As previously mentioned, kylecassidy and circle23 came by Sunday night, November 29th, shortly after my discharge from the hospital for the thoracic surgery. kylecassidy has an ongoing project of shooting writers in their writing spaces, which had been the original idea even before this round of cancer treatments had been scheduled. Once I knew I'd be sidelined from the surgery, I encouraged them to come anyway, with the notion of documenting some of the physical reality of my cancer experience, both the love and the pain.

calendula_witch and shelly_rae were here at Nuevo Rancho Lake that evening, taking care of me with help from jkoke. the_child was present as well. kylecassidy and circle23 showed up, bustled about with some equipment, then began shooting me as I lay on (and in) my bed, showing my surgery scars and talking about my experiences a bit. I'm pretty sure the Dilaudid did most of the talking, frankly.

The pictures range from striking to heart-rending. Some are difficult to look at, due to the fresh scarring; others show the love in my life with startling clarity. I think they tell the story more than my words do, so without further ado:

















As usual, more at the Flickr set.

Images © 2009 Kyle Cassidy. All rights reserved. Reproduced here with permission.