1990. Also, the memories of a child.

So, maybe if I keep a journal about this it will help somehow.

I've known that I have this condition since Jaylen was born. I remember those awful days when I was first diagnosed. At the tender age of 23, I was told that I had a condition that would never go away.

Chronic.

The word echoed in my head, and my life flashed before my eyes.

Chronic

People my age didn't have chronic things happen to them. That was for old people. Or, at least, middle-aged people. Heh. At 23, middle-aged was old. And my only choice was to treat it was radiation.

radiation. The word sounded like a death sentence, worse, even, than chronic.

I don't really remember when my fear of radiation started. I was two years old at the time of the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979, and nine at the time of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. I was 12 when my grandfather was diagnosed with colon cancer, and 13 when he died. Maybe that is when it started. He went for radiation treatments five or six days a week, and I went with he and my dad once when my dad took him. I remember the car ride, I remember the hospital, but what I remember the most vividly are the burns. It's funny now for me to hear my dad tell me that Grandpa never had burns, because I remember them so well. Dark red splotches on his face and hands. And he was so sick. My big, strong Grandpa who used to lift me onto the tractor like I weighed nothing could barely lift his morning cup of coffee.

And then the promises that the radiation would make him better.