Mojo and the Mess

“But you look great!”

It’s meant as a compliment. I know that.
But when I hear it, it lands like a slap made of glitter. Shiny and well-intentioned, but stinging nonetheless.

Cancer isn’t always bald heads and dramatic weight loss.
It’s not always IVs and hospital gowns and sympathy baked into every conversation.

Sometimes, cancer looks like me — with mascara on, a hoodie pulled over my port, and a smile I borrowed from my dog because I had none of my own today.

There are days I leave the house and people assume I’m fine. Maybe even thriving.
They don’t see the night sweats, the nausea, the medications that line my bathroom like soldiers in a war I didn’t enlist in.

They don’t feel the way my legs go numb or the bone-deep exhaustion that makes brushing my teeth feel like cardio.

They see me.
But they don’t see me.

Mojo Does.

He knows before I do when it’s going to be a bad day.
He’ll wake up from his usual 19-hour nap and follow me from room to room like a sleepy little storm cloud.

He doesn’t ask if I’m okay — he already knows I’m not.
He just stays. And sometimes that’s the most powerful thing anyone can do.

The worst part of this disease isn’t always the physical stuff.
It’s the feeling of being invisible.
Of having to justify your pain.
Of wishing someone would ask how you really are — and actually want the answer.

So if you know someone who’s sick and they “don’t look it,”

believe them anyway.

Ask.
Listen.
Sit with them in the mess.

We don’t need you to fix it.
We just need to not feel invisible in it.

— Izzy & Mojo