3. Packing
Every journey needs a bag. Sometimes it can be invisible and even so have an immeasurable weight. My journey to reconnection also has luggage. It has more than one bag. Or one alone in which things will come and go, and at the end of the journey it will be unrecognisable. I believe that the same will also happen to me. In reality, I’m waiting for it, I would even say I’m searching for it. I need a change and to go beyond. I need things to come and go and to change myself female self and become freer and more confident.
Now I know that the operation is coming closer, one of the bags I have to pack is the one for going to hospital. I have never spent the night in hospital. I’ve never broken a bone nor been given stitches. I’ve never had a tooth taken out or wisdom teeth removed. I have never lost consciousness. I think I can say that injections are the only thing that I am really familiar with, whether it be to inject something into me or to take blood. Generally speaking, I feel fairly intact physically.
Roughly twelve years ago I got hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing. It wasn’t my fault. The car, in which there were four young men, drove off, leaving me thrown on the ground. I think that was the day that I was closest to spending the night in a hospital. I remember beforehand and afterwards, but not the impact. I remember starting to run when I saw the car accelerate, and I remember suddenly being on the ground. I remember that in that moment I was overwhelmed by the most suffocating, painful and intense tears I have ever cried. I was terrified. And alone. No one came to me. I remember managing to get up, grab my phone and call Lucía, who came to find me with Janne and they took me to A&E. That day when I went to A&E I wasn’t prepared, I didn’t bring any bag, but from this trip I carried a weight that took a long time to transform and lift from my shoulders.
This time is different. I know when and for what I am going to hospital and I can prepare myself, I want to prepare myself. I know what is going to happen and I feel that everything is going to go well. Since I received the letter with the appointment a few weeks ago, I have started to pack my bag for the days that I will be there. They have told me that I will be admitted for two or three days. The essentials that they have asked me to bring are:
- Any medication I am taking, all in its original packaging.
- A dressing gown.
- Sensible footwear with a non-slip sole.
- A toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash.
- The phone number of the person who will collect me once I am discharged.
Apart from this, I have packed some wide nightshirts, that I went to buy with my friend Nelly, so that I don’t irritate the scar, lots of knickers, a washbag with basics like a hairbrush, shower gel, cream, some sanitary towels, a packet of tissues and lip balm. I am also bringing a small mirror, eyeliner and lipstick in case I don’t look my best when I’m discharged so that I can give myself a bit of colour. I don’t know but two or three days seems quite a long time to me, so I am also bringing a couple of books and my crochet for if I get bored. The books form a key part of this journey, those resources that are going to help me to understand my body and put in practice habits and behaviours that will help me to heal this connection as well as my health. Later on, I will dedicate a space to these resources to talk about them too. Of course, I am also bringing a phone charger, my ID card, bank card and house keys. I have a travel bag that looks like a beach bag which is the one I will use. It is wide enough and practical. I’m not taking clothes because when I leave the hospital I’ll put on the same ones that I wore on the day that I went for the operation. With all of this, I don’t think I have forgotten anything important.
I also feel that I am preparing an intangible, mental bag. It is definitely the most important and the one that I’m not only going to need for the day of the operation but also for the rest of this journey. For the rest of my life. Since I decided to go ahead with the operation, I have tried to make a compromise with myself: to put myself first. I feel positive and determined, almost overflowing as if there’s no going back. I want to be the person who loves me the most, who knows me the most. The one who protects me the most and gives me the most happiness. When I talk about getting to know myself, right now I’m referring especially to my body, but within, that part that we don’t see and therefore ignore so often. I’m referring to the female part of my physical body, but I’m not talking about the curves, breasts or genitals. I’m referring to the biochemical part, the part that spends day and night in constant activity, in search of balanced cycles. I want to understand the hormones that spend life carrying signals from one place to another. I’m really interested in the relationship between the biochemistry of the body and food. We are made of what we eat (and drink!) and as obvious as it seems, this idea is something that we take too long to comprehend.
Fortunately, I live in a time and place where information is very accessible, but judgement is needed to differentiate whether the information is trustworthy or not. Since I started my chemistry degree, I’ve spent around twenty years submerged in the world of academic science, working in the study of proteins through mass spectrometry. This scientific career has allowed me to familiarise myself with information in a more distant way and with a more critical eye. In addition, I also have a flexible and empathetic mindset for solving problems. I trust that all these years in contact with the sciences of life will help me to understand how to decipher and compile the information that I will find. I feel prepared, the bag is ready.
Thank you for your simple, sensitive and personal sharing.
In some parts of your story, there are echoes in me, me as a human being.
There are resonances that make me want to share a bit of my story too, not only because I know you, but also because, as a human being, I am still learning and searching, for a long time, for knowledge about the natural balance of the living, of my living space, my body, but also my life context, my surroundings, what I do to my body, to my mind, how they both influence each other, what I eat and drink, and what life puts on my path. It’s so vast, it’s so many parameters, we know it, we feel it, deep inside our being.
I went through a night several months ago, more than 11 years ago. A bit like you, I had little contact with the hospital world for myself (apart from my birth and my wisdom teeth). That time, I came close to death, and the context brought me close to it. I thought I would never be able to heal from this violence, this loneliness, this distress, all this weight that suddenly knocked me down following this aggression where my aggressors left me there, on the ground, like a useless object in the world.
And then, after years of new experiences, of rebounds, I wanted to carry life, to be a relay of the living, to enlarge my love with my partner, to live this experience of mammal.
At that moment, I was convinced that I was fully ready and that it would go quickly. I was caught up in reality. My body was already filled with a uterine polyp. Carrying life meant surgery (a cyst on the ovary was removed at the same time). I wondered how old this polyp was? Had it been 11 years since it had nestled in my sacral space? I could not get a medical answer. However, it was not insignificant for me to return to the operating table after so many years. I refused to do so, but I had to hear what it awakened, pains that were dormant but which nevertheless constitute me, which are also part of my wealth, because I welcomed them in order to overcome them. Finally, as you describe it, going to the hospital when the appointment is fixed, when we are given a list of things to bring, when we have time to buy what we will miss, to warn our relatives, suddenly this medical appointment does not have the same message as my previous experience, which was sudden and very long. I ended up approaching the surgery as another way to heal my past injury. And it was. I finally experienced this appointment as an appointment for myself, my deepest desires, my dreams to continue, life to experience…
My dear Johana, thanks for sharing your story. I remember all of it, and I particularly remember that when we talk after your aggression, it was the first time that I felt someone really understood what happened to me in that car incident. It is difficult to open up to others when you fell that they cannot relate to the experience you are sharing. Thanks for being there. Thanks to life to joining our paths.
Estoy leyendo los posts y me transporto contigo… Cuánta realidad y cuánto desconocimento a la vez. Gracias Ade!!!
Y me encantan las fotos!!!
Muchas gracias, Trini, por acompañarme, por acompañarnos. Ojalá que entre todas, consigamos cambiar esa realidad y hacer del conocimiento nuestro mejor aliado.
[…] Cuando pienso en cómo ha sido el proceso de recuperación, tengo la sensación de que empecé a recuperarme en el momento en el que decidí operarme. Como si al haber tomado esa decisión algo hubiera hecho un clic, y mi mente y mi cuerpo hubiesen empezado a coordinarse para afrontar el camino hacia el cambio, hacia un estado que no sólo significaría una mejora de mi salud, sino que también me abriría otras posibilidades. Como si poco a poco me estuviese inundando por una nueva energía, guiada por la determinación y la voluntad. El clic que me hizo pasar de temer y rechazar a desear el cambio, a crear ese compromiso conmigo misma del que ya he hablado (Haciendo la maleta). […]