Your Body Hates Itself

 With my most recent visit to the ER, oh yes there has been another...

The Barren was away and so I took myself at 4:30am. As I sat on the ER bed, with multiple band aides from missed pokes for blood and IV, holding back tears from frustration and discomfort and trying my best to keep a brave face I texted my brother to let him know where I was.

He in turn came the distance and kept me company as I waited to find out what the newest test results were and to be happy to learn my appendix was still okay, but my Crohns was still busting my intestines up like a rock star in a hotel room.

When the doctor came into the room to explain that things were the same as my last hospital stay a month earlier, and they were increasing the steroids and I needed to contact my doctor about changing medications as my infusion drugs were not working.

My brother asked why this was happening? The doctor looked at me (like, you wanna tell him?) and then turned to my brother and said "her body hates her" Then smirked and said he was off to call in the new prescription. My brother was kind of shocked and then I explained how my autoimmune disease is attacking me and is being extra aggressive at it. With a better understanding he and I were discharged and he walked me to my car with the overnight bag I had packed just in case. I arrived home shortly after The Barren, who had driven 6 hours to get home to me. The next couple of weeks were filled with calls to insurance and pharmacies and now I am on a new drug. 

My bestie texted that she needed to see me and that she bought a ticket to see me. It made me cry and feel MASSIVELY touched, special and awkward about the attention...but I was looking forward to a mellow weekend with her.

It also just happened to correspond with me stopping the newest round of steroids while maintaining the new medication, another bump so to speak. The Barren was once again booked to be away for a week and I thought it a good idea to not be alone. She arrived on the afternoon after I awoke with mild discomfort...and as the weekend progressed I was more guarded with my abdomen. 

She had all the energy in the world! We went to as many thrift stores as we could handle and I barely ate or rested the whole visit. I had arranged for a massage for us both, something I try to do when we see each other (as it only happens a couple times a year) and I quickly realized that my abdomen was quite tender, so I could barely lay face down for mine.  I think I hid it well, she talked about how amazing hers was 💓 we ate afterwards and when we got home I told her I really needed to lay down. She snickered a little and then we said goodnight and as I was crawling into bed I could hear her snoring from the other room 😏

The next morning I made homemade waffles and we chatted a bit before I needed to shuttle her back to town...on the way she asked if we could hit a couple more thrift stores...which we did and I found a couple things and after dropping her off. I was glad to give her a vacation and she was quite relaxed when I drove her back, prepared to deal with her parents and the 6 hour drive home.

 I drove in total silence on the way home. 

I collapsed into a HOT bath and bed after feeding the cats. I was so touched she came to see me, it is rare we get that much time together anymore without partners injecting themselves into our activities or plans...she had a lot on her mind and we had space to talk it out. In the end, though...

I was left exhausted, in discomfort and spun.

I spent the following day in bed with a heating pad, when I woke up I considered calling my doctor who was on call all weekend, but I reminded myself that things were gonna be bumpy...I sat and spoke to the little scared girl in me. Spoke directly to my brain and we had a long conversation.

I moved slowly, put on a new pair of thrifted super soft, loose bright orange pants (like a traffic cone) and only left the house to water my garden and get some melon from the market.

This morning with the help of a heating pad I am feeling better, not perfect but better and I know tomorrow will be another step away from bad.

The fundraising art exhibition I worked hard to get into opens Thursday, so I am focusing on feeling good for that so I can stand and be social for hours! 

This disease has taken advantage of my good nature, my kind soft edges and run me over repeatedly. 

I am actively fighting the depression that accompanies pain.

I am trying hard to flip the script with my brain and focus on how hard my body is working, how thankful I am that my body keeps showing up for me. How strong it can be and how it is able to rest and heal.

I am not allowed to travel (according to my gut doctor) I am too fragile, and that hasn't sat well in my heart...but I understand it. So when The Barren takes a BIG international trip for work later this year, I will be at home...focusing on my stillness, healing and hope that the next one I will be holding his hand the whole time.

Can you speak up please....

So I am about to do something WAY OUTSIDE my wheelhouse.

WAY OUTSIDE MY COMFORT ZONE

I have been asked to be a panel member to speak to artists in college.

It is part of the career services department and they asked me over a month ago.

I said yes thinking that I would freak out less as time passed and it would all be ok.

I sent an email last week confirming that it was still a go (half thinking it would be canceled)

but instead I go the response that yes it is still happening and in fact I was on a panel of four people addressing something like 60+ students!

okay...

who are the other artists on the panel I wondered as I read the email...

oh, you are the only artist.

the other 3 people are two gallery directors and a Whitney Biannual recipient.

When I read this, I began to cry and then proceeded to spiral into a full blown panic attack!

They couldn't find anyone else!!!

Thankfully, even though The Barren was on the other side of the country for work, after he stopped laughing after learning the news, he was able to walk me off the ledge and get me to laugh too.

I am speaking about my everyday as an artist sitting next to the very people who judge and jury my work. I offer a unique perspective to the scenario....

I am crazy scared that my words will be hard to find, and fumbled when spoken.

I want to sound cool and collected and honest.

I then freaked out about the mop that is growing out of the top of my head-vanity

...I will be attending this event after morning yoga, then a full day of work!

I am getting a haircut tomorrow in hopes to shock it into submission for at least 48 hours.

The Barren will not be able to be there, and I have not told anyone that I am doing this.

Mostly because I am not sure knowingly having someone there, might not calm me down.

My freak flag is about to fly....

I am nervous but in my heart of hearts I know I can put on a mask of calm 

and ideally speak clearly and in a helpful manner. 

It is real

I am an artist

I can not not support myself on my art alone, but not from lack of trying

but that doesn't stop me from making art...

as it is the only way I know how to connect and understand the world around me.

Okay, haircut, clean clothes

tic tacs, deep breathing and don't trip!

Mantra: speak slowly, honestly and gracefully

and laugh, because really this is a first world problem and although it is scary it will not kill you!

Thoughts from The Barren

I have invited The Barren to post as often as he would like,

as he is an amazing wordsmith and I love to hear inside his head, 

no matter how painful or sad. As we know, writing can help...so below is a piece he has been working on/through.

 

 



 

I fear I may be hiding within the empty lattice of a working life, focused on getting by each day instead of making this childless life my own. One way I see this is with how I react to questions about our childlessness - specifically that I'm left out of them. The cuts and calloused comments question only the woman I share this burden with, and in being ignored or feared by those careless questioners, the vacuum of any engagement leaves me feeling more alone than I would have expected. That part of me that wants to get angry at someone for the morning-news interrogations merely aches and folds back in on itself, without satisfaction or even the shame of an outburst. Does it rot there, stuck in the folds of itself? Or is it potential energy, waiting to be unlocked with the turning key of a kind or cruel thought?

Irrespective of my anxieties about folded emotions, I like to think it is the panoply of what each of us holds dear in that dream of having a child which gives rise to so many critiques - to the apparently obvious solutions and the baffled, furrowed, even scornful faces that accompany them.

A particularly painful accusation that is made by friends, family, and acquaintances with equal casualness is the "You haven't tried hard enough" comment, though it is never spoken so directly. It can be variously rephrased as a peppy "Don't give up" or the more bard-like rendition of "I had a friend in your situation, and they just kept at it and it was years later but you know what she got pregnant and now they have three kids and they are so happy I mean it's a miracle don't you think..."

There are many tangential lines to that initial focus on work-rate that expand the theme of not trying hard enough - not exhausting all options: "I'll have your baby, use my womb!"; "You should try IVF..."; Have you used egg-whites as a lubricant?"; "my sisters best-friend got pregnant after she went to an acupuncturist...", "I read on CNN that supplement X has gotten lots of infertile women pregnant, you should try that!"

Each solution caters to one or another price to be paid, but what they all hold in common is the end-goal: the acquisition of a child. This focus on the goal warps into pathology for many couples, with the result often being broken bodies, hearts, and unfortunately, many marriages. The goal is achieved! The couple acquires a child - success! And then divorces because of the immense stress and suffering caused by the process. Really? Goal achieved?

Inevitably the conversation turns to Adoption. Why don't we adopt? This question nags at me more than any other that I hear, because it assumes that the end-result is really what matters and moreover for the fact that it derives that end-result through commerce. Our desire was to create through the union of our mind and bodies a progeny, a physical manifestation of our love for one another and an expression of the universal mystery of life. In our case the end-result we were dreaming of was not just the child - it was the child created as a result of our union.

No path exists for us to achieve that end that does not compromise some essence of what is ultimately a matter of spiritual conviction.

The popular counters do little to answer or support this conviction. For example, the standard "...you will come to love them as your own...". A painful twist on this is promoted with heart-felt and honest emotion by the adopted themselves; after all, they can attest to the love and meaning that their parents brought to their life! See? The goal is achieved!

I do not doubt that I would love an adopted child with all my heart; that they would be my child and I their parent with all the associated joy, sacrifice, tears, and elation that any other child brings to the world they inhabit. My wife and I have spoken of our willingness to let such a child into our lives; our willingness to commit with our entire being to such a journey. But to buy into that experience? To go shopping for a child - a human life? To visit orphanages and adoption agencies with the same commercial details you would find in the purchase of a new car? To negotiate on a price? The dark-skinned children cost less. Older children cost less. They have been valued by the market and found to be...less?

I do not pretend to know a better way! The stories of Russian and Chinese state-run orphanages are stomach-churning and convincing enough to avoid any kind of centralized government method for finding good homes for the parent-less. All I know is that I can't participate in the current system. I don't begrudge anyone their participation! I just can't do it myself. This is a price I'm not willing to pay, to put it in the context of that most-common of underlying themes: "how badly do you really want a child?"

So this is the syllogistic critique of the infertile couple: "you haven't tried hard enough / you must not really want a child". It hits at the core pain experienced by an infertile couple - that they are to blame for the infertility - while at the same time trivializing that pain - it's just a decision to really want it, after all...what's so hard about that?

What's so hard, indeed...