phoenix {rising}
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Organism
<<2006-02-07 - 8:04 p.m.>>

I got very sick and then had surgery to remove my gallbladder and lost fifteen pounds in two weeks because I was neither eating nor moving so my body cannibalized its lean muscle mass. Gross. My ass is the same size, I am just much, much weaker (my face is oddly pointy, though). This is a strange reframing: body as organism, body fighting to sustain function.

I was sure, the first night, as I was admitted to the hospital honest-to-God from the emergency room, giving Lex my credit cards to take home, that This Was It for my graduation prospects. I was on morphine, hadn't eaten a square meal or slept through the night in four days, and succumbed to despair. Wept when nurses asked if I was a student. Couldn't stop.

I am full of holes. Yesterday I had the follow-up visit with the surgeon, who pulled the drainage tube out of me. Snipped the cords that threaded it to my skin, said, You may feel a pulling sensation, and pulled nearly a foot of plastic tubing out of my abdomen. Gross. He told me, in response to my question, that I could use Vitamin E, but shouldn't waste my money on cosmetic scar-reduction creams. You'd be surprised at what the body does on its own. And, You're young and healthy. You'll bounce right back. The new scars are puffy, painful, red, slightly oozy. Ken arrives on Thursday. For Valentine's Day. I am not the ideal girlfriend. More organism than socialized being. And still full of holes.

I don't want ugly scars. All this, and I should have surgical scars, too?

Some part of me thought, At least now I'll know how I scar. For future reference. Having to do with plastic surgery.

Counterpoint: I stood in front of the mirror today and loved the hell out of my cute round pear-shaped body, which doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did a week ago, when I absolutely positively could not walk.

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