Phantom Pains

Phantom Pains   (A prose poem)

by Kathy Carr

One day, I went to sleep and when I woke up, I was minus one uterus. When people hear this, they won’t meet my eyes, they shift their weight from foot to foot and whisper to me, “Do you feel like less of a woman?” “Heck no,” I answer. Then they say, “But when you get a cat fixed, they become an it. Do you feel like an it?” I want to ask if they are stupid, but what would be the point? “I’ll spare you the nasty details,” I say instead, “but I used to bleed heavily. And I used to have this awful pain. Now I don’t.” This is enough to satisfy most rational people, but inevitably someone will point out that I can never have children again. At which point they ask, “Doesn’t that make you depressed?” Individuals who ask me this are invariably women with children. I’m a mom, too; I have three living children and three dead children. My uterus took on the role of casket as many times as it played incubator. So, no, I’ll never have another life inside my womb, but I’ll never have to carry death around again, either. Besides, I used to bleed. A lot. And it hurt. A lot. I often get blank stares after that. Like there’s something wrong with me because I don’t mourn the loss of a body part. Hey, it’s not like it was a lung, or an arm, or my breasts, even. It was just a uterus. A defective, grapefruit-sized organ. In fact, sometimes, I want to stick out my tongue at those poor, unenlightened women and tell them how awesome it is never to buy tampons or worry about scheduling trips to the beach around my period. I never have to take the pill or get the shot or – get this – have a pap test done because they took my cervix, too. Na-na-na-na-boo-boo. Normally, this is the part where I end up realizing that, indeed, for some inexplicable reason, I do miss my uterus. But I don’t.

Denial… Acceptance… Anger… Denial…

I really don’t know how to live with limitations. I keep thinking that one day I’ll wake up with no headache and that it will actually stay away. Instead, if I feel alright, I try to clean or make bread or granola or do laundry or go on a walk. And I end up with either a headache, neck pain, or both. The neck pain is nothing new – I’ve known for years that I couldn’t do anything that required standing for very long without ending up on the couch with a heat pad, advil, and maybe some tears. Even though I’ve been used to it, I guess I just thought that someday I’d wake up and my neck would be better, too.

Last night, I washed a few dishes, mixed up some granola and just doing those few things triggered a headache that was certain to become a migraine if I didn’t stop and take something right then. It makes me mad.

And just as I was getting comfy wallowing in my mud pit of self-pity, I remembered the words I read in Job the other day. “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not adversity?” Well, Job, yes. That’s exactly what I was kinda hoping to do. I’d much rather be happy, healthy, and free from pain, thank you very much. Wee wee wee, all the way home and all that.

I know something I’m thankful for: God is patient, slow to anger and quick to forgive. I should have been smitten by God – as in God smites people for being turkeys – a long time ago. I keep thinking, “Ok, I know that EDS is a life-long problem. I’m glad to have an answer and now I’ll start asking for help and breaking my tasks into smaller bits and cutting back on my activities so that I can have less pain. I can do this.” But then I think, “That’s not fair!! I’m 31, not 61. I shouldn’t have to cut anything out. I should be in the prime of my life. I should be able to ride my bike 30 miles, come home and do laundry, clean the house, wash the car, and still have enough energy to make a healthy, from-scratch five-course dinner for my family – and then play ball with the kids for a few hours before going to bed.” So I try to do that and I can’t. And I get mad.

I’ve always promised myself that even if I know the right reaction, I’ll be honest with myself. If I’m angry, I’m not gonna go around telling everyone that I’m just so glad I’m going through a trial because I’m learning so much. I am glad that I can learn, but I so wish I didn’t have to suffer to learn. (Hmm, this is sounding vaguely familiar – I’m reading “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper – not a great literary work, but some hard truths about suffering…)

So I’m being honest and saying that I’m struggling. Maybe someone else dealing with Chiari or EDS is struggling, too – maybe someone is telling them that they “should be happy and thankful” or that they should “look on the bright side” and they feel guilty because they aren’t happy and the bright side is pretty dim. Well, friend, I’m right there with ya.

Repost of my first publication

This was published by The Camel Saloon last April. 🙂 It’s a bit of satire.

 

Size Matters

Jugs. Knockers. Wazoomies. Breasts have many aliases. Some are used to indicate size, others to indicate function, and still others are used by rappers and street people who rely on slang for the majority of their vernacular. The fact that you can call breasts by so many names shows just how important this area of a woman’s anatomy is.

From the time a girl is old enough to speak, she dreams about what it must be like to have men stare slack-jawed at her voluptuous breasts. As she plays with her Barbie doll, admiring the chesty perfection achieved by Mattel, she imagines what it’s like to be a Baywatch babe with huge melons bursting from her chest. The day her mother tells her that she needs a training bra is a day no girl will ever forget for that is the day she becomes a woman. On the contrary, it is a truly cheerless day when a blossoming young woman realizes she will not likely be well-endowed. All hope is not lost, but she must walk with a bounce and wear extraordinarily tight, low-cut blouses to compensate if she ever hopes to garner any male attention. If she is lucky, some charitable young man will see past her lack of cleavage and ask her out. She may have to develop a “loose” reputation in order to achieve this, but that is certainly a better alternative to becoming a flat-chested old maid.

Some unenlightened people think that males ought not to be fixated on bosoms. Yet, men cannot help it, they are naturally drawn toward large breasts. Boobs are like planets – the larger the planet, the greater the gravitational pull. Some scientists have stated that this has something to do with mating – that subconsciously men know that women who wear at least a D-cup will be better equipped to nourish his offspring. Although this is a myth, it is true that while a woman is breastfeeding, her “girls” increase in size – until the child is weaned when they shrivel up like raisins. This might explain why some women choose to engage in what is termed “extended breastfeeding”.

Once a man has chosen a wife – based, of course, on the size of her personality – one would be inclined to believe that he will love her no matter what nature does to her body. And he will, so long as he makes enough money to have her breasts enlarged, or at the very least lifted, should they become droopy as she ages. Paying out large sums of money in order to improve your wife’s appearance may seem like quite a sacrifice. However, most men are willing to suffer with empty pockets as long as they have their hands full.

Incredibly, despite how flattered they might be, many women say they feel objectified when a man’s gaze continually wanders to her chest. They claim that men should make eye contact and use phrases like “Hey, fella, I’m up here” while pointing to their faces. Even harder to believe is the fact that some ladies actually think it’s improper to display even a hint of cleavage saying that it just encourages men to think of women as nothing more than a pair of boobs with a body attached. It should probably be noted that the majority of females who hold this opinion have breasts which look like half-filled water balloons hanging down to their belly buttons. Perhaps their selfish husbands ought to fork out the cash to have those balloons refilled. It should not matter if paying for breast implants means there might not be food on the table; ignorant people such as these could probably stand to lose a few pounds anyway.

Even so, women unlucky enough to be lacking in the mammillary department can take comfort in the fact that they do not live in a third world country where the saggy breasts of bare-chested females might end up on the cover of a magazine like National Geographic. What pitiful creatures these women are – having no idea that they look so hideous and yet having their flaws exposed to the whole world. Imperfect breasts need not fear such cruel exposure in a more socially developed culture where there are more dignified publications in which gentlemen may study the artistry of a naked bosom. Here, imperfections are actually airbrushed away in order to spare the young lady the indignity of having her stretch marks, blemishes, or even surgical scars ogled by the masses.

Yes, society has come a long way since the days when only women who’d lost their breasts to cancer were lucky enough to receive breast implants. Gone are the days when a woman had to work hard to prove her worth to a company; even CEOs recognize that women with less-than-ideal breasts are simply not as intelligent as women with huge jugs. Still, our culture has a long way to before women everywhere will have a chance at making it big. As the great plastic surgeon Chester McBustington once said, “I have a dream that one day breast augmentation will be considered a medical necessity. When we make insurance companies pay in every village and every hamlet, in every city and state, we will speed up that day when all the sexy ladies – black women and white women, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics – will be able to bare their chests together and sing the words of the old super-model anthem: ‘D at last, D at last, thank God Almighty, I’m a D at last.’”

Why can’t tears taste like chocolate?

I don’t cry in front of people. Except Tom, really. I don’t want people to know what’s going on inside me – I don’t want to be vulnerable or have anyone try to help me. But when I’m alone, the tears just flow and flow. Sometimes every day and sometimes twice a day.

See, it’s really hard to be a perfectionist and to not be perfect. It’s hard to accept limitations. It’s hard to look at other people and all that they can do and not to get mad at myself for not being able to do the same things.

For example, lots of my friends are providing healthy things for their families that I want to provide for mine. People are canning tomatoes they grew in their garden – making pasta sauce, salsa, pizza sauce. They are finishing up canning other veggies, too – all things they harvested from seeds they planted. If they aren’t canning, they are freezing their produce. I couldn’t grow mine this year – unless my healthy drastically change, I probably won’t do it again. Maybe little bits of things for the kids to help with, but not enough to actually have excess to freeze or can. And even if I did, I can already feel the blinding, stabbing pains in my head and neck just from standing long enough to prepare foods for freezing or canning. I had to lay down after making a pot of chili, for goodness’ sake.

Other people I know go running or biking (I really miss biking, but even that brings on a headache most times) and have lots of energy to play with their kids and run around and still make dinner and clean their houses and rake the leaves and mow their lawns. Yesterday, I raked the leaves with my kids and they played in them all afternoon. I also mowed – on the riding mower which is on its last leg – and my neck still hurts this morning.

I feel so overwhelmed with life right now -so many uncertainties about my future. Will I keep homeschooling? How do I work out time for myself (even now)? Will we move? Should we buy this replacement appliance or that replacement door first? My glasses broke yesterday, do I buy new ones, or just deal? I want to steam the carpets, I want to paint Ethan’s room and the kitchen. I want to clean out the garage. I want to sleep.

Usually when I am stressed, I turn to chocolate. (Well, I turn to God, too, and He’s been holding me up like I’m a child – but He created chocolate, right? So I figure I’m just extending my reliance on Him through one of the gifts He gave us.) But now, I just found out I am allergic to chocolate. Yes. Chocolate. I’ve done half my allergy testing and the one thing that was positive was chocolate. Seriously. Take away the one comfort food I rely on?? Even on the elimination diet, I was able to make hot cocoa with almond milk. Comfort. And I had hopes of making gluten-free chocolate lava cookies since gluten makes my tummy hurt. Comfort. But you can’t make chocolate-free chocolate lava cookies, now can you? Gluten free brownies without cocoa become blondies, and as much as I like blonds (after all, Kaylee is the cutest blond ever), I want brownies, please.

So I have a small request – all these tears that are slipping down my cheeks, couldn’t they maybe taste like chocolate?

I’m poisoning my family. Oops!

Do you ever feel like you can’t do anything right? Our family has never been terribly unhealthy in terms of eating. Mostly, we ate a combination of whole foods and some processed foods. Most of the processed stuff was like cereal, a few chips sometimes, pretzels, etc. Nearly all our dinners were made from scratch – and maybe a few canned or frozen items here and there.

Then I started this elimination diet and started reading about truly healthy eating – using all whole foods. What I read is pretty scary – how much cancer and other diseases in the U.S. that are not nearly as prevalent elsewhere in the world. This will sound terrible, but people in third world countries die of starvation and because they don’t have good drinking water. In countries and villages that are thriving without the use of “convenience foods” have very low percentages of people dying of diseases or cancer. The food in our country is so chemicalized that every day, we are eating what amounts to poison.

Side note: I think this says a lot about how Americans function. Back when women started working outside the home more, someone had the genius idea to start making microwave dinners (heck, they came up with microwaves) and boxed dinners to make it easier for the busy wife to feed her family. Someone invented high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils – short cuts that also saved the big companies money. Aspertame became a substitute for sugar – a healthier choice. What no one did was consider the long-term effects – not just in lab rats, but in people – of all these conveniences – they worried more about making money.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program: While I was researching, I found out that our bodies can’t process grains properly unless they’ve been soaked. Wha—? Yeah, and not only that but people who are gluten-intolerant can often eat wheat that has been soaked. Also, whole wheat bread – even 100% whole wheat bread – can’t be digested properly even by people who aren’t sensitive to gluten – unless the grains have been soaked in something acidic – like buttermilk.

Speaking of milk… I’ve always thought raw milk – as in milk directly from a cow – was gross. I’ve tasted it and I am not fond of it. (Some people love it, though, so don’t judge by my taste buds!) Taste aside, our culture feels that any foods that haven’t been processed by some kind of pasteurization can’t be safe. The government even prosecutes people who purchase milk directly from a farmer. People even have to buy a cow – or “shares” of a cow in order to legally buy raw milk. The reason people want raw milk? Milk you buy in the store lacks pretty much all of the nutrients is originally had and pasteurization destroys a lot of the good stuff in milk and even changes – just like wheat – the way milk is absorbed. Many people who have trouble with lactose, have no trouble with raw milk.

Almost every fruit you buy – apples, strawberries, peaches, nectarines, grapes, etc – are coated with pesticides and filled with chemicals. Of course, buying organic fruits and veggies gets crazy expensive – and that’s where a lot of my frustration comes in. That’s partly why I wanted to have a garden and a big part of why I was so upset that I physically unable to have one this year.

And actually, my physical issues – i.e. not being able to stand for a long time without pain – make it really difficult to do all the “from scratch” things I’d like to. Buying everything unprocessed means I have to process it.

I guess everything is about balance. There are so many extreme thoughts and opinions about everything and the only thing I can seem to agree with 100% is that it’s best to eat things with as few steps from their original source to your table as possible –  that foods with a bunch of unrecognizable ingredients are definitely not good for you. Other than that, I’m trying to find a way to bring truly healthy things to the table without breaking my budget – or my back.