Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - January/February 2016 - (Page 44)

creative minds imagine Essay Contest Thank you to all who entered our Creative Minds Essay Contest! We are thrilled to announce the winners here. Please visit our website at http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/contest/contestresults.html to read all winning essays as well as the judge's comments on them. Our Creative Minds Fiction Contest is now open through March 17. Read submission guidelines and enter online at www.cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/creativeminds.html. FIRST PLACE Hair by Luisa Healey ISTOCK.COM/TRANSFUCHSIAN Everyone is obsessed with the hair, it's like the baldness is what might kill you. It's the second question they ask: has she started losing her hair yet? My mother's hair was black, curly, impossibly thick, and when I was little I would stand at the doorframe of the bathroom and watch her brush it, watch her looking at her reflection in the mirror as she tamed the wilderness with dry shampoo and leave-in conditioner. When I heard the word cancer, I imagined my mother, no hair, tubes in her arms and up her nose, and I saw my mother before me, thick black hair cascading down the front of her red sweater. I saw images of womanly strength, Penelope, weaving and weaving, before I started to cry. My mother had no hair, but I never saw her bald. When her hair started falling out, it was all at once, like a waterfall, thick, curled strands scattered across the bathroom floor. She bought colorful scarves, deep blue, purple, and never left her bedroom without putting one on. She bought a wig, too, and she jokingly told me it was the kind of hair she always wanted when she was younger: black, straight, like a real Asian woman. I thought she looked unnatural with the wig on, even frightening, but I never told her this. I told her the scarves were beautiful, the colors reminded me of summers in Japan, of the light smell of kinmokusei flowers. I learned the rhythm of her disease. Every three weeks, she took the train to the hospital to have poison infused in her veins. For an afternoon, the steroids propped her up, she was almost herself, and then the medicines worked their way through her body, weighed down her limbs, tied her to the bed, stole away her sleep. There were gradual tests of strength, walking to the park, going out for dinner, the grocery store, advancing in difficulty until the next treatment knocked her back into fragility. At least I'm not dead, was something she said often, with a short, bitter laugh. At least it's not terminal. Unsarcastically, I thanked God for this, too. 44 imagine I bought books about cancer, dog-eared them, scribbled in the margins of the ones I couldn't understand. I scoured the internet for potential causes, alternative treatments, statistics. My mother thought this was pointless: she thinks that if she can understand it, she can control it. I became very familiar with the green, carpeted floor of Barnes and Noble. I learned that cancer is a problem of cell communication: a mutation blocks a cell's ability to know when to stop growing, that cell replicates itself, the tumor grows. I learned that it is a problem of finance: the bills for surgery and medication pile up, a single mother's salary stretches thin. It is a problem of beauty, of femininity, of pride: the hair falls to the bathroom floor in a waterfall, the skin grows thin, the nails turn blue. I learned that there is hardly anything pink about it. The summer grew hotter, darker. I sat on the edge of her white bed as my mother grew weak, then stronger, then weaker again. I prayed for the summer to end. On the day of her last treatment, I accompanied my mother to the hospital. It was the last chemotherapy that the doctors had deemed necessary, adequate to eradicate the remaining cells with a potential for destruction, but it didn't seem like an occasion to celebrate. She put on her wig and we rode the subway in silence. I sat on a chair next to her bed and watched the doctors mill about around her and adjust the clear liquid that dripped through a needle into her arm, just as I had imagined. The nurses smiled at me with sad eyes. For lunch, I bought sushi from the grocery store, but when I lifted one to my mouth with those cheap wooden chopsticks, I couldn't swallow it. The hospital smell gave the avocadoes a medical flavor, like hand sanitizer, like cancer. While my mother's eyes were closed, I threw the remaining pieces in the trash. Every morning, I straighten my hair in the bathroom mir- Jan/Feb 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - January/February 2016

Big Picture
In My Own Words CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H.
My Summer of Medicine Three ways of exploring healthcare
Teens Target: Public Health How high school students are solving real-world public health problems
Slowing the Race Addressing antibiotic resistance
For the Greater Good Majoring in public health
Epic Epidemics Studying History of Disease at CTY
Teen Health is Public Health Interview with Beth Marshall, Associate Director, Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Building Bridges Addressing health disparities through service
Becoming a Disease Detective Behind the scenes at the CDC
Finding Light in the Darkness Astrophysics at UCSC SIP
Girls Who Code Paving the way to careers in tech
Selected Opportunities and Resources
Off the Shelf Review of Iris Chang’s The Chinese in America
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options Interview with epidemiologist Christine Scott-Waldron, M.S.P.H.
One Step Ahead Summer in limbo
Planning Ahead for College Is medical school in your future?
Students Review: Tufts University
Creative Minds Imagine Essay contest winners
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - January/February 2016