497 days, 11 hours, 42 minutes, 32 seconds

Transformations. Or transformers. On his birthday weekend, while he was in Rhode Island with family, the lights in her study blew out. Lights on Transformers. Because she can't tolerate the heat. His gift to her. And so she's managed in poor light, one week, two weeks, straining at the keyboard, putting on hat after hat, expensive hats, cheap hats, hats she's transformed with pins, trying to transform herself. She thinks of those cars that transform into robots. They came out long after her childhood. And she never had need of them. It's taken her this long to be able to write about any of this. Even during the day her eyes strain. In the middle of chemo her glasses break. God knows what these new medications are doing to her. She doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to see. She wants to put a hat on her head, cover her eyes, transform sickness or shame into dignity. Fashion, she calls it. But there's never been a mirror in her bedroom.