The Stories That Lie Just Beneath

Sometimes I stand staring at my naked body in the mirror running my fingers along the scars that scatter my stomach as if they were braille and I was trying to read the stories that live buried deep beneath them.

I try and remember the intimate details of memories from a long time ago. All that comes to mind are vague and scattered ones. Only bits and pieces, sounds, and smells.

The beeping of the machine that connected the pic line into my inner bicep that pumped the three different liquids into me fighting to keep the infection at bay and keep me alive. I remember the day the technician came into my room to insert the pic line and how while she was inserting the line up my arm she told me that if the line went the wrong direction she could blow out my eardrum and how I started crying and demanded that she stop and asked if there was another way and how they wheeled me down somewhere else to finish what she started.

I remember another procedure in a cold room in the basement of the hospital a week after my first surgery when they asked me to lie on my stomach and how I looked at them as if they were crazy and around the room realizing I was all alone and had nobody to defend for me. I sobbed because I was so scared of the pain. My stomach had been cut open and they were asking me to lie flat on it and I still could barely even walk by myself. They gave me valium to calm me down as they inserted the plastic tube into my left butt cheek and deep into my pelvis to help drain the infection that was trying to kill me.

Then the muffled voices of doctors and nurses shuffling around the hallway. I remember Chris the Charge Nurse and how I loved her and everyone that worked on the Swedish seven southwest surgical floor.

I remember watching my mom sob uncontrollably at the end of the hall as they wheeled me back for emergency surgery right after my surgeon told us he was going to have to give me a temporary ileostomy bag. She sobbed for me because she knew my biggest fear was coming true but I was too sick to care. She cared enough for both of us and that image of her crying as she watched me roll away is burned into my mind.

And the mixed smells of sterilization and illness that wafted throughout the halls and the taste that filled my mouth as they injected certain drugs into my line.

I remember waking up in my room from the first surgery, eyes fluttering open, head still foggy from anesthesia and pain meds. The pain I’ll never forget. The excruciating pain and staring up at my older brother looking down at me with his big hopeful smile as I whispered, “Am I going die?”

I trace the smooth six-inch reminder of this time knowing these memories will never go away. These memories will always be there teasing me with the complicated emotions that come from a trauma like this. That one time when someone else’s mistake cost me something great and how what I didn’t know then was that I’d never be able to have children because of it.

There are other memories too. Ones that make me smile. Like how if it wasn’t for that time in my life my older brother would have never met his wife and I wouldn’t have my niece and nephews. She was the nurse that happened to be in the hall when my mom rushed to find help as I stood sobbing naked in the bathroom after the seal broke on my temporary ileostomy bag and everything starting leaking down my leg to the ground below. I remember the door opened and she was backlit by the sunlight and I couldn’t see her face, I could only hear her sweet, comforting voice and somehow I just knew she’d be in my life forever.

Or how every night my dad would come into my hospital room and curl up on the reclining chair next to my bed and we’d watch a documentary about the Green River Killer or the latest on the aftermath of the Tsunami in Thailand until we both fell asleep and how the nurses never asked him to leave. In the middle of the night, I’d have to pee and he’d jump up and we’d fall into habit, helping me put on my socks with the sticky grips on the bottom and unplugging and untangling the cords from the wall from my machine as he slowly pulled me up from the bed.

I remember this one time I needed to feel the January sun on my face so he and I snuck out a back door of the hospital and into a concrete garden and stood there, hand wrapped tightly around the machine pumping different liquids into me as I closed my eyes and felt the sun for the first time in days.

And how after work my older brother would come to sit beside my bed and read the writings of C.S. Lewis to me as I drifting in and out of sleep. I don’t remember a single word but I do remember thinking how his love for God would be enough for both of us.

Then this one time I was sitting on the edge of my hospital bed crying about something I can’t remember what. My mom stood in front of me trying to help me get up. She was growing impatient and I was feeling sorry for myself. I don’t remember why but suddenly we looked at each other and both started laughing and it hurt my stomach so bad but I didn’t care because it felt so good to feel joy for that brief moment. That’s my mom and I for you with our secret language and understanding and perfect timing.

And then there was the day I went from bad to good. From sick to healing. From walking a thin line to turning the corner. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was day seven. I woke up and felt better. I felt the life come back to my cheeks and I ate real food for the first time in a week and saw hope for the first time too. My surgeon came into my room and said he could take out the drain in my butt cheek that had become almost unbearable at that point because of where it was and he said, “okay, count to three.” I was so scared it was going to hurt but by three he had already taken it out and I felt nothing but a relief I had been desperate to feel for a week.

I went home two days later but that is a story for another time because those are the stories from only two of the nine scars on my stomach.

Most days I just see the scars that scatter my belly but sometimes, these are the memories that come rushing back when I look at my stomach as I think about how scars are these crazy visual reminders of stories from our lives and nobody ever knows until you open your mouth to tell them.

Grief Is Not Something You Get Over but Rather Something You Learn to Carry More Gracefully

“You can still grieve and hold space for joy.”

The Before

I sit curled up on my bed in my cool basement apartment and the noise from the busy street outside echoes in my open window. It’s late afternoon and warm outside and my skin is hot and a new golden brown from spending so much time outside walking Baker. Today I took him to a park and practiced presence while proudly watching him explore the cold lapping waters edge at a nearby park. The joy stretched across his face was infectious and those final hours make what I’m about to endure worth it.

I still want to be outside soaking in the last few rays, watching my puppy discover new things but I’m tired. So very tired. I realize it’s the grief washing over me as I count down the hours until I begin prepping for my surgery. Today is Sunday, Tuesday is the day.

I wipe away the tears as I think about what this surgery means and how many times various doctors over the last sixteen years have hinted I should start to consider having it. Like a broken record each time, I wipe away their concerns with a well-practiced response, “Forty. I’ll decide when I turn forty.” My throat hurts from crying but I can’t stop. I must let myself feel the sadness wash over me as I finally close this very long chapter. This at times, beyond a heartbreaking chapter.

Over the years I’ve wondered what life would have been like if that surgery sixteen years ago would have gone as planned. If that tiny hole the size of the tip of a ball point pen hadn’t been missed. I wonder what life would have looked like had I never gotten an infection that nearly took my life but did take something else away. Would I maybe have a toe-head kid with springing curls and big blue eyes and a nose peppered with the trademark deep brown “Whitworth” freckles both my younger brother and I had as kids playing in the grass on a hot summer day? Or was that never meant to be mine in the first place? Was I never meant to be a mom? I’ve given myself permission to go to that place of curiosity so many times before and it’s a strange feeling that in just a few short days I’ll never again be able to wonder if just maybe there is still a chance.

I’ve grieved this all before, many times. I grieved when my ex-husband and I tried for two years and even went through fertility treatment to no avail. I grieved when I sat before the radiation oncologist and she told me my cancer treatment would more then likely send me into early menopause. And I’ve grieved the many times a woman with a big round belly full of budding life has walked by me and the quiet voice deep within that whispers, “that’ll never be you.”

Oh how I have grieved.

And it’s ok to grieve about this because as women, this is what we are taught to want from the time we can remember. I used to wrap my dolls in blankets and protect them fiercely from any oncoming threats as any mother would. Cooing and singing to them I had a list of names for all those unborn children. I prepared my whole childhood for something that in reality, I would never experience. Although I’ve spent a significant amount of time over the last few years asking myself if that was really a dream I truly wanted or just one that I was told to want, it’s still ok to grieve it even if it wasn’t.

I know this grief well. I’ve sat with her so many times over the years. Today though, she looks different.

Because I know it’s time. I promised myself when I turned forty. That’s when I would decided to do it. Maybe it was because my mom was forty-four when she was diagnosed with uterine cancer and her mom was young too and cancer takes time to grow. Maybe I just intuitively knew that it had to be forty.

I’ve worked really hard at looking at this decision through the lens of maturity and not through the one that says cancer is stealing from me once again. This decision doesn’t come on the heels of some medical disaster, it was my choice and sometimes it’s easier to decide in a disaster because then I got to be the victim. But I know now that my victim tendencies of the past have gotten me nowhere but a body full of rage and anger so palpable, I pushed a lot of people and opportunities away. I know I am no longer a woman who faces these things from that point of view. I’ve come too far to go back there now.

I’ve spend the better part of the last three years working on repressed disappointment, sadness and anger and have let go of a lot. I feel content deep within in a way I’ve never experienced before. In a way I still don’t have words to describe how I feel. I know, however, it may surface again. Old ways of doing things, old ways of feeling and I’m ready. I’m ready to meet myself differently. Meet myself with love. With acceptance. With my newer friend grace.

I’m committed to processing things as healthy as I possibly can and one of the things I’ve come to believe is that we are given the full spectrum of these magical feelings to experience them all fully. They are our greatest teachers. Our wise and at times, excruciatingly harsh elders. So when a few months ago they started speaking to me, that quiet voice deep within began whispering, I looked myself in the mirror and just nodded knowing that I would be able to handle it now.

It was time.

The After

It’s been six days since I had a total hysterectomy and surprisingly I feel really good. I had my uterus, ovaries, tubes and cervix removed. My trauma around routine surgeries told me these things go terribly wrong and I had a tremendous amount of anxiety prior to surgery. It’s been good for me to have such a smooth recovery. It has restore my faith in the medical world.

I remember waking from my surgery bracing myself for horrific pain, both emotional and physical, but all I felt was deep sense of peace as my eyes fluttered open and I saw my mom sitting quietly in the corner chair. I looked on at her and thought about all the pain she’s endured over the years from cancer and I’d be lying if I said a part of me didn’t do this for her too. Because I love her that much and it’s ok to do big things for those you love.

The choice I made means I get to eliminate two of the major cancers I statistically have a higher chance of getting and for a long time I couldn’t bring myself to do something because statistics told me to. However, after having two different Lynch Syndrome cancer and one very scary unknown tumor in my groin in the past fifteen years, I decided. It was time to live instead of continue to be consumed by the fear and anxiety that comes with the statistics.

I’ve been through a lot with my health in these short thirty-nine years and I’ve spent the better part of the last two years watching my mom fight for her life knowing that I had an opportunity to spare myself from some of what I was witnessing if I just made this decision.

I could only do it when I was truly ready though and honestly, I had no idea when that would be. Forty was really just a number I told myself knowing I could change it if I wanted to. Any moment sooner, instead of being filled with peace I would have been filled with regret. I know that about myself. I would have felt forced into doing something I wasn’t ready for. I learned that lesson the hard way many times before. This decision was all mine and could not be influenced by what other’s thought was best for me.

Although I had always promised myself forty, I knew I would be okay waiting longer if I needed to. But a few months ago something inside of me started thinking about it more seriously, it wasn’t some profound moment rather more of a quiet inner knowing, a feeling, a subtle shift towards a new perspective. I just new. I knew the time was approaching.

From the time that I confirmed my decision to the day I had surgery was two weeks. I sat across from my surgeon, my eyes staring down at the piece of paper with the drawing of the female reproductive system and scattered notes from my doctor describing the details of the surgery. I felt tears start to well in my eyes and I took a deep breath slowly lifting my gaze. First to my mom, then to my doctor.

“Okay.” I said. “It’s time. When can we do it?”

And just like that I knew.

When I opened my eyes after surgery I remember thinking, it’s finally over. Sixteen years of being scared of having to make this choice is finally done. And then I smiled because I was proud of myself. I felt a peace wash over me because I knew that I wouldn’t regret this but rather I’d sleep just a bit better at night knowing I’d never get uterine, ovarian or cervical cancer.

Ever.

That I’d never have to go through the pain and suffering endured by long treatments and scary outcomes. I was free.

And I felt deep peace that this choice wasn’t made on the heels of some medical disaster but one I made for myself over time, when I was truly ready. I was proud that grew to know and trust myself that well.

Today, I choose to live.

Today I want to live.

And maybe there will be days when I feel the depths of grief that come with this experience, this loss of sorts, but I’m not so worried about her anymore because I know she’s just a part of me. I know she is there for a reason and I’ve learned to let her take my hand and walk with me. With her I walk taller and just a bit more gracefully. I know she is no longer the enemy but rather, a close friend.