Once a year,
I return to two quiet organs
I once carried without thought,
working faithfully in the dark,
asking for nothing,
until one day they asked to be seen.

Cysts.
Small moons of fluid,
bubbles scattered like careless stars
throughout the geography of me.
Harmless, they said.
Mostly.
Until one was not.

That year,
a word entered my body:
cancer.
A word that knows how to make itself at home
in every corner of thought.

A specialist explained
how light and force could be aimed,
how the invader could be blasted away
without opening me wide to fear.

And so, it was accomplished:
a precise erasure,
a quiet victory
written in scans and margins.

Now, I come back yearly
to be looked through again,
my insides translated into shades of gray,
my breath held while machines
decide whether peace still resides there.

The scan is brief.
It is the waiting that stretches.
Hours turn into days.
This year it happens just before Christmas,
when the world insists on joy
and my heart insists on caution.

Yet here,
in this place said to be cold and unfeeling,
warmth is practiced deliberately.
Smiles greet us before results.
Christmas greetings are offered
like small blankets against the chill.

My doctor wears a ridiculous sweater,
one with a reindeer leaping where fear once stood,
and laughter moves easily among those of us
quietly waiting for the same message.

We are a roomful of people
awaiting the news
that we may continue.

Today, I leave with more than just clearance.
I carry gratitude
for the minds and hearts that watch over
what I cannot see,
for the kindness given without condition,
and for yet another year granted
to step back into the season of light.
Kidneys quiet, enemy gone, heart full.

Michele Luckenbaugh is a patient advocate.