Several boxes containing injections of Neulasta have lined the bottom of my refrigerator for more than a year. They are left-overs from chemotherapy -- from a time when one needle pierced the skin on my arm after each chemo treatment to keep my blood counts in a safe range. I've looked at them day after day after day, and I've allowed them to sit in the same exact spot for all this time. But today, they are in the trash -- not because I made a conscious choice to throw them away but because water spilled all over the inside of my refrigerator and left them soggy and damaged. Surely I would not have used them in this condition, I thought -- so I tossed them. But really, I would not have used them anyway. They were old -- probably past their expiration date -- and I am not receiving chemotherapy anymore. I had absolutely no use for them. But I kept them for safety or comfort or some other impractical reason -- for the same reason I keep a basket full of old medication in my kitchen cupboard. It's all cancer-related -- most of it never touched because I don't really like taking medication, even when necessary. So this stock-piling tendency defies all logic for me. Until today -- when part of my past sits in a white trash bag, ready for the curb, and the rest of it is soon to be trashed. So I can continue moving forward. Away from cancer. For good.