Published
There’s always been a mound of pain growing inside. The pain first came in waves, twisting into my organs like a bottle of wine getting uncorked with a fork. As I got older, this pain became stronger. It was unpredictable and debilitating, contorting my intestinal tracts at the most inconvenient times. In the middle of conversations, I’d clench over and wail. And then poof, the pain was gone, like it was all in my head.
My diet mostly consisted of my two favorite food groups, martinis and mayonnaise, so it was easy to write off the pain as old air exiting my body, a kick from the chemicals dancing inside. But deep down I knew I wasn’t just passing gas. Something else was inside of me and it wasn’t just passing through. It had found itself a nice little piece of land and built itself a home.
I built a roster of healthcare professionals to play detective: a middle-aged gastroenterologist who smelt like beans, a pulmonologist in Midtown with an anchor tattoo, a phlebotomist who looked like they just graduated fifth grade. I left every appointment with the same diagnosis: that my body was, medically speaking, fantastic. All I could do was accept the sharp pains like it was just something my body did, a minor defect, like a light switch that had been installed upside down.
Naturally, I replaced thinking about my insides with renovating my outsides. I straightened my teeth, munched on arugula, and declined free cake. I moisturized in between my toes, did face kegels, and shaved my butthole once a week. I bought expensive gadgets you strap on your face and walked at a twelve incline. I imagined how I’d act if my stomach were flat. Perhaps I’d flip a table for fun or pick a piece of cheese off a stranger’s plate. Maybe I’d show up to work three hours late and gaslight my job into thinking I was on time. Maybe I’d finally learn how to accept a compliment.
But this summer, things changed. Tree buds bloomed, people came out to play, and I bled out of my vagina for three weeks straight. I peed every hour and my belly bulged out like I was with child. No matter how many crunches I did or nuts I nibbled on, the bulge persisted, refusing to leave. I had been to every doctor imaginable over the years, but there was one I had staved off and knew it was time. To the OB/GYN I went.
When I found out there was a cyst the size of a grapefruit on my right ovary, I had my first out-of-body experience. I levitated and watched myself from above. The doctor explained what would happen next, her words slurred together and slow. My bulge-less body projected in front of me. I ripped my shirt off and shimmied my chest as she said I’d need to remove the lump soon, because if I didn’t, it could choke my ovary to death. I jumped up and down and kicked my legs out in glee, as she explained I’d need at least four weeks to recover. I swung my shirt around my head and rode it like a pony, as she told me these kinds of cysts have teeth. La la la, I thought. Who cares? My stomach was about to be flat. Flat flat flat flat flat. Those were the only words I could hear.
Slowly I floated back into my body, and the summer I had pictured for myself flashed before my eyes. I was supposed to smoke teensy cigs and do shrooms in the park. I was supposed to slip out of work unnoticed for boozy beverages and aioli. I was supposed to get seaweed in my crevices and sea salt in my eyes. But this summer, I would get to do none of those things, at least not for a while. This summer, I wouldn’t turn pretty. I would turn into a constipated pile of bones and air.
They evicted the cyst from my body two weeks later. They cut me open three times, using one hole for a camera, one hole to poke the cyst open, and one hole to stick a garbage bag inside. They pumped my body with carbon dioxide, expanding the walls of my stomach so they could work comfortably inside. Then they glued me up like a science fair project and wheeled me out of the hospital with nothing but some informational papers, laxatives, and drugs. I got in a taxi and drove over the Brooklyn Bridge back home, where my hellish road to healing began.
My body has been through a lot. I spent the first few days being one with the couch, folded in half and unable to move. The gas pains were so bad I felt like I was having heart attacks multiple times a day. It felt like I was being held together by a string. My shoulder ached from residual carbon dioxide inside me and my head pounded as the oxycodone blanketed my brain. I walked hunched over and at a snail-like pace, afraid if I stood up straight the string holding me together would break. I had a few bites of grilled cheese every day and slept the rest of the hours, my body working overtime to relieve the pain.
On day six, I woke up feeling new. Not brand new; more like refurbished. I could scramble my own eggs and stroll outside. I could pull my own pants back up after taking a leak. How much my body had progressed was unreal. It hit me just how foolish I had been. I had spent all this time wishing she would just be flat when she was really this mystical beast capable of such powerful things. My body could do a clam slam if she wanted, make babies, or heal wounds. And yet I had spent my whole life asking her to just disappear.
Am I saying I don’t care about my stomach being flat anymore and that I’m cured of decades of body dysmorphia? No! But for the first time in my life, the thoughts around my body don’t revolve around being small. I used to think affirmations were stupid, that you couldn’t rewire your brain by being fake nice to it in the mirror. Turns out not pelting your body with insults for ten days does wonders on the psyche. It feels good to be proud instead of beating it down.
I still look bloated, but that's okay. Outside my window, a man washes his car and a woman walks by with a stroller. I watch and wonder if they’ve ever cared more about what their body looked like than how it operated inside. I imagined the things their bodies have been through, the collective traumas and triumphs we all share. I thought about how rare it is to even be alive, let alone concealed by a self-healing flesh. From now on, I plan to treat my body like a queen. Whatever she looks like is fine by me.
