What a long, strange trip it's been.

Did you miss me?  Did you notice I wasn't even standing in the shadows, or behind the potted palms at your fancy affair?  Seven years.  Am I, as the old saw goes, a totally new person whose cells have regenerated during my absence?  Or am I in the midst of a seven year cycle of Individuation, a time during which I have questioned my core identity merely because -- OMG -- merely because the face that was mirrored back was not my face.

November, 2010, during surgery for a blocked tear duct, I was diagnosed with Muco Epidermoid Carcinoma of the right nasolacrimal sack.  Muco Epidermoid Carcinoma -- sounds like a Latin lover, doesn't it.  An abusive lover.  I lived over two years with a hole on my face between my eye and my nose, open to my sinus, open to every breath, open to every dry breeze.  I barely endured six weeks of targeted radiation therapy, restrained to a table in a plastic mask, isolated with massive machinery.  I have had five facial surgeries to date.  I may need more.  The open fistula is closed.  But I will never again see my face mirrored back to me.

Who would you be without your face?