All That Wisdom

So I had to have something hacked out of my vagina before I would spend a day in bed working on my novel. That’s what it takes, folks. Temporarily physically disabled from surgery, the not so young writer is forced to sit down sideways on ice packs to get back to effing work on her book. Even with the surgery recovery, which takes away exercising option and horse fun option, placing me in bed, even THEN, I manage to do a bunch of medical billing stuff for Aela for hours before I actually get to writing. Chagrined, that I still have a few more hours til Lilly at school, I actually get to work.

I am thinking about the surgery though. It is a lot of work to have a ball taken off your vag. First you have to grow it for 20 years. Then ride on it in a hard saddle to get it nice and angry swollen. Then you have to make a bunch of doctor’s appointments. And run around doing blood and xrays for a week.Then the day of the surgery your husband has made all these helpful plans for your family to help tote you around, to juggle little people and grandparents and rides home. But then it comes down to you, in a bed, in a paper gown the nurse says costs $8 dollars but feels more like 50 cents. And then you’re sitting there for hours while they stab you with an iv (Asian lady much better, comes and redoes it gently and then gives massage. You want happy ending. Just kidding.) Then the doctor comes by who never smiles and I thought it was me she hated because I’m white and apparently she’s still mad about slavery but the nurse taking me to the bathroom says she is not the warm fuzzy type person and the bathroom is echoey and I’m thinking um maybe we shouldn’t diss her so loudly because she’s about to have a knife near my vagina in a minute.

Then before they wheel me away, B and I see a little kid on a stretcher going to surgery and she’s crying and the dad is making her laugh, doing a little dance, the way parents do – good ones. Distracting her, being there for her when his heart is probably breaking in a million pieces. Watching it makes my eyes tear up.

Then they wheel me away and the lights look so unreal and it’s because this isn’t my surroundings, this is someone else’s whole world, indoor corridors, no windows, they’re telling me I’ll come here for recovery and I’m thinking what if I don’t recover, but then there’s a black lady hanging out in the hallway in scrubs, is that my doctor, I don’t want to see her hanging around like she has nothing to do, but she’s holding a little blue hat and she’s an aide, I can tell by her teeth, and she’s sort of singing as I come by, she’s saying “you want a little hat, here ya go,” she’s putting the blue surgery hat around my hair, and tucking and folding it majestically, making me feel like my hair is long and golden and saying “all that wisdom, look at all that wisdom, we gotta put that in there,” she’s tucking my hair in like a voodoo queen at her own mardi gras and this is my favorite part. Where the lady is dancing to her own tune, singing to me and tucking my hair in like she’s blessing me, like she knows I’m scared, and she knows I’ll be allright.

They wheel me into the operating room and it’s a room you don’t think you should be looking at, like aren’t you supposed to be asleep for this nuts and bolts part? It’s so freezing I tell them they should sell ice cream in there. They put a mask over my face and they’re all talking and there are going to be two doctors, two nurses and two aides, I’ll be safe and then I’m gone.

I do not want to wake up. They’re making me but it is hard. I’m trying.

Then I’m there and there is my family, the older ones. And there is jello and a brown tuna sandwich. Maybe the worst sandwich I’ve ever seen, like it’s been hanging around homeless by the docks in San Francisco and someone mailed it here and someone got it out the trash and gave it to me.

But then I’m leaving and getting in the back of my parents’ car and thinking I should be entertaining but I’m so tired and they take me home and put me to bed and I’ve never been so glad to get in bed and then B says the little girl on the stretcher just had an earring fall in her ear and they got it out, she was okay, the parents were there and laughing but the girl was crying because the nurse says adults are okay, but for some reason all the kids wake up crying from anesthesia.

I think it’s because they know how important life is, and they don’t want to miss one bit of it.

So now today I rested about 30% of the day (as opposed to 0% on a normal day) and I’m sore but I’m writing, in my weird patchwork way around my busy life. I’m grateful I’ll be able to ride without pain in the saddle area, I think riding is important, or the girl who says she is me keeps pointing me that direction and saying you like this. I’m trusting her. Mostly I woke up glad I have a body, and glad I have a husband who still likes me, and so lucky I have tall children stalking around heathy and a family car to get in the backseat of and feel loved and protected and important to someone. Some little group of people that thankfully are my people.

Wisdom.