The Body Itself

My body looks a bit like a war zone, and I've considered posting pictures.  I have taken them.  I take them by myself, in the bathroom mirror before I take a bath.  I cannot seem to let the images go, not into the ether of time, when each day brings healing and each day some of the bruising fades.  I am thrilled and proud of the healing, but I to want to pay tribute to the what a body can endure.  So I take the pictures. 

I was taking a bath the other day and Emma came in.  She asked if she could help me.  I can't lift my left arm very high, and I said that yes, she could help by pouring water on my back.  She asked if I would like her to wash my back and I agreed.  I gave her a wet, soapy washcloth, and she carefully wiped my back, my neck, and poured water carefully over the suds.  She watched to make sure she didn't wet my drain site.  She was so mind bendingly tender, I foresaw her mothering.

As I dried off, I thought of how I'd bathed her and her brothers as newborns, so careful to not wet the dark, dry stumps of their umbilical cords.  How each of those very first baths we gave them was so utterly a discovery.  Every newborn baby inch of them, this is how their ears curl just so, this is the curving languid line of their torsos, their legs, this is the miraculous stretch of each finger, each toe, the glorious roundness of belly and bottom.  Each and every inch, a miraculous punctuation. 

I think of how I am someone's child, but that my mother and my father are not here to see the way I have been sliced, to be saved, for sure, but yes, there are scars that would break a parent's heart.  My friend Carrie was here last week and I lifted my shirt to show her.  In honesty, there is no vanity that would force me to cover myself anymore.  I've never felt the fierce pride in my body the way I do now.  The closest I've come is when I was pregnant. 

Carrie looked, tears came to her eyes and she said "Jenny, I'm so sorry, it is so brutal."

I see that.  I do and that is why I take the pictures, because I seem to somehow be able to absorb it all and instead of shrink, I'm fascinated.  I take no movement for granted, each inch I gain in my range of movement I marvel a little.  Each glance in the mirror, my eyes trace from the hollow at the base of my neck,  the fading tan expanse of skin, over collarbone to breastbone, to the soft void on my left side.  My badge of courage. 

Yesterday, I was walking the dog and noticed that the drain still inserted in my side was not working properly.  I called my doctor and was instructed to hold tight and to come in the next afternoon.  After lunch, I stood up and the drain tube simply fell out.  I was baffled.  I've been told by pretty much everyone that the drain removal is painful, bearable but painful.  That mine simply fell out made me wonder if I'd been enduring the slow, slight painful tug for days and writing that off as simply the pain that is part of the process. 

I have been thinking a lot about running lately.  I miss it, especially when I am listening to music that would typically get me pumped to run.  I got on the treadmill a couple of days ago and wondered what it would feel like to run a step or two, so I gave it a try.  Not good, not yet.  There is a chance that running won't feel ok until the tissue expander is out of my chest, I'll have to feel that one out.  But the thing I'm keying in on the most is how it felt to run past my walls, when there was nothing left, and I ran on anyway.  When I made myself be strong enough to take more steps, finish the run I'd set out on.