In her essay, “These Days,” Jennifer Braunfels describes waiting for post-surgical cancer results with both pathos and humor. The daily grind of life doesn’t stop just because she’s physically and emotionally not the same person anymore. The students who don’t give “two shits” still need to be taught, her chirpy coworkers have to be smiled at, her lost self mourned for.
Sometimes my stupid boobs think they’re alive again, even though they aren’t. My doctors say that’s normal. Phantom pains.
But I wake this morning with a phantom itch. I reach down to scratch that tickle that often starts under my armpit. I go at the skin with my chipped fingernails, but all sensation stops where the skin goes dead about an inch from those long, jagged scars that run from where my nipples used to be down to choppy lines beneath each “breast” that look like a jack-o-lantern’s crooked smile where they stitched me up after the double mastectomy. I must have missed the part of the discussion with my plastic surgeon that there would never be any feeling again where my real breasts used to be.
So I give up on scratching and rub my eyes, then roll onto my side and stare out the window at the predawn sky. I watch Uncle Bert’s headlights sweep the side of one of his outbuildings across the snowy field. Like clockwork, at 6:00 every morning, he goes to the store to buy the newspaper. When his headlights recede, I tell the dog, “Time to get up.”
She stretches her legs in response but plops her head back down on the sheet, then sighs. I get it. I don’t want to get up, either. Today is the day my doctor will call with the results of the first set of post-surgical scans. I want to stay in this bed, under the covers, forever. I glance at my phone on the nightstand and then pet the dog on the head. “Fine, you keep sleeping, but I have to get ready.”
I shuffle to the bathroom. Slump down onto the toilet. Rest my head in my hand like Rodin’s The Thinker. Look at my reflection in the mirror across the way. Do my daily inventory. “Black circles under the eyes. Check. Pale skin. Check. Deep vertical frown lines caused by the chemo. Check.”
I glance to the right. Scan the pill bottles, the oils, salves, and organic makeup on the vanity. Then I get up. Shower. Get dressed. I recheck my phone even though the Cancer Center doesn’t open for another two hours. Next come the giant hoop earrings I put in every morning, hoping to draw attention away from my face.
I go downstairs. Let the dog out. Scan my calendar to see how many appointments I’ve got this week. Lean over and squint, not able to read my writing. Say aloud, “Friday at 2:30.” Tip forward to get a better look, chest pressing against the back of the chair. Feel phantom pressure. Stand up and look down at my chest, which feels like two tennis balls glued to a plate, covered in skin with no nerve endings.
I pour coffee into my travel mug. Roll my neck in a circle. Yawn. Marvel at how someone so exhausted can stand on two legs. I’m always tired these days. Maybe it’s because I lie awake every single night and fall asleep, or not, to thoughts about what it’s going to feel like when this thing finally catches up with me and I die. Agonizing hours, wondering if I’ll feel sad when I go and cry about those I’m leaving behind. Not that I’m looking at a death sentence or anything. My odds are pretty good. According to some websites, there’s a 64% chance I’ll still be here in five years. I’ve never been much of a gambler, and I’ve always sucked at math, but I wouldn’t ever bet on those odds.
So, my thoughts vacillate between thinking about what it will feel like when I die and wondering if thinking about dying or being scared of statistics will jinx me and that I’ll end up with cancer again because of my bad thoughts. I sometimes (always) worry that if I share my fears about dying with others, God will think I’m being too dramatic and will hand down a death sentence from on high for worrying and telling people about statistics, which are just that, statistics. Eventually, I fall asleep, or not, then get up and start the whole cycle over again the next day. This morning is no exception.
I check my phone at least twice on the drive to work. When I get there, I begin the familiar routine of slogging through the motions. I put on a brave face. Try to get kids who could give two shits to give at least one shit about passing my classes. Watch the girls fluff and primp in the reflection of their phones. On cue, my stomach rolls. I stand. Panic walk to the bathroom for the third time today, leaving my students unattended, which is strictly against the rules. Side effects of the Phesgo shot that I get in my thigh every three weeks—a combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy.
I pass a coworker in the hall who says, “Your hair looks so cute!”
I hear it at least once a day from well-meaning individuals who want to bolster my dangerously low self-confidence. “Thank you,” I say through gritted teeth.
I hate this hideous hairdo and spend ridiculous amounts of time staring at old photos of myself when I had long, brown, loopy curls. I guess those trying to lift me up are better than those who ignore me completely. I get it. I’ve felt that way before. Like being in the presence of a sick or dying person is somehow going to rub off on you. But still, it feels weird to be walking around like a ghost already, haunting the halls while people stare through me or this new version of me that I’m supposed to be grateful for. And I am. Don’t get me wrong. But I miss the old me. The carefree me that left the building the moment the surgeon squeezed my hand and the anesthesiologist put me under to remove my breasts, nipples, and areola. I’ve been searching for her ever since.
So I stand in front of the mirror in the staff bathroom and gaze at the new me with short fuzzy gray hair and dead boobs, trying not to jinx myself into dying by thinking about dying when I should be back in my classroom lesson planning.
I make my way back. Flop down at my desk. My heart pounds as I pull my phone out of my bag. Still nothing. I reach up and rub my shoulder blade. Radiation is still blasting out of my body by way of my upper back, three months later. I have open sores to remind me of those twenty-five days under the gamma rays that I sometimes forget I had. Everything from the past year blends together: the scans, the needles, the unending appointments. The life-saving shot they give me every three weeks in my thigh costs $14,760. It takes five minutes for them to pump that poison into me. How much money is that per minute? Too bad I’m an English teacher. Guess I’ll never know. It’s better than the first six rounds of big chemo. That was $30,952 a day. Eight hours in the chair. More math.
I go through the motions. Put on a smile. Help the kids with missing work, tell them all they are special, and somehow, eventually, the school day ends. The students leave. I reach down and turn on the ringer on my phone. Stare at the screen. No missed calls.
I sit silently at my desk in the new building where I work. The view out one of my classroom windows is of the city, full of sharp angles, church steeples, cars whizzing by like spawning fish, lights, the hustle and bustle. Out the other window is the construction site where the old school used to be, where I worked for twenty-six years. When they tore the place down, the workers had to wear hazmat suits and goddamned gas masks because the wreckage was so toxic. Now, there’s nothing left but piles of polluted rubble and giant machinery excavating, digging out jagged rocks, scarring the land, blowing ledge with sticks of dynamite.
I lean over and run my finger down the long, jagged crack in my new, state-of-the-art classroom wall facing where the old school used to be. The shock of last week’s dynamite blast split the sheetrock from window to floor. They say someone is coming to patch the fractured wall. When I ask when, they say, “soon.”
My phone rings, and it makes me jump. Blood begins to pound in my ears. A tingling sensation runs down my arms. The words Cancer Center roll across my screen. I grip the phone in my hand as it rings, gaze out the window, and survey all that lethal rubble as tears roll down my cheeks. And I wonder when it is that someone is finally going to show up and begin patching that split.
Jennifer lives in Maine, where she teaches high school English. Her debut novel, published by Apprentice House Press, is set to be released in the spring of 2026. Her chapbook, Reclamation Days, was a runner-up in The Masters Review 2024 Chapbook Open and was a finalist in the 2025 MWPA Chapbook Competition. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Stonecoast Review, As You Were: The Military Review, and various other literary magazines, online platforms, and writing contests. She lives with her husband, children, and unruly dog, Sissy.