Author and illustrator Catherine Pioli chronicled her journey as a leukemia patient in Down to the Bone: A Leukemia Story. At first, I thought it would be some “sad sack poor me” story. I was wonderfully surprised it was nothing like that. I wasn’t halfway through this graphic novel (reading a reader copy online through Edelweiss) before I know it was going to be a five. And unless some huge middle finger happened it would stay a five for the sheer power of it.
Instead, with tenderness, humor, and yes, a little “poor me” there are pages
perfectly created to show the sites (and sights), sounds, emotions, and what is happening to her mind and body. Cartoon white blood cells and their buddies (not to mention those “baddies”) are drawn with humor and sophistication. There was a “fart comment” (if she was farting, the doctors said she was fine) and I was hers from then on. I loved watching her joke with her twin sister (if you can call your sister a whale and she knows you say it with love, you know you’ve got a friend in her) and how she teased her little brother (not her younger brother, but “little”). When she played the “leukemia card” (she couldn’t lift the boxes when she moved apartments), I was right beside her having pulled the “heart card” myself. I was crying when she talked about the tube down her throat (more than once), and I related to her “jelly legs” (nothing like trying to walk normally then can’t feel your legs). And I understand her denial at times.
Overall, this was a beautifully written and illustrated story that does not dwell on the cancer aspects, but it is the main point. Things you would not think of being dangerous to you are (sure, someone with a cold, but raw vegetables? Brushing your teeth?). Things that were happening at the time in the city around her are shown to give you the timeline and to represent how Pioli is feeling: the hospital is a nice safe bubble (until it becomes a trigger word and makes her vomit every time heard), outside is not safe with murders days ago and a hostage situation the day she was leaving the hospital. And there is so much more.
I could relate to this story on several levels. Neither my mother or I had cancer, but we both dealt with and deal with health issues (our hearts, lungs and blood decided not to play nice). I remember at one point in the story thinking, how can she go through that surgery? I felt exposed and in pain right along with her (this scene made me slightly upset as I remember the anesthesia not kicking in as quickly as the doctors assumed in my own surgery and I felt every “ow” she felt). I thought, that might be what my grandfather did when he went through his own cancer treatments. Or my friend BK when she went through her cancer treatments. And the exhaustion Pioli faced was my mom all 
over.
I got a middle finger when finishing, but it only made me know my first assumption was right on the money. And speaking of money, there is a very powerful section on the financial cost of this ordeal. As if the emotional and physical cost wasn’t enough. She realizes every time that the medication made her
ill (not the cancer, but the medication) she was vomiting $85 per pill.
And I could go on, but I won’t and will tell you instead go preorder your December 2022 due copy at your local independent bookstore RIGHT NOW! Please and thank you.