By Pamela Kaye

Of course you know that you are not the first person on the planet to pursue writing, but have you thought about learning some of the habits of successful writers who came before you? Myriam Gurba, the author of the memoir Mean, became interested in writing as a vocation when she was a teen. In an interview with The Writer magazine, she described researching the lives of respected authors:

“I researched specifically what their process was. How did these writers come to be writers? I took notes on practices they engaged in that I could replicate at home. I couldn’t replicate all the practices, but I could replicate some of them. So, for example, I would learn about what Sylvia Plath’s writing schedule was and what her practice was. I would go home and replicate it as a teenage kid. I taught myself to write through choosing literary ancestors and mimicking them.”

Each writer develops a writing process. Do you realize that you have a writing process? Often, the process includes a period experienced as procrastination. When it’s time to write, you first wash the dishes, go through the mail, and maybe even clean out the refrigerator. Do you find that sometimes you go to great lengths to avoid sitting down to write? When you recognize that this anxious avoidance is part of your process, you can stop berating yourself for procrastinating and, at the same time, rein in this resistance. Try making a deal with yourself that you will spend a limited amount of time preparing to sit down and write. Give yourself fifteen minutes, or however long you decide, to put in the laundry, reschedule your dental appointment, and fix your cup of tea. Understand that this avoidance/preparation time is part of your process.

Many experienced writers, who understand their writing process, replace random avoidance with some type of ritual that addresses their anxiety and lets their mind know that it’s time to write. Author Steven Pressfield describes his ritual in the introduction to his book The War of Art:

“I get up, take a shower, have breakfast. I read the paper, brush my teeth. If I have phone calls to make, I make them. I’ve got my coffee now. I put on my lucky work boots and stitch up the lucky laces that my niece Meredith gave me. I head back to my office and crank up the computer. My lucky hooded sweatshirt is draped over the chair, with the lucky charm I got from a gypsy in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer for only eight bucks in francs, and my lucky LARGO nametag that came from a dream I once had. I put it on. On my thesaurus is my lucky cannon that my friend Bob Versandi gave me from Morro Castle, Cuba. I point it toward my chair, so it can fire inspiration into me. I say my prayer, which is the Invocation of the Muse from Homer’s Odyssey, translation by T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, which my dear mate Paul Rink gave me and which sits near my shelf with the cufflinks that belonged to my father and my lucky acorn from the battlefield at Thermopylae. It’s about 10:30 now. I sit down and plunge in.”

Prolific author Isabelle Allende starts a new book every year on January 8th. When asked what she does if she doesn’t know what to write about, she said she waits. She sits quietly and waits for an idea to come. Sometimes it comes right away, sometimes it takes months, but she understands that that’s part of her process and that an idea will come.

There are conditions that support your writing process. One of these conditions is some amount of solitude. Sandra Cisneros, the author of The House on Mango Street, says,

“Solitude, which most of our society sees as something negative, is sacred. That is the time for you to develop you. And I can’t repeat that enough, especially to women, because we tend to love in ways that give away all of ourselves and leave nothing for us.”

When Maya Angelou started writing a book, she famously rented a hotel room to get her needed solitude. She instructed the housekeepers not to touch anything, not to change sheets on the bed (because she never slept in it), and to remove all the pictures on the walls and any other distractions. She showed up every morning at the same time, lay down on the bed and propped her head up with one hand, and wrote in longhand, day after day:

“I have kept a hotel room in every town I’ve ever lived in. I rent a hotel room for a few months, leave my home at six, and try to be at work by six-thirty.”

Alice Walker, who has successfully published in a variety of genres, describes her process:

“I wrote every morning, or I made the space. Because part of writing is not so much that you’re going to actually write something every day, but what you should have, or need to have, is the possibility, which means the space and the time set aside—as if you were going to have someone come to tea. If you are expecting someone to come to tea, but you’re not going to be there, they may not come, and if I were them, I wouldn’t come. So, it’s about receptivity and being home when your guest is expected, or even when you hope that they will come.”

Some writers write at the same time daily. Some write a certain number of pages every day. Other writers write for a set amount of time. Some writers find that working in the same space helps, while others seek variety in their workplaces. Notice what works for you and develop your process. Then trust that you will make progress if you follow through with your process.

There is a certain mystical aspect to the art of writing; from nothing, you create something significant. Carl Sagan, a famous astrophysicist and author, honors the magic of books:

“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it, and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time—proof that humans can work magic.”

If you are in the middle of a writing project and you feel lost or discouraged, trust that your writing process is sound and that it will hold you in good stead. Or perhaps you need to shore up your writing process; consider what would help you make steady progress. All the while, understand that confusion and even despair are often part of the writing process. 

If you are a writer, you are engaged in holy work. Be aware that you have a process and make sure that your process works for you. When you run into problems, that doesn’t mean that you’re a lousy writer; it just means that writing is challenging. Trust your writing process.

---

Pamela Kaye is a retired Sociology professor. She writes essays and has been published in The Sun, Mixed Mag, and other publications.  Pamela is a nascent botanical watercolor artist. When she’s not writing or painting, you can find her collecting sea glass near her home in Monterey Bay.  

• Talk to the Practitioner: Myriam Gurba – The Writer.
• Writing Wednesday: 10 Strange Superstitions of Your Favourite Writers
• Reading Pressfield’s The War of Art (pt. 3: Invoking the Muse)
• Alice Walker Offers Advice on Writing – Writer’s Digest 
• The Legends of the Nittany Valley – Mount Nittany

By Carolyn Porter

Twenty-four years ago Aaron and I purchased the home where we still live. It’s a classic mid-century rambler with three small bedrooms and a full basement. Sometime in the 1980s, a previous owner converted the one-car attached garage into a large kitchen, and the oversize lot had big, magnificent trees. As the saying goes, it had good bones.  

As with any 70-year-old home, things need fixing and updating, and we’ve tried to tackle one project a year. Years when money or time was thin, we’d do something small like update a light fixture. Other years projects were bigger. One year we painted the exterior of the house. Other years we hired people to replace flooring, windows, the roof (twice), and we added a bedroom and bathroom in the basement.

But there was one project we never had the gumption to tackle: the main-floor bathroom. 

The room had issues. It didn’t have usable electrical outlets, and the light switch was in the hall. We tried to remember to tell guests where to find the light switch, though we presume somewhere along the line someone has gone potty in the dark because they couldn’t figure out how to turn the light on.

Over the years the original linoleum floor tiles started to crack. A hole in the floor near the tub turned black. The tub leaked. Still, we put it off. To fix it right we presumed we’d have to take the room down to the stud walls, and the disruption seemed overwhelming. So did the price tag. One potential contractor told us projects like ours started at $75,000. 

———

In the fall of 2023, Aaron and I decided the bathroom had to be addressed. I reached out to a local kitchen and bath remodeler, Preferred Kitchens. Neither Aaron nor I wanted to spend $75k, yet neither of us had the interest or expertise to do it ourselves. We could do some things: demo, painting, hooking up a new faucet. But we didn’t know any tradesmen. When it came to a tiler, electrician, or carpenter, we’d be at the mercy of Google and we weren’t comfortable with that. We wanted to work with someone who had connections and expertise. 

The first planning meeting with Preferred Kitchens was in December, 2023. Aaron and I were told what we hoped to hear: they’d help select materials, order all the pieces and parts, then coordinate vetted craftsmen to provide top-quality work. 

I came to that first meeting with a preliminary sketch, colors, and ideas. I hoped to be the client I wanted my clients to be: clear in vision, collaborative, decisive. Some of my initial ideas had to be abandoned due to cost, but our designer and project manager, Jaime, brought great new options and ideas to the table. As suspected, the room would have to be taken down to the stud walls in order to update the original wiring. 

Three months later, in February 2024, Jaime and I had a third and final planning meeting. We reviewed schematics and all material selections. The new bathroom would have small hexagon marble floor tiles, a dark blue vanity, a new oak linen cabinet, stone countertop, Kohler tub/toilet/sink, a fancy new light fixture, and … drumroll … electrical outlets. I handed over a deposit check. The remodel wasn’t going to be $75k, though it would cost half that.

COVID-era supply chain issues had mostly abated, but Jaime expected it could take two months before all parts were delivered. She said her team would put together a project schedule once they had confidence on timing. Weeks later, Jaime emailed the schedule. Demo was scheduled for May 15. After that, the carpenter would shore up flooring, then the plumber and electrician would do their work. She allocated a week for drywall and two days to tile the floor. The room would be painted, the carpenter would install the vanity and linen cabinet, then the stone vendor would come out to measure the countertop. Finally, the counter and sink would go in and the carpenter would finish the trim work.

I was elated to have a solid plan. Jaime assembled a three-ring binder for our project. Every detail — down to the placement of the knobs on the vanity — was carefully documented. Each tradesman could consult his tabbed section to see a list of tasks, supplies, and applicable schematics.  

My OCD graphic designer heart was thrilled.

———

On a Tuesday morning in mid-April, one month before demo was schedule to take place, I called to make a dermatology appointment. Similar to changing a furnace filter or cleaning out gutters, it was routine “maintenance.” Also similar to those tasks, it was a to-do that had been easy to fall behind on. The receptionist looked up my medical record and noted it had been more than five years since I had been seen, which meant I was considered a “new” patient. She told me they weren’t scheduling appointments for new patients until February — of 2025. 

“Unless,” she added, “you could come in today at 1:00.” She explained they had a cancellation that morning.

“I’ll take it,” I said, feeling lucky. 

Three hours later I was sitting on the exam table. The dermatologist I had seen previously was no longer with the practice, so a new doctor was looking me over. 

All previous dermatology appointments had been uneventful. Any spot or lump was met with confident assurance that it was a dermatofibroma or a senile purpura — a.k.a., nothing to worry about. One dime-size spot on my breast had been assessed by my previous dermatologist; she assured me it was a benign seborrheic keratosis. If I ever wanted, she said, I could have it removed. 

Over the previous year or so the spot on my breast had changed enough that I wanted to have it looked at and, if possible, removed. I showed the new dermatologist the dime-size spot and pointed out a few other spots and bumps: one on my left ankle, another on my right shin, a dry spot on my abdomen, and a small bump at the base of my left nostril. I wasn’t particularly concerned about the bump below my nose. It wasn’t discolored. It didn’t have an irregular edge. It didn’t bleed. It didn’t have any of the characteristics we’re told to watch for. I explained it was like a zit that never turned into a zit. I had recently seen a photo of myself where the spot seemed more noticeable than usual and when we discussed removing the spot on my breast I asked if the spot under my nose could be removed, too.

The dermatologist looked at it through her hand-held scope and said she was “55% sure” it was nothing to worry about. She said it would be easy to remove and offered to remove both spots right then and there. 

The following afternoon I was scheduled to review graphic design student portfolios at UW-Stout. I was vain enough not to want to sit across from students with a Band-Aid below my nose, so we scheduled the appointment for the following week. The follow-up appointment lasted all of 10 minutes. After numbing the two areas, the spots were shaved off. I was surprised the tissue from below my nose was put in a specimen vial. The dermatologist had seemed so unconcerned about it. Sending it for analysis was standard procedure I was told. No one seemed worried.

When I got home I looked at the excision below my nose. I was thrilled. It was so small it didn’t even need a Band-Aid. It seemed small enough it might heal in days. And it did. By Friday morning it was barely visible. 

Shortly after 5:00 on Friday, April 26, I received an email saying biopsy results were available. I logged in to the secure health care portal.

The dime-size spot removed from my breast was, as expected, benign. 

The small spot below my nose? 

Basal cell carcinoma. I had to Google it.

A sidenote to health care companies: it doesn’t make for a fun weekend to send test results showing cancer on Friday after close of business.

The dermatologist’s office was closed on Monday, but a gentleman called early Tuesday morning. He explained the next step was Mohs surgery, which is where a doctor cuts the cancer away bit by bit until they get clear, cancer-free margins. Because of where the bump had been, they offered the option of plastic/reconstructive surgery. 

The words made my blood run cold. It was such a small spot. The thought of needing plastic/reconstructive surgery seemed so … serious.

Aaron works in surgical services at Regions Hospital and jumped into action. The next day he approached a plastic surgeon he trusted who specialized in ear/nose/throat cases, and asked if he would do my reconstructive surgery. He agreed. 

By the time I got a call from the surgery scheduler, which didn’t happen for another long, sleepless week, I was able to tell her Dr. Harley Dresner had agreed to do the reconstructive surgery. In the following weeks I would hear nothing but glowing reviews of his work. “If I had to have my face cut open, I’d want Harley to do it,” two different people told me.

Days later the scheduler called again: Mohs surgery was scheduled for Tuesday, June 18. The plastic/reconstructive surgery with Dr. Dresner was scheduled for the following day.

Aaron and I had several long conversations about what surgery might mean. I tried not to obsess about what ifs, but the possibility of having part of my nose removed kept me awake at night (for those of you who read Marcel’s Letters you know I’m not a good sleeper to begin with). Losing part of my nose was a legitimate concern based on where the spot had been. With melanoma — which is a more aggressive cancer than I had, to be clear — Aaron said they often take a one-inch margin to ensure they get all the cancer cells and roots. He didn’t know what the typical margin was with basal cell carcinoma. If they had to take an inch, the entire left side of my nose would be gone. If they took a half inch, I’d lose the nostril and nasal sill. If they took a quarter inch I’d lose part of the nostril and part of the nasal sill. Even if they only took an eighth of an inch I’d lose something.

But what was the option? 

“They’ve got to get that shit out,” Aaron stated one day when I questioned if the surgeon really needed to remove so much. “We’ll deal with whatever’s left.”

It felt easy for him to say. It wasn’t his face.

———

Demolition of our bathroom was scheduled to begin the following week. I reframed the mess they were about to make. To use Aaron’s words, the demo crew would be “getting the shit out” to set the stage for our beautiful new bathroom. Rather than looking at demolition as an inconvenient mess, I saw it as a fresh first step.

In less than an hour, the three-man demo crew removed the vanity, sink, tub, toilet, linen closet, and linoleum floor. In a handful of more hours the room was down to stud walls. 

The three-yard dumpster in front of our house was full. The shit was out.

The next morning the carpenter began shoring up the sub floor. Days later the tub was installed, then drywall went up, then the tile floor went in. The care and craftsmanship that went into the rebuilding felt like a good omen.

———

Only a handful of friends, immediate family, and a few clients knew about my upcoming surgery. I didn’t tell others because I didn’t want to under- or over-theorize what the outcome might be. Aaron reminded me I might not even need reconstructive surgery. Maybe the first round of Mohs would be all they’d need to get it all. Maybe they could whip the spot together with a couple of stitches. 

The short list of people who knew included Jaime. As soon as surgery was scheduled I asked her to block off the week of surgery. I didn’t know what I’d need on the days of, or after, surgery, but in case I needed a quiet house, I didn’t want people coming and going, hammering and sawing. She assured me none of the tradesmen would come to the house that week and modified the schedule accordingly. I was grateful. 

In the weeks after the diagnosis, I berated myself for not having scheduled the dermatology appointment sooner. I berated myself for the blistering sunburn I got the summer I was 13; I had recently learned a bad burn before the age of 18 raised my chances for skin cancer. I berated myself for having used a tanning bed in the spring of 1987 before high school prom, and in the spring of 1991 when I was finishing my last semester of college. I berated myself for not having a daily practice of applying sunscreen, and for the various sunburns I had gotten on vacations or when doing yard work. To say I was unkind to myself would be an understatement. During those weeks, one of Aaron’s favorite sayings from his decade working as an ER nurse kept coming to mind: “If you’re gonna be stupid, you gotta be tough.” 

I steeled myself to be tough. Cancer seemed an inevitable outcome of my stupidity. 

Disfigurement seemed like apt punishment. 

The hardest part was the unknown. Would I walk out of surgery with a few stitches? Or would I walk out missing part of my nose? One night I went down a rabbit hole of researching silicone prosthetic noses. Helpful tip: Don’t do that.

What I desperately wanted was a Jaime-like three-ring binder with detailed, specific plans for demolition and reconstruction. Instead, I’d meet the doctors moments before the procedures. There would be no advance planning, no reviewing schematics, no making selections. Instead, it felt like I was signing up for one of those home makeover reality shows where you hand over your keys, leave your home for a bit, and cross your fingers that you can live with the end result. 

The weekend before surgery I blocked off time each day to do yoga and meditate. I wanted to go into the week in the best possible mindframe. One of the guided meditation sessions, by happenstance, had a theme of forgiveness. The woman leading the session asked us to think of a person we wanted to forgive. With a sweep of uncharacteristic self-grace, I tried to forgive myself for all the cruel things I had said to myself the previous weeks.

Then I cried. 

———

Aaron drove to the Mohs surgery appointment. I was anxious, but calm. Maybe I was in a shocked state. I hoped to keep my nose, but if I couldn’t, I wasn’t going to stop the doctor from taking it. More than anything I wanted the procedure to be over to have clarity on what would be left. 

After a brief consultation with the surgeon, Dr. Tan, his assistant injected lidocaine into my nose and upper lip, and he removed skin surrounding the site of the original biopsy. The procedure only took minutes. The assistant bandaged my nose and upper lip, then escorted us to a special waiting room. Meanwhile, the specimen was mapped and sent for microscopic examination. Aaron and I were told it would take 60–90 minutes before they’d have results. 

I was called back to the exam room in just 45 minutes, so I knew the news wasn’t good. The specimen showed cancer cells along the margin. Dr. Tan needed to remove more. 

The front of the nasal sill had been removed during the first round, but that was all he was going to need to take. The cancer was growing in the direction of my lip, not my nose. In that moment I felt one thing: extraordinarily lucky.

The second round of removal didn’t get all the cancer. Nor did the third. By the time the fourth round of removal was completed, an oval of skin that extended half way from my nose to my lip had been removed. Any notion of closing the hole with a few stitches was long gone. In fact, Aaron said Dr. Dresner had a bit of a “meat puzzle” ahead of him.

But by day’s end demo was over. Dr. Tan got the shit out.

———

The next morning Aaron and I headed to Regions Hospital. For fifteen years I had told Aaron that if I ever needed surgery, I refused to have it at Regions. If I had to get naked in front of his co-workers I would never — ever, ever, ever, ever, ever — go to another one of his holiday work parties. 

But there I was. Fixing the hole in my face was more important than my pride and privacy.

We were escorted to a pre-op room where I changed into a gown. Vital signs were checked. My medical history was reviewed. As Aaron’s co-workers cycled in and out of the room to conduct various pre-surgery checks, Aaron tried not to be “on duty,” but when we were alone he adjusted the tape holding my IV in place, the position of the bed, my pillow. 

Fifteen minutes before surgery, Dr. Dresner came in and introduced himself. He took a thin marker and drew on my face to show me how he suggested we approach the reconstruction. To get enough skin to close the hole, he needed to cut from the outside of one nostril to the inside of the other, and all the way down to the lip in the shape of a letter ‘V’. The two sides of the ‘V’ would be pulled together to create an ‘I’. Combined with the incisions around the nose, it would create the letter ‘T.’ It was a good way to explain the procedure to a someone who works with type. 

Dr. Dresner asked if the plan sounded ok. 

“I trust you,” I said. 

What was the option? I knew less about surgery than I knew about tiling or electrical work. I had no basis to counter his suggested approach. I had no option but to trust him.

After completing final paperwork I was wheeled into the operating room. 

Renovation was about to begin.

———

Surgery lasted an hour and a half. Or so I was told. As expected, I woke with a ‘T’ of stitches that extended from nostril to nostril and down to my lip. 

After a brief stay in a recovery room, I changed back into street clothes. Aaron and I headed home with a supply of Vicodin, antibiotics, and medicated ointment. Once we got home I put ice on my face.

By the next morning the left side of my face had swelled so much the inside of my top lip faced out. I drank a Vicodin-laced iced coffee, pressed a fresh ice pack to my face, then lay on the couch. The house was quiet, and I was grateful Jaime had modified the schedule.

Before Aaron left for work he made a spreadsheet for me to follow with times to take painkillers and antibiotics, and times to apply the ointment. He occasionally texted and called to check in. I told him it was as if I had gotten the most extreme lip filler imaginable — on one side of my mouth. “I do not recommend this esthetician,” I mumbled.

The truth is I was feeling the same thing I felt the day before: lucky. I could not yet picture what my face would look like once the swelling subsided. The swelling was significant enough that it would be days before I even realized that Dr. Dresner had cut down into my lip. And it would be another two weeks before I realized my philtrum was no longer centered below my nose. But I felt grateful Dr. Dresner had done the work; it seemed he had done a skilled and careful job.

———

The following Monday the carpenter showed up to re-start work in the bathroom. I wore a surgical mask while he was in our house; he didn’t need to see the stitches or swelling. 

Two weeks earlier we discovered the linen cabinet had been ordered with the wrong color finish — a small bump in Jaime’s otherwise airtight plan — and the big task of the day was for the carpenter to install the correct new cabinet. I felt buoyed. My surgery was in the rear-view mirror and all energy going forward — mine, Aaron’s, Jamie’s, the carpenter’s — could be spent rebuilding.

———

Twenty-three days after surgery the last big step in the bathroom project was completed: the countertop was installed, and the sink was re-connected. All that was left was touch-up painting. The project took longer than planned due to an additional hiccup with the countertop; thankfully it was something that could be fixed by shipping the stone back for one modified cut. We were grateful for Jaime’s project management, and the slight delay was less important than having a beautiful end product. 

Also, twenty-three days after surgery the bulk of the swelling in my face was gone. What remained was a knot — a knot that would take another five months to resolve. I hoped to regain movement, feeling, and pliability soon. Talking at length was still a challenge and smiling could be painful, but I was no longer having to drink through a straw or cut my food into toddler-size bits. On the days I was frustrated by the slow pace of recovery I tried reminding myself of the lessons from the wrong color cabinet and incorrectly cut countertop: slight delays didn’t matter as long as there was hope for improvement.

It was still unclear what the final “after” would look like: how obvious the missing part of the nose sill would be, how visible the scar between my nose and lip would be, how obvious my repositioned philtrum would be. I was warned it could take a full year for all residual swelling to go away. Dr. Dresner’s office provided contact information for an esthetician who specialized in masking surgical scars. But her office wouldn’t schedule my appointment until six months had passed since surgery, so it wouldn’t happen until December.

Overall I continue to feel lucky. And grateful. Lucky I called for the appointment the day the dermatologist happened to have a cancellation, and lucky the cancer grew the direction it did. I feel grateful for all of Aaron’s support, grateful to work out of home office so I could heal with privacy, grateful to have good health insurance. And grateful that all summer we were surrounded with caring and skilled craftspeople — carpenters of wood and skin alike. 

As for the consultation with the esthetician in December?

It turns out it was just in time for the Regions holiday work party.      

   

---

Carolyn Porter is a freelance graphic designer, type designer, and author. Her first book, “Marcel’s Letters: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate” was awarded a gold medal from Independent Publisher for Best First Book Non-Fiction and was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award in Memoir & Creative Non-Fiction. She lives with her husband, Aaron, in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

By Emilee Prado

The chairs smelled of new vinyl, assembly line raw. Antiseptic, of course, pervaded the clinic. After I’d sat in the empty waiting room for no more than five minutes, I was invited behind the heavy door and shown toward an overstuffed grandfatherly chair that stood out for its coziness amid the sanitation. When I sat, my feet didn’t touch the floor. I held out my right arm, but after a miss-stick sprayed the phlebotomist with my blood, I offered my left arm instead.

I didn’t need tests. I didn’t need care. According to the paperwork, I was a healthy participant.

A dozen small vials were drawn that day, but I’ve donated more. Pints of blood have gone to different research studies over time and maybe twenty gallons of plasma. Donation is a tricky word when we’re talking about human bodies. In addition to intravenous draws, I’ve received monetary compensation for donating urine, feces, mucus, ear wax, and tears. I’ve let people scrape from my tongue. At different points in time, I’ve swabbed my face or armpit or groin and mailed those microscopic flecks of myself in boxes to labs across the country. But it hasn’t been just myself going out. I’ve also let medical research put things in. Ultrasound wands, otoscopes, and needles, sure, but also the unknown. I swallowed unmarked pills for twelve weeks in the name of getting more options available to those of us who have struggled with what could be labeled PTSD. I’ve consented to being injected with new vaccines, and along with hundreds of other participants like me, our bodies made sure that shots for COVID-19 and the flu would save the lives of the more vulnerable.

I should clarify that in the wording of every consent form, participants are compensated what’s usually about minimum wage for their time, not for their fluids or anything else. Perhaps compensation for time is only to clarify and satisfy legal conditions. Maybe it’s a way to make people feel as if they are not subordinate to but necessary for a booming medical industry. Maybe the wording is meant to draw more people toward becoming subjects—or to use the newer, more frequently used term participants—which are in constant deficit.

In the US, it’s illegal to sell almost any part of a human body (hair, for example, is one notable exception). But what if I framed the type of donation I’ve participated in as something like medical prostitution? Sluts for science? There is a strange sense of intimacy with medical institutions here. I’ve also experienced a lingering sensation of feeling used, despite how I’ve volunteered. Certainly, no one has been gratified by any of my work in this field, but hopefully, people were helped. This thought makes my personal ambivalence meter lean a little more toward okay. I feel a mixture of empowerment and shame when I give pieces of my body away. I felt both practical and desperate back when I did it regularly.

In addition to the specimen collection aspects of research, I’ve also slept attached to machines so science could watch me breathe. My heart has beat and beat, sending spikes along yards of EKG printouts. My ears have been pummeled by dozens of hours of MRI cacophony during brain scans while the machine’s coils lurched and vibrated with fervor in the white casing around me. The cognitive tests I’ve taken certainly outnumber the medical ones. I’ve remembered and forgotten for Alzheimer research. I’ve navigated new interfaces for anxiety and depression education. I’ve sorted random objects, made patterns, pronounced synecdoche, tried to have the fastest reaction time, and been monitored while having virtual reality experiences. I spent two hours every day for weeks training to navigate a video game city and wondering if I’d actually gotten better over time. Rarely do participants get to see any results.

So why did I sometimes put myself through all kinds of hells to essentially make a part-time job of participation in medical and cognitive research? It’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason. One thing I know is that I’ve held a range of other jobs in recent years, and although I’ve enjoyed aspects of them, they are mostly places where I left my blood, sweat, and tears and returned home a little emptier. However, when selling my body to science, it felt more like buying more time or more self rather than losing it.

I began participating in research consistently while I was facing an uncertain future and working a 2021 temp gig, contact tracing during the pandemic. I’d just moved to a city where I didn’t know anyone and felt foreign and uneasy in the US after spending years in other countries. At first, research allowed me to build connections with my new home by learning the geography between clinics. I was lonely too, although far too stoic at the time to admit it. Because I had no community in the traditional sense of local friends and family, I began looking forward to the strangers I’d meet each week. I welcomed the return to chitchat in my native language while also learning new ways of communication that helped each conversation hit some real note rather than just floating along as a superficial nicety. I learned about the kindness of other humans. It’s sort of funny to think that some of the nicest people in the world are the ones asking, Can I experiment on you?

Sometimes I had fascinating conversations with a researcher about their personal life, their past, their loved ones, their career goals, or their thoughts about science. When someone would hold my arm as they stuck the needle in my vein, it was often the most human contact I’d have in a week. Maybe it was because her white coat and lavender scrubs had already been sprayed with my blood, but I had a particularly meaningful conversation with the phlebotomist who sat me in the overstuffed chair that day.

She wasn’t much older than me. An artist too, a painter and a poet. She teared up when she told me about her dreams. Both of us turned out to be buying a stepping stone made of time, not on a path toward a career of wealth or fame, but on a path that would allow us to perpetually search, question, and make something newer or better or bigger while each of these creations in turn created emotions, journeys, catharsis, and spaces for others. Everyone sells themself in some way, so does it matter which piece of the artist’s body funded that moment of awe, laughter, heartbreak, or brief escape from the transactional world?

The painter day-lighting as a phlebotomist had the same dream that my grandparents’ families had when they trekked thousands of miles across lands or seas toward the vague idea of less pain and more joy—the so-called better life.

Twice, I’ve moved far away from a home toward the unknown to escape memories and acts of violence. I left a third home mostly due to the pain of a broken heart. I was still heartbroken when I volunteered for that first vaccine, and blood draw, and MRI. But as I kept leaving parts of myself for science, I kept finding parts of my way to a future where I’ll continue to create.

Could participating in medical research be some form of endurance art?

The pieces of my body have found plenty of new homes in fridges and freezers, so thanks to medical research, whenever I die, I might just outlive myself.

---

Emilee Prado is a writer, artist, teacher, and former research assistant at CUChange: The Center for Health & Neuroscience, Genes & Environment, which is housed at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her literary investigations into science and the human body often draw from her experience as a participant in various cognitive and clinical studies in Colorado and Arizona. She currently resides in Tucson.

By Eulea Kiraly

Your son is lying on the floor, crying.  His pants are wet and covered with mud.  He is dirty and miserable and you are helpless to make it better. He has pushed you away, so you sit here in the corner of this empty lobby as hospital staff try to soothe him.

Sometimes he howls, sometimes he whimpers. He fights imaginary monsters and pulls his shirt up over his head so he can’t see them. Every now and then he goes limp – spent – and you hold your breath that he might finally collapse into the blessed release of sleep. Because that has evaded you all for days. The last sixteen hours have been like this – broken only by fitful hours of nightmare-filled naps. Your son is exhausted. In some small hour of this morning, he crawled out of bed and started wandering. In the grey dawn you found him sitting in the sodden park, staring at his fat, naked toes. Quiet and numb, he looked up, “Help me, Mum.”

Over the past few weeks, you have cultivated sufficient detachment to be the problem solver – the provider of food, and clean clothes, and gentle steerage away from the dangers outside your home. But as you sit here in this cold, fluorescent-lit room, that detachment begins to disintegrate. There is your son – an awful embodiment of agony – not some long-haired, lean-faced gentle-Jesus-on-the-cross, but a big, blubbering baby – his bald head wrinkled as it was the moment he first drew breath, the purple birthmark livid, his face twisted into a mask of incomprehensible suffering.  

And then the tears come. As you become I, the tears come.

Because I cannot pick him up and comfort him. Because he is not a “terrible two”, but forty-two. Because he is a veteran, because he has an ex-wife, because he was sexually abused as a child. Because he lost his job, because he lost his fiancée to Covid. Because for more than twenty years he has had diagnoses of acute anxiety, adjustment disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, chronic depression, major depression with psychotic features, obsessive/compulsive disorder/ paranoia, psychosis, schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, and PTSD.  

Because maybe, in this safe place, I can answer his plea, “Help me, Mum.” 

---

Eulea Kiraly is a second-year Master of Fine Arts candidate in the Creative Writing program at the University of Central Arkansas, where she served as the managing editor of the Arkana Literary Magazine in 2024-25.  Before shifting her focus to writing, she worked as a teacher in Arkansas prisons and as a theatre director and community arts facilitator in Canberra, Australia.