I tell the nurse, “To my recollection, Adrienne was never given more than six milligrams of Dilaudid every four hours as a continuous drip except when she pushed the PCA for acute episodes of pain.”
I speak these words, this medical mumbo jumbo, without thinking. I am one of them now, only without the degree. I hate it.

Better Off Bald chronicles my sister Adrienne’s 147-day battle with liver cancer; the book also shows how I reared Adrienne from the time she was eight until she died at the age of fifteen. For more information about primary liver cancer, go to Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association.