I asked for one simple thing after a surgery that gave me a coin-flip chance of seeing Christmas.
“My flight lands at 1:00 p.m. Can someone pick me up?”
That was it. No drama. No long explanation. Just a message in the family group chat.
Cleveland Hopkins Airport hummed the way American airports always do around lunchtime—rolling suitcases rattling over tile floors, the bitter smell of airport coffee, a calm TSA voice reminding everyone not to leave bags unattended.
I sat in one of those hard plastic chairs near the baggage claim, my carry-on resting beside me. The bag still carried the faint scent of hospital antiseptic and cafeteria soup.
I was three weeks out from surgery.
Stitches hidden beneath careful bandages.
A strip of titanium quietly holding parts of me together that had tried to fall apart.
When the surgeon explained the procedure before the operation, he didn’t hide the truth.
“Fifty-fifty,” he had said gently.
Not the kind of odds anyone wants to hear when they’re lying under hospital lights.
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