but a wooden ship full of smallpox? Absolutely not.

I would’ve been gone by the second sunrise. Tops.

Jeremy, however, would’ve survived slightly longer. Not because he’s naturally suited to 17th-century maritime squalor, but because the man genuinely believes that hot yoga is a universal solution. I can see him now, down in the cargo hold, trying to convert it into a Bikram studio while everyone else is coughing up colonial lung plague. He’d be telling the passengers that the humidity was “good for their circulation” while they tried not to pass out on bags of grain.

This is the man who married me.

This is the man who believes a 105-degree sauna is the answer to nearly everything.

If anyone could have turned the Mayflower into a wellness retreat while the rest of us were actively dying, it’d be him.

And that’s why next year we’re dressing as Pilgrims: because it perfectly captures the essence of our marriage. Slightly chaotic. Mildly alarming. Unexpectedly coordinated. A story that sounds like a joke until people realize we’re serious.

By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, everyone else will be carving turkey and pretending to enjoy the cranberry sauce, and we’ll show up looking like we stepped out of a middle-school diorama project. And we’ll give thanks—not in a sentimental, Pinterest-worthy way, but in a very real, very modern sense—for things like vaccines, deodorant, hot showers, and the ability to Google “Is this rash contagious?”

The pilgrims walked so we could run—to CVS for flu shots, deodorant, and common sense.

Well, friends…

After weeks of suspense, anxiety, medical plot twists, and enough imaging to stock a small radiology museum, I finally have an answer.

It’s benign.

Actually benign.

Like officially-benign-with-pathology benign.

The diagnosis?

Adenomatosis.

If that word sounds made up, it practically is. And the odds of developing it? About one in one hundred million. Naturally. Because why wouldn’t I pull another astronomically rare diagnosis out of the cosmic grab bag?

I mean, I already had Ewing’s sarcoma in my forties, which basically stamped UNICORN across my medical chart in glitter ink. Apparently the universe decided to double down and hand me something even rarer, just to keep things interesting.

So what happens now?

Here’s the beautiful part: I’m okay. Truly okay.

But because I’m still a limited-edition medical specimen, Mayo Clinic is treating me like a Fabergé egg. I’ll be getting MRIs every three months—and yes, that means flying back to Mayo four times a year, because my liver refuses to be evaluated by mere mortals. They also want a PET scan, because at this point I’ve collected so many imaging studies I may qualify for museum curation credit. And of course there will be the routine check-ins, CT scans, and all the usual “make sure the unicorn stays alive” follow-up.

But the headline?

Benign. Benign. Benign.

No cancer.

No neuroendocrine tumor (one of the big fears—now ruled OUT).

No Ewing’s recurrence.

Just a liver that has apparently decided to express itself creatively.

The takeaway?

That even after a one-in-tens-of-millions cancer and a one-in-one-hundred-million liver phenomenon, I’m still here. Still laughing. Still writing. Still showing up for my family, my life, and myself.

And the doctors at Mayo—literal experts in the rare and strange—looked at everything, huddled like the Avengers, and agreed:

All is well.

So my husband and I celebrated our 27-year anniversary this past weekend, we’re already planning our next trip to Rochester (because of course we are), and I’m dusting off my gym membership and getting back to writing, parenting, and dog-wrangling with a lighter heart and a slightly more famous liver.

Life moves on. Blessedly.

There are easier ways to spend nearly three decades than being married to me.

I say that with self-deprecation, not false modesty. I know who I am: a woman with a life full of plot twists, medical detours, rustic Airbnbs requiring a tetanus booster, and the kind of travel luck that turns a simple flight to Memphis into a tour of every airport east of the Mississippi.

And somehow, I married the one man who seems built for all of it.

Twenty-seven years ago, we stood together—young, earnest, unprepared—and said yes to a life we couldn’t have imagined. And what a life it has been.

This is the man who loves a good deal so much he can find a flight so inexpensive it practically comes with bonus layovers. The kind where you land in a place you didn’t know existed, change planes twice, and eventually—eventually—end up in Memphis. It’s his version of TJ Maxx treasure hunting, and honestly, I admire the enthusiasm.

This is also the man who accompanied me to an Airbnb so aggressively “rustic” I’m still not convinced we didn’t accidentally film the opening scene of a true crime documentary. He walked through the door, looked around at the serial-killer décor, and said, “It’s fine.”

Bold. Unfounded. Admirable.

This is the man who voluntarily attends 5 AM hot yoga for reasons unknown to science or God.

I do not understand it.

I do not pretend to.

But I respect that he has this mysterious, sweaty inner world.

And here’s the part most people don’t see:

This man survived a misdiagnosed appendicitis when I was almost nine months pregnant with our son—an appendix that ruptured, turned septic, landed him in the hospital for two weeks, and required three months of home health. We survived with grit, stubbornness, and the kind of exhaustion that deserves its own chapter in the medical literature.

August 2024 tried to take him out again.

We were supposed to be moving our daughter into her freshman dorm, but his intestines had other plans. They twisted themselves into a surgical emergency, and he lost seven inches of his colon and spent another week in the hospital.

And because August apparently believes in sequels, almost exactly one year later he returned for a Nissen fundoplication—which, for the uninitiated, is basically when surgeons take your stomach and wrap it like a burrito around your esophagus to stop acid reflux—along with a laparoscopic hiatal hernia repair.

(At this point, August should be reported for harassment.)

But through all of that—through ruptured organs, twisted intestines, surprise surgeries, and endless hospital rooms—he kept showing up. For me. For our kids. For our life.

And I have shown up for him, too.

Because that is what we do.

That is who we are.

He has been the constant—my constant—through cancer, through motherhood, through cross-country medical pilgrimages, through grief and joy and college drop-offs and every unpredictable turn life has thrown at us.

I joke that our lives are made of dumpster fires, and sometimes they are.

But this is the man who never once backed away from the flames.

He climbed in with me.

He helped carry the parts worth saving.

And he stayed.

Twenty-seven years in, I’m still grateful I get to do this life with him—imperfect, hilarious, messy, resilient, ours.

Happy anniversary, Jeremy.

Thank you for choosing me then.

Thank you for choosing me still.

There’s nothing quite like returning home from a trip to the Mayo Clinic where you’re trying to find out whether you, in fact, have CANCER, and being greeted not with answers, nor clarity, nor even a working sense of “everything is fine,” but instead with United Airlines deciding to play Hide-and-Seek: Trauma Edition with your luggage.

One of our bags—my bag, naturally—simply failed to arrive. My husband’s bag? Oh, that one rolled out like it was being welcomed back from a semester abroad. But mine? Nope. Mine apparently punched its timecard at Dulles then noped out of the rest of its responsibilities.

A United employee pointed me “upstairs.” I trudged up. Another person pointed me “downstairs.” I trudged down. At one point I am positive I passed the Beetlejuice waiting room where the Lost Souls of Baggage Past go to contemplate the void. I, however, was on a mission: retrieve my suitcase filled with the pathetic assortment of wrinkled clothing I had lived out of while being scanned, prodded, biopsied, and told to “just relax.”

We waited two hours.

Two hours during which my husband circled the baggage carousel like a hopeful golden retriever waiting for someone to throw a tennis ball.

Two hours during which I subsisted on… let me check my records… yes: one hotel breakfast and one Stroopwafel. Truly the nutritional foundation of champions.

While I waited, a couple from Newark filled out their lost luggage claim, explaining they were supposed to attend some event in D.C.—with $2,000 worth of luggage that had apparently vanished into the ether. I felt terrible for them… but also slightly better about my own situation, because at least my lost luggage did not contain formalwear, heirlooms, or someone’s wedding-guest dignity.

Finally—FINALLY—a woman appeared who seemed to possess the mystical ancient magic required to locate missing objects in airports. She asked questions. Detailed ones. Personal ones. “Describe its zipper.” “What color are the wheels?” “Would you say the bag is more ‘travel weary’ or ‘emotionally exhausted’?”

Then she declared, like some kind of baggage whisperer, “I’m going to find it.”

And she DID.

My suitcase had been scanned in at Dulles but left behind by the baggage handlers at our gate. Just… forgotten. Like a child at a rest stop in 1987. So while I was pacing the fluorescent-lit basement of IAD, it was presumably taking its sweet time rolling toward us, maybe after grabbing $6 gummy bears at Hudson News and then wandering off to find a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Two hours after I should have been reunited with it—and after filling out a claim form that promised delivery to my house—my luggage emerged.

The silver lining?

Today, I found out United reimbursed our $40 checked bag fee.

Which, for those doing the math, comes out to $20 per hour for waiting at baggage claim. Not exactly hazard pay for a woman fresh off a liver biopsy, but honestly better than I expected. And still far, far less tragic than the Newark couple who probably had to attend a wedding wearing emotional support sweatpants.

And here we were, thinking how fortunate we were to fly direct from Minneapolis—upgraded to Economy Plus, no less.

Economy Plus! The land of slightly more legroom and the fleeting illusion that the universe is smiling upon you.

Turns out the universe was merely warming up for its next trick:

Now you see your luggage… now you don’t.

This whole trip to Mayo wasn’t even planned. Something odd had shown up on my MRI back home, and Inova had tried—but failed—to biopsy it with CT guidance. So in a moment of frustrated curiosity and mild panic, I called Mayo on a whim just to see if I could get in. Two weeks later, I was on a plane to Minnesota because when Mayo calls you, you don’t hesitate. You pack whatever’s clean, grab some hotel shampoo, and go.

This week at the Mayo Clinic has been an experience I’m still trying to categorize. Not bad, not good—just… surreal. The kind of week where you think you’ve seen it all, and then a hepatologist asks if you’re a heavy drinker while you’re sitting there in a brewery t-shirt.

To be fair, she had every reason to ask. My liver labs are a mess, the MRI looks like someone spackled “mystery dots” everywhere, and I had already told her I enjoy one, maybe two glasses of wine a week. Honest. Absolutely honest. But later, my husband pointed out that I was wearing a brewery t-shirt. And the only other shirt I’d brought? Also a brewery t-shirt. So essentially I walked in looking like a brand ambassador for craft beer and then tried to convince a liver specialist that I’m a light social drinker. Excellent. Perfect. Really love that for me.

Each morning, we rode the shuttle from the hotel to the hospital, and all I could think was that it felt exactly like the shuttle to Disney—if Disney had fewer churros and significantly more biopsies. Everyone sat in that early-morning fog, clutching their belongings, half-awake and fully anxious, like we were all trying to get there before the parks even opened. One morning, while my husband was eating breakfast (because he was allowed to eat, unlike me, the medically inconvenient spouse), I mentioned this out loud. The woman in front of us turned around and said she’d thought the exact same thing. For one beautiful moment, we were all on the same imaginary ride.

Meanwhile, my personal itinerary for the week could be titled “Hunger Games: Mayo Edition.” One day I couldn’t eat because I had a PET scan scheduled—which didn’t happen because two of their scanners were down. The next day I couldn’t eat because I had a liver biopsy. The day after that I’m pretty sure I wasn’t allowed to eat because… honestly, I don’t even remember at that point. I was on autopilot, wandering the halls with the blank determination of someone who hasn’t had a carb since the Clinton administration.

At one point, friends I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years came down from Minneapolis to visit us, and while they ordered actual food like functional adults, I sat there sipping vegetable broth—quietly nursing my cup of liquid regret like an Edwardian orphan.

And then came biopsy day itself. I showed up wearing a sweatshirt that said “Excuse Me, Which Level of Hell Is This?” because subtlety clearly died somewhere around Tuesday. Honestly, it felt appropriate. The staff didn’t comment, but several eyebrows did a silent little jump, which is really all I needed.

First I met a nurse named Luba, which she informed me (very cheerfully) is Russian for “love.” She said it in a thick Minnesota accent so perfect it felt hand-crafted by the Coen brothers. She mentioned she was from Duluth, which absolutely tracked. She was so upbeat while inserting my IV that I half expected her to offer me a hot dish afterward. Another nurse talked me through the early steps of the procedure with that calm, steady tone that could probably soothe a feral animal. Truly angelic.

Then, of course, right as they’re about to begin—after I’ve met the doctor who’s been doing this for forty years and exudes the emotional range of a very competent grandfather clock—I suddenly get the overwhelming urge to pee. Perfect. Absolutely ideal timing. I managed to hold it together while he numbed the area (which honestly hurt more than the biopsy itself), and then while he said, “Okay, deep breath, don’t move,” as he inserted the biopsy needle. Sir, I am doing all of that and clenching like it’s an Olympic event.

After the procedure, they wheeled me back to recovery, where I experienced something I hope never to repeat: peeing in a bedpan. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was one of the most humiliating things I’ve ever done. I would have preferred thirty more biopsies. Or a tax audit. Possibly both.

The next day, once the humiliation had faded to a manageable level, I told my Minneapolis friend that the biopsy was successful and that we were celebrating at one of the most fabulous Italian restaurants I’ve ever been to. I couldn’t toast with a glass of prosecco because I’d already had a much better cocktail earlier in the day: Versed and fentanyl, shaken not stirred. Instead, I ordered a mocktail topped with whipped egg white that tasted so sinful I’m convinced it bypassed the FDA. She texted back, “I’m sure it doesn’t taste as amazing as vegetable broth! It’s hard to top that!” And honestly? Fair. The bar was subterranean.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, one of the physicians told me that what I might have is one in one hundred million. Between that and the whole “getting Ewing’s sarcoma as an adult” thing, I’ve apparently decided to live my life as a full-time medical unicorn. Truly rare. Majestic. Possibly sparkly. Statistically improbable. If I show up at Mayo again with something no one has ever heard of, they’re going to start naming conference rooms after me.

The whole week felt like some bizarre mash-up of EPCOT, House, and a mindfulness retreat where the only mantra is “Don’t eat after midnight.” But in all the strangeness, something about it was—oddly—comforting. Every person we met was kind. Every nurse and tech seemed genuinely invested. Every patient on that shuttle, silently clutching their coffee or their fasting-induced rage, was in it with us.

So yes: I spent the week accidentally looking like a binge drinker, riding the world’s saddest Disney bus, fasting for procedures that didn’t happen, sipping vegetable broth like a Dickensian child, meeting a nurse named Love with a Fargo accent, trying not to wet myself during a biopsy, and peeing in a bedpan—all while learning that I may once again win the prize for “Most Statistically Bizarre Medical Chart.”

Honestly? On brand.