My name is Radha Patel. I live in Seattle, Washington and have for the last three years. Before that, I grew up in upstate New York (where the winters were cold and snowy). No, Seattle is not raining all the time despite popular belief (it is gray for most of fall/winter, but our summers here are superior). I’m a software engineer and definitely questioning my future right now (not gonna mention the “A” word but, it’s given me a lot to think about and is eating at my morals).

I have an older sister who is getting her PhD at Arizona State University, and my parents still live in New York. My sister is the happiest person I know. She makes me happy. She’s also really smart, but don’t tell her I said that.

I’ve had a rough life, and I’m not going to even pretend and say I wouldn’t change a thing. I actually would. When I was seventeen months old, I was diagnosed with leukemia. I underwent treatment, and the leukemia went away. But it did not stay away. I relapsed when I was three. This time, I had a stem cell transplant, more radiation, and more chemo. I thought I was done with cancer for good. I was wrong. When I was eleven, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Compared to my past, this was an easy fix. One surgery and I thought everything would be over. I failed to realize until recently that I am technically still being treated for thyroid cancer. But the treatment is so minor and so infrequent, I don’t comprehend that I really still have cancer. The hardships didn’t end there. Because of my numerous treatments, I have super bad eyes with cataracts, scoliosis, growth hormone deficiency, diabetes, and damage to my reproductive system. I also had two benign meningiomas in 2023 and 2024 that both required surgery to remove, and the latter had me doing gamma knife radiation to hopefully prevent recurrence.

I usually hate sharing my medical history, but it’s very prevalent to my writing and thoughts. Now, while I said I would change my life, what I mean is if I got offered a life with literally none of the shit, I would take it in an instance. Would I be a completely different person? Yes. But while I’m grateful for all things I’ve learned this early in my life due to my situation, I would eradicate all the pain, suffering, tears, anxiety, depression, worries just to have a “normal” life, one not filled with doctor’s appointments every week and anxiety around scans and blood tests.

I love playing piano, crocheting, and reading. I’m a life-long Harry Potter fan (hate the author and she can go you-know-where), but one of my favorite books is Educated by Tara Westover. My guilty pleasure is romance novels, so another favorite is People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry.

I don’t watch a lot of movies, and I’m actually trying to watch more this year because I have so many on my list and there are so many good ones out there. My comfort movie is The Princess Diaries (both movies but I love, love the second one). Favorite TV show: I think it’s Gilmore Girls because that’s also a comfort watch, but I’m not sure.

2026 is my year of getting back into things I love. I’ve had a lot of thoughts I’ve felt like sharing and remembered I have this website, so I’m hoping to use it more this year to write stories, poems, reflections, memories, anything really that I want. The world is a shitshow, but my creative outlets will always be here to carry me through.