My Hero

Flash Fiction Challenge: Explore the Complications of Heroism from Chuck Wendig.

“You are a hero!” my best friend whispered as she hugged me tightly.

“Why?”I asked,“Because I didn’t die?”

Still standing after a brutal year-long Round One in the ring with cancer and its insidious treatment, I need to squeeze my eyes shut to remember my own story.  I squint as I pull the memories out of the bloodied recesses of my synapses and speak with deliberation.  Having forgotten mundane words which once flew off the tip of my tongue, I struggle to string the sentence together in the fog.

There is a normal range of brain damage for boxers and chemo patients.

Like Rocky, I took a beating.  I think if the Oncologists said “Listen, we may cure your cancer, but you and your body will be kicked ahead ten to fifteen years at the molecular level”