The Mojave Desert sun beat down on my back while sweat made its way between my shoulder blades and saturated my t-shirt; my dark jeans clung to my skin uncomfortably making me even more encumbered. Hiking in Red Rock Canyon right outside of Las Vegas, I was preoccupied with my sluggishness more so than the…

The nurse wrapped her hand around my upper arm, “Be careful,” she said. I nodded and stepped on the scale, all eight months of pregnant me, backwards. “Another healthy gain.” She said a moment later after moving the pieces on the old timey scale this way and that. I sighed and gingerly stepped down. We…

My cousins and I ran through the house, little legs pumping in unison. We came to a halt in the kitchen and oohed and ahhed over the birthday cake. The adults were chatting about Saints’ football and setting out even more food. Riding on the high of making my middle school dance team, I blurt…

The cold, white sterile walls seemed to close in on me as the doctor walked back into the holding room. My slippered feet hanging off of the edge of the hospital bed; the room smelled of ammonia and sickness. “We have you on the highest dose of the strongest blood pressure medicine available, and it…