The medal — the city gave me a medal, and I want to be careful here, because that ceremony was one of the best days of my life and the woman who pinned it on me cried, and I’m not throwing it away.

But when I said no to the national television tour, everybody in my life treated it like this enormous act of integrity. She doesn’t want to be famous for almost dying. It got quoted.

It’s in an article.

It wasn’t integrity. It was the first no anyone had let me say, and I said it to the only thing anyone had bothered to ask me about.

The headaches lasted about fourteen months. They’re mostly gone. I get one maybe every three weeks now, usually when I’m tired, and I know it’s coming because the light in my left eye goes slightly wrong first, like a screen with the brightness up too high.

My left hand still shakes when I’m exhausted. Not badly. You’d have to be looking.