jenny's belly

Some Writings I Relate To

Author Unknown, Treatment is Over
My cancer treatment is over for now
Shouldn't I feel exuberant?
Well, I don't
I feel a confusing mixture of feelings:
Fatigued from the ordeal
Anxious about returning to work
Sad that the recovery period has ended
Grateful that I am healthy
Scared that I don't have the energy to perform
Grieving the loss of my uterus and fertility
Outwards, I may appear happy and positive
But inside I am crying
Just getting through took all my strength and courage
And I am left depleted
I now need a vacation to recover from recovering.

Juanita Jones, Illness in the Institute
It was very painful, and it was sad. It was sad to lose a piece of your body—a piece of my body. ….I would just think about it, oh, it was there, now its not. Like, where did it go? I called up my surgeon and said, “What did you do with it?” She said, “well, we froze it.” And I said, “Oh, well, if you were going to throw it away, I’d want it. I was thinking I would have a little burial for it in the backyard. But I just wanted to make sure that they didn’t throw it away.

Arthur Frank, At the Will of the Body
One day my body broke down, forcing me to ask, in fear and frustration, what’s happening to me? Becoming ill is asking that question. The problem is that as soon as the body forces the question upon the mind, the medical profession answers by naming a disease. The answer is useful for practicing medicine, but medicine has its limits.
Medicine has done well with my body, and I am grateful. But doing with the body is only part of what needs to be done for the person. What happens when my body breaks down happens not just to that body but also to my life, which is lived in that body. When the body breaks down, so does the life. Even when medicine can fix the body, that doesn’t always put the life back together again.

Robert F Murphy, The Body Silent
People in good health take their lot, and their bodies, for granted; they can see, hear, eat, make love, and breathe because they have working organs that can do all those things. These organs, and the body itself, are among the foundations upon which we build our sense of who and what we are, and they are the instruments through which we grapple with and create reality. …Illness negates [a] lack of awareness of the body in guiding our thoughts and actions. The body no longer can be taken for granted, implicit and axiomatic, for it has become a problem. It no longer is the subject of unconscious assumption, but the object of conscious thought.

Jennifer Schmidt, The State of Things
The smooth, pale plane of my stomach is now divided by the Atchison and Topeka. My surgical incision scar looks like a railroad track constructed by drunken workmen.
The surgeon called it a “dogs leg cut”, likening it to the crooked hind quarters of a mutt. It stretches from my left side to my right side, dividing me in half like a magicians assistant.
Down the center of my chest are four tiny tattoos—souvenirs from radiation. I’ve been essentially separated into quadrants like graph paper. I’ve been quartered like a chicken.
I asked my surgeon to sign his work but he politely refused. My oncologist called it a “calling card” from Dr. Osteen. Its okay he didn't sign it though. I’m not likely to forget.

posted by Jen at 1:01 AM