I Nudged Him Hard, Saying: "Come, Gloopy Bastard, As Thou Art" *
Saturday, June 30, 2007 "To sacrifice [freedom], even as a temporary measure, is to betray it."
- Greer, Germaine. 1970. The Female Eunuch.
The defence is still faulty, though, despite days of practice. Things keep getting through. My uterus gave me the big Fuck You this morning and started menstruating, when that event should not have even been in the offing. I looked down at my bloated figure and cried throughout my shower. I thought to myself: This is the last time my body does as my body has done. The change is terrifying. I do not know what it means, or if it means anything. I do not know if I want it to mean anything. I do not want it to have that kind of power. I want it to be a cyst. I want it to be a wart. I want it to be the mole that grows an ugly hair. Those things could be incinerated and then forgotten like all the slivers and ground in rocks I am sure I had during my childhood. They would not beg to mean something.
I am sure that I am ugly and too obviously aging. I hate this sudden paroxysm of vanity, but there it is. Cancer makes me feel old. It seems that I have grown arm wattle and looser skin overnight. I want my legs shaved, and I bought anti-wrinkle cream because the women in the commercial for it were relaxed and happy. I suddenly wish not only that I were thin but that I were slight. Ugly and aging disappear when you cannot be seen. I want to be a wisp of woman with less body to contend with. Body is problematic. It is heavy. It gets dirty easily. The packaging is a constant traitor to its contents. Body has no ethics. Body is pleased or it is not pleased. It survives or it does not survive.
None of this is happening to me. I am not wearing a red, waterproof wristband which declares through some esoteric hospital coding system the whereabouts of my blood, its type, my name. I am not carrying a post-surgery handbook around in my bag. I am not nauseous from the last period I will ever have in my life, one that will not be discontinued midway by a colpotomizer and a unipolar hook on Tuesday afternoon. No.
I am terrified, and part of me hates myself for this fear. This fear steals joy from me, and I feel as though I am betraying myself. I should be more; there should be more that is apparent than this severance of flesh from flesh. In my dreams over the last several nights, I have deep, black wounds spotted all over my body. It doesn't hurt, I say, and so friends put their fingers inside the bloodless holes to investigate. They pull them out and look at me blankly. They don't know what the holes are either, but somehow I know that, although they are non-lethal, they are permanent. When I put my finger inside one, it is dry and subtly fuzzy, like black mould in a damp container.
* Spam, spam, wonderful spam.
Reader Comments (30)
I cannot articulate the effect these words have had on me. I am sorry, I am fearful, I am in awe. I wish none of this were happening. The courage and truth in your writing is incredible.
Thinking of you and hoping for the best.
I just posted, realized it made no sense. And I've only had one beer.
What I WAS saying is we're thinking of you. T&M (not T&A)
It's interesting, just today, I was thinking that you're looking even more beautiful lately than you have the entire time I've known you. I think you are stunning and gorgeous, inside and out. And I'm not the only one.
Oh, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. "I bought anti-wrinkle cream because the women in the commercial for it were relaxed and happy" is where I started crying and where every word came slowly between great pauses. I almost had to stop reading. I wanted to stop. But I kept on. And now here I am not knowing what to say. I want to take your nausea, your post-surgery booklet, anything I can take from you to lighten it for you just a little. I want to throw it all out your window.
I am so sorry, so sorry. You are writing your way through this with such grace and beauty. I know that doesn't not offer much solace.
This makes me angry at the world.
I also wish this wasn't happening to you. I wish you courage and I wish you calm. I wish for this to be over for you.
This is a heartwrenching post. I can't begin to imagine what you're going through right now, but my thoughts are with you.
Here is a poem:
You are wonderful
But cancer is not
Cancer is ugly
But you - you are hawt.
Take care, Schmutzie.
I send you the best vibes available in the universe. Really, A plus, primo grade, uncut good vibes. Because you are amazing.
You don't know me, I am a friend of Blackbird's and found you via her.
Ever since I read your blog the first time I have checked it every day, you are one amazing person. Strong and wonderful. I found myself thinking of you every day and I admit I have been praying too.
Don't know what else to say other than I wish you serenity and calm to cope with this challenge.
All the best.
Schmutzie, I have been waiting for this post to say anything real about this... THING ...that is happening to you.
I am probably going to tell you nothing but shit you already know, but I know that sometimes it helps to hear the echo. I also want to emphasise that I am not not not talking down, but across...
- * -
At risk to our budding (and highly valued) acquaintance, and with no disrespect to those who feel grief (I honour you too), I do not feel sorry for you, Schmutzie.
Oh, please don't mistake me, I am concerned and I empathise like hell -- I look back from the other side of this 'procedure' (as they like to minimise it) and your honest, raw words bring back that terror afresh, that had faded in memory.
(Ah, how the 'professionals' like to 'treat' the patients' well-justified fear with minimisation and over-blown confidence. Ignorant assholes.)
I was so fucking terrified going in that I went in still drunk from the night before, with a head as fat as my fear. I don't recommend this -- your dear body needs all the health it can get right now, and you can't take anything that thins the blood (you know, aspirin, ibuprofen). The good news is that the general anaesthetic works. The bad news is that it's all additive in post-op...I felt pretty dreadful for quite a while.
- * -
I feel concern, and I feel empathy, but I do not feel sorry -- because nothing BAD has happened.
BAD would be if your illness were untreatable. BAD would be if something went horribly wrong (car wreck, anaesthesia reaction) and we lost you. BAD might be if your existence were centred on having your own babies.
But no BAD things have happened as yet, and they are unlikely to.
How can I possibly say this? That a hysterectomy is not a BAD thing? Well, it's not, nor is it a GOOD thing; it is just a THING. As you yourself have recently written (albeit sardonically) there are good and bad aspects to this (as with all things). The most obvious GOOD thing is that you will probably not die prematurely. Another might be that you will probably, over time, recover your expenses through savings in feminine hygiene products and contraceptives (ha ha ha -- sorry 'bout dat -- you bring out the sick humour in me, Schmutz).
What this THING is, is another transition. You are about to go through a fast-forward version of menopause a bit ahead of schedule. As with puberty, as with being born, as with first sex, there will be anxiety and there will be changes to your body and to your mind. These changes will probably be somewhat less drastic than those you experienced at puberty, and probably somewhat more dramatic than when you first had sex. You'll probably experience some hot flashes. There may be a sense of loss; you may need to mourn.
We won't really know how the transition went for another year or five. I've known some women who continued to mourn their hysterectomies, usually because they wanted to make their own babies. I've known women who came to love their hysterectomies, who after healing came to feel that their lives had been liberated many years ahead of schedule -- that they got the best of age and youth at once. And I've known women who were just... ambivalent ...about the whole thing and did their best to forget about it.
- * -
I will not tell you that everything will be just fine, because I cannot know that. Shit goes wrong. When I had my 'procedure' it was cruder and more invasive than what you are having, and this was during the HIV-contaminated blood supply fear period, so they didn't want to transfuse and there was 'somewhat excessive blood-loss' (the bastards were careless and damned near let me bleed out), and I was so damned weak I couldn't even roll on my side by myself.
But that was then and this is now (another GOOD thing), and the laparoscopic 'procedure' you're having involves far less cutting and therefore far less risk. Not even a visible scar.
- * -
Which is not the same as not having a scar. I know about the traitorous body, that agent of duplicity, self-destruction and pain delivery. I am at war with my own treacherous future-cadaver on several fronts, even as I write this. This is one of my own as-yet unresolved demons: my ambivalent relationship with my own body still badly troubles my otherwise fairly content life. In my view the traitor body has two distinct components, and from your writing today, I think you mix them together, as I do.
The first is a general kind of body dysmorphic disorder that is induced wholesale in women (and increasingly now, in men) in cultures that value only youth over age. This is probably the root of the 'bloated figure', the 'arm wattle and looser skin' of your 'ugly and too obviously aging' body of which you write today. It is certainly the root of the big footed, flabby bellied, balding, greying and wrinkle headed unit that confronts me in the mirror.
The second, and quite distinct, dysmorphism is that which comes with injury and disease: you have been betrayed. Your 'meat suit' (thank you Schmutzie, that one's new to me!) can no longer be trusted; it may even be an enemy. If you can't even trust your own body to have your best interest at heart, then... I mean ...what the fuck is there?!
I do not, as yet, have an answer, although I do know that my own future wellbeing depends on my ability to change my ambivalent, antagonistic relationship with my body into one of mutuality and cooperation. Let's just say that, like you, I am clearly still a work in progress.
- * -
Well there now, I've said a lot of things and I'm not even sure why. Probably in part a selfish and opportunistic use of your immediate shit to review some of my own shit. Partly because I feel a (probably unwarranted) connection, and I write in the hope that, somewhere in all of this, you find a word that is useful to you in your transition to the next stage.
Whatever happens, I look forward with great interest to reading about it here.
Schmutzie, with all my heart,
'Lena
Dear Schmutzie, I don't even know you and I want to hug you.
I'd like to tell you many things but they wouldn't mean a thing to you now so I will only say that age is a thing that makes a woman beautiful.
Please be sweet to yourself.
The uterus, man, always there to give a hearty eff you when you least expect it.
*flips the uterus the bird*
*punts it*
I wish you all the best and hope that you get through this.
No good words, just a shout out to say that I cried with you while reading this post, and what a sucky topic to have been made so eloquently beautiful. You are a master.
I want to hug Galena for writing her post. It says exactly everything I wanted to say, but better. I wish I could take all your fear and anger and frustration and roll them together into a ball and flush it down the toilet--I wish it because I wished it when it was happening to me. I look back, 33 years later, and I agree totally with what Galena has written! (And I polished my fingernails the night before my surgery so they wouldn't cut my arm off. IT made sense at the time. The polish was my last hook in the real world of order and poise and planning. My last defense. They made me take it off.
I wish you well, m'dear. EVen tho' we do not really know each other well, I would be there to hold your hand, if you need it.
Oh Schmutzie. Dear wonderful schmutzie. I am thinking of you. I will pray for you tonight.
I too have been reading your posts every day since I found your blog (and how I got here, I'm not sure I remember). It's easy to lurk and tell myself I don't know what to say, but it's not the right thing to do. Not when I wonder if another person telling you she is thinking of you and wishing she could take away some of your fear, worry, and nausea might help ease it all a little. So I'll tell you that I am wishing all of that, and that I'm thinking of you. I wish you a speedy journey to the other side of all of this.
Thinking of you. I hope everything goes well. Take care sweetie.
Reading this makes me want to hug you and send some kind of wave that will make you peaceful and sleepy...No, what I want is to have some kind of magic power to make this all go away.
That old feeling will go away soon because you are not old yet and your body is still young and strong and beautiful even if it requires surgery and healing right now. But you are facing what we all live but rarely face.
the only way i know to beat fear is by embracing joy, but you are off in cosmopolis so i can't do that today.
...but i will be able to do that on wednesday or thursday or friday or next freaking year.
listen babycakes, you are too firmly rooted in gaia to ever be slight. for those of us who see, your soul glows... which is why the thousand mile stare is so hard for you to master. (stare master hahaha)
and if our bodies are our temples, mine is a ruination. the steps are crumbling the steeples droop, the balconies sway in the wind and the the apse , well enough said! the nave has seen much love, the altar in turns awash in tears both of joy and sorrow and the confessional has rung with peals of belly laughter.
but my temple is a busy place, filled with life and love & uncountable believers who keep me going when i cannot do it by myself.
so is yours.
Dear Schmutzie,
When I lost my cancer and ability to speak to my oncologist's scalpel, I was mad at myself because the person I knew myself to be had disappeared and I was so fucking sad.
People expected me to be happy I had survived cancer. But I wished otherwise. I had nightmares of things taken from me forever. Because that was my reality.
You can't not be sad. You can't not be frightened. You are facing a horrifying reality. One that you will survive. Just remember that. You will come out on the other side and you will mourn and you will think that you will never wake up without that sinking feeling...that empty feeling of having something you loved gone forever.
But that is not the entire truth.
You will hurt for a long time. But then, little by little, you will find that you can overcome the pain.
Time will dull the edges. You'll learn new things about yourself. You'll allow yourself to disappear and re-emerge somewhere else because you won't have a choice.
And because you will want to.
I am wishing you strength to endure the next few days. My heart goes out to you, I will be thinking of you, and will worry about you. Prayers for you and love to you. Everything will be alright.
You show a great deal of courage for writing this. Thank you.
We only know each other through a few words on a blog and a random photo of a pair of my glasses, but I will be praying, wishing, and willing for you in these coming days. Hard and fast, sincerely. You've greater strength than you can possibly know until you absolutely need it the most. It's true; we all do. If I could, I'd give all of mine to you for this journey. Be well, Schmutzie.
if it helps at all,, i am 46,, and feel aged and ugly and bloated and saggy and all of the same things you do...and have nothing on which to blame it....nothing they can take out, or trim a bit off of... its just me... and being a woman in this world in which we live....a world where if you are not a milf,, you are not anyone...at 46.....
I want to give you a hug and a beer and am sending many good thoughts your way.
I'll be thinking of you today. Good luck and let us know when we can celebrate your recovery with an online toast to Schmutzie.
My very first thought when I woke up this morning was: Today's the day of Schmutzie's surgery. My second thought was: Oh yeah, I'm having surgery today too. Mine's a happier, less scary procedure, but yours is going to save your life. I'll be awake while mine is happeneing, and I'll be thinking of you the whole time. I'm right there with you.
It's the end of the 3rd of July over here on the other side of the world from you.
I've been thinking of you all day.
Thinking of you. Go and be healed.
Lymphopo, me too. It's 5:30 AM Tuesday here, and I'm wondering what's happening now.
I guess we'll just hang out here in this virtual waiting room and wait for good news.
'Lena
here. waiting. listening...because of all the courage and truth in your writing that the rest have already mentioned. i see beauty in you, in your words, having no clue about the rest. hoping for good.
thinking of you.
So grateful that this post is over a year old and that you were brave enough to present it at BlogHer.
I have a rooster (you know, it begins with c...) on my desk. Not the one I posted for your roll, but it makes me think of you.
Thankful that I already cried about something else today because this would have started the waterworks.
Thank you for being beautiful you.
xo,
SL