Perhaps I shouldn’t have had the massage. It had been almost two years since a professional had touched me in a compassionate, and not a clinical, way. My chemotherapy for breast cancer had finished, and I was trying to reconnect with my body and find some physical relief. My cancer recovery had begun. But massage releases both the angels and the demons within.

Rule #1 and #1000: Never try to cheer up a cancer patient. Is it really so hard? Letting others be themselves?

Every journey is easier once begun. So I think to myself and say to myself as I cross another threshold in the architecture of oncology....