Adrienne has the pleasure of meeting Nurse Bitchy before I do. I step out to use the restroom down the hall since parents are not allowed to use the one in the patient’s room. During the five minutes I am gone, Nurse Bitchy walks into Adrienne’s room and takes away her oxygen mask.

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.