The Cancer Tree

By Patti McCarthy

February 16th, 2016

The branch came from a beautiful bouquet of roses I received after surgery. I had this idea that I would start collecting my medical arm bracelets to throw on the branch. My family thought it looked morbid, lifeless. I pointed out there was a butterfly and a bee on it, but they didn't buy it. Mulling it over, I decided to put a flower on it for each chemo and Herceptin infusion I got. I glued a leaf on it to mark each radiation treatment. The bottom has every medical appointment card. There were nearly 50. I hung my port on it. My dog had cancer too so there's a photo of us together. I have another disc hanging behind it that has every prescription I filled. It was amazing to see the progression of this tree and how busy of a disease breast cancer can be.