Tara Thompson lives in Durham, North Carolina. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and was selected as a winner of the annual Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open. Her short stories and essays have been published in Wilma Magazine, Charleston City Paper, The Square Table, Prick of the Spindle, and more. This current essay is inspired by Tara's soon-to-be finished memoir, which is about her endless fight to survive cancer. Tara is also completing a contemporary novel.