Hurricanes, The Writing Fever, and the C-Word
a collection of loosely related things
“Hurricanes on my outsides. Hurricanes on my insides.”
ME
Friends,
I want to share with you what I posted on Instagram last night, just so you can know what is going on. What I share below is a longer version of what I could post there due to the character limit.
In short, my family and I are humbly asking for your prayers.
As you know, I was hospitalized over the weekend—right after Hurricane Helene ripped through Florida—and the news is harder than we were hoping for.
I don’t have inspirational words to give you right now, but I am trying.
To be honest, I think we are all grieving an avalanche of hard things right now—divisive politics, a catastrophic hurricane, wars and rumors of wars, economic hardships, you name it—so it feels a bit off to me to lament in the face of the devastation I know others are facing.
But our family is facing our own small devastation, too.
I am trying to be okay. Trying not to dovetail to where I’ve been before. Trying mightily to process this narrative that is telling a story I don’t like. Trying hard to believe the next chapters aren’t full of more grief and that there is a happy ending one day.
I’ve thought and prayed and have decided to share what we are facing specifically. Parts of me are very private and protective of my family. But I also know we NEED prayer, help, encouragement, and community around us right now.
So, this is what we know so far based what the doctors have told us:
—Because of sepsis and stage 4 endometriosis, as well as other factors, my body has developed an autoimmune disease/response. This current virus and the antibiotics and medications they put me on set off a cascade of events. I will need to seek treatment to help my body cope, heal, and function. My bloodwork shows systemic inflammation and other concerning things that must be addressed. I am trying hard to get into a great endocrinologist.
—I had CT scans in the ER. They found a few concerning things. The most troubling is the growth of a large cyst on my pancreas. The size and rate of growth require immediate help—with likely biopsy, treatment, and surgery. Unfortunately, cysts larger than 3 cm are a cancer risk. Yes, the c-word. Mine is 3.6 cm and growing and could be the culprit for many of my health problems. My hope is to get it out of me as soon as possible with surgery. Again, we are trying hard to get me into some of the best gastrointestinal surgeons in the city.
My family and I are asking for your prayers. We’re asking for your hope. Many of you are FRIENDS in real life, TRUE friends around the country, old students of mine, and community members I love.
It feels both vulnerable and very necessary that I share these circumstances. I believe in prayer and authenticity over fear and what others may think because I have so publicly shared.
Today, I’m walking a little and am stable at home. But I’m very unwell, and we have a journey to go on.
God has carried us from the depths of hell before. We know he can do it again. I am just begging him to protect the ones I love most and who are most impacted: my husband, daughter, and mother. Please, if you’re willing, pray extra hard for them, too.
God bless you.
You belong here,
♥️me
As I write these lines, I can feel the swelling storm in my belly, just as my heart aches for our loved ones and fellow Americans in Western North Carolina who are drowning in the swells of Hurricane Helene’s aftermath.
My sister lives in the Carolinas—where we call home part-time ourselves—with her husband and young son, and she has shared that the devastation is worse than what the news is reporting. She said it feels “apocalyptic” and “biblical.” They are without power, but their home is intact. This isn’t the case for their neighbors.
In this collective grief, there are tragedies, heroes, failures, and triumphs. And it is all more than the human heart can carry alone.
WNC needs our help. They need food. They need water. They need prayer. They need miracles. They need advocacy.
Like me, perhaps you are feeling entirely helpless. You wonder how you can help…
If you can manage it, Samaritan’s Purse is a good place to donate to in a time like this.
lives in Appalachia and has recommended them. They have boots on the ground. My sister also shared that Happy Helicopters is local, and they are doing rescue missions from the air as I type this. You can find their Go Fund Me here.Every prayer helps. Every dollar helps. Every post to raise awareness helps.
In all of this time that I have found myself bedridden again—struggling to function and think clearly—I have found myself overcome by the writing fever again. Not because the writing is particularly good—but because it is necessary.
When I am extremely ill, I find myself oscillating among four things: sleep, prayer, tears, and words. Everything else is too hard. And sometimes even those four things feel impossible.
But if I can write, I can disappear for a while. And if I write, maybe—just maybe—I can make sense of things.
What I have told myself this time is that whatever this next leg of the journey looks like, I must make it beautiful.
You see, I read in a book last year that this belief system of “beauty-making” is from an old Chinese philosophy. The Chinese believed that in order to defeat a beast (one that is literal or figurative) one must first make it beautiful.
I won’t pretend to know exactly what that means, as I imagine part of the allure is its esoteric nature. But from what I can understand with my modern Western eyes, is that part of defeating suffering is by befriending it. It is fighting deep within yourself (and your faith) to say, “I may cry and cuss and fail and fade and lament, but I will NOT allow this ugly thing to make me ugly. I will not allow the darkness to overcome the light. So, I will find the light inside the darkness.”
This is what I felt God pressing into me yesterday during my quiet time—which wasn’t so quiet. Actually, there were a lot of sloppy tears and a touch of panic I had to breathe through and release. I am struggling to accept that I am about to do more battle: more doctor’s offices, more tests, more therapies, more scans, more hospitals, more surgery. And the only way I know how to get through this is with faith, love, and poetry.
So, I will write my way through these things, and no matter how ugly it is, I will fight like hell to make it beautiful.
…
Today, getting lost in words looked like getting my books prepared for shipping to the many of you who purchased a signed copy of my book Of Wings and Dirt during my hospitalization to help us with our medical bills. I signed the books and typed up new haikus on vintage parchment paper with my Olympia SM3 typewriter. Cute stickers included, too!
Here are some pretty pictures:
If you’d like to help with humanitarian causes and our medical bills, please consider subscribing to my Substack or shopping at TheWayBack2Ourselves.com/store. You can buy a signed copy of my book there (I’ll send you a haiku and stickers, too), among many other great things, like coffee mugs and journals. We are currently donating 10% to St. Jude, Compassion International, and Hope for Justice. And we just made a donation to Samaritan’s Purse for Hurricane Helene Relief, too.
Thank you for being such a beautiful community of faithful souls and writers! I seriously cannot believe God’s goodness in this dark season. You have given me thousands of reasons to keep going and keep writing over the past two years—here and through TheWayBack2Ourselves.com. And I can’t thank you enough.
Be safe in these storms, dear ones. And please, please keep writing.
You belong here,
me
My dear sister in Christ, I am lifting you up in prayer to our Lord. May his strength, faithfulness and healing be upon you. 🙏
Love you, Kimberly; praying for you. One step, one hope, one prayer at a time.