Asymmetries (A Memoir of Difference)

An unflinching memoir of losing a leg to childhood cancer—and the lifelong work of reclaiming body, identity, and belonging beyond “normal.”

At fourteen, Caren Rabbino loses her leg to childhood cancer. The surgery saves her life—but it also fractures her relationship to her body, her family, and the world that suddenly reads as “other.”

In the years that follow, she navigates phantom limb pain and relentless pressure to “fix” herself, even as she tries to pass as normal to protect status, safety, and social mobility. She searches for belonging through work, art, and travel, while grappling with sexuality, objectification, and the particular loneliness of being visibly different.

Only after years of avoidance does she step into community—teaching yoga to an amputee group and discovering a grounded, hard-won form of embodied knowledge that cuts through shame and self-protection. Asymmetries is a candid story of survival and self-definition, asking what it means to inhabit a changed body—and to be seen, on purpose.