Iowa City

I am awake and showered before 7:00 am so that I can accompany my mother and brother to Iowa City to see what the doctors want to do about Mom's latest MRI, which shows a new/returning tumor in her brain. Remission is over and this horrid dance is starting all over again. There was a time when I thought I might attend the University of Iowa and Iowa City represented hope and independence and adulthood to me, but now it's just surgery and radiation and dumbed down medical jargon and the gag-inducing scent of iodine. When all of this is over, however it is over, I hope to never set foot in that town again.