Last night I had a dream that I was massively pregnant and then gave birth onstage to a watermelon. I woke to the news that Roe has been overturned. It’s possible I’m a prophet, more likely it’s residual anxiety from two days ago when I got my IUD removed. Either way, this week I have been aware of how my body often appears to me as nothing more than a fertile breeding ground for impossible decisions.
In 2019 I tore my ACL. I wish it was the result of some heroic feat of athleticism but it was just a mistimed jump in a crowded dance class. The emergency room doctor told me it was a sprain at most. I could go to Walgreens and get crutches if I really felt it was necessary, he would schedule a followup with an orthopedist if I really wanted him to. In the three days before my appointment, my knee swelled until the whole limb became unrecognizable to me. The orthopedist maintained that I just twisted it even as he drained the half-cup of blood that had accumulated around the kneecap. He would order an MRI just to be safe, nothing to worry about. When he called with the news of a complete ACL tear with damage to the meniscus he sounded genuinely surprised.
In some ways, an injury like this is comforting. Many people tear their ACL; there is both precedent and protocol. From the ages of 15 to about 22 I had a medical issue that had neither—it was diagnosed on different occasions as skin cancer, bad luck, or a rare lymphatic disease, and could be cured with surgery or a hot washcloth or injected steroids. It was either gynecological or dermatological, or both—there was never any consensus—and it meant that the first and only people I spread my legs for in my teen years were doctors. I never got an answer, this was my woman-body problem, which I have grown to understand is treated as completely separate from a regular body problem. Eventually, I stopped trying to fix it. The shame and discomfort outweighed any possible good (see: pudendum).
When it comes to making medical decisions, I often feel backed into this corner. Inaction as a default because demanding an actual solution seems impossible. There is a small and narrowing playing field for women, trans and nonbinary healthcare seekers. Trying to care for ourselves is exhausting in the best of times. I feel wrung out by today’s news. I also feel angry, but the specific kind where you’re so frustrated you start crying and then people ask if you’re sad which makes you cry harder because you’re not sad you’re furious at the situation and at them for asking such a stupid question and at yourself for shedding tears in the first place. Lately, when I think about my body I think about how I’ve experienced debilitating pain twice a month for the past year because my IUD was degrading inside of me. So, I decided to get it removed, but then starts the terrible option game: I can’t get the Paragard IUD again, but I’m scared to get a hormonal birth control because contraceptive hormones have left my mother with semi-permanent adverse effects that I might be at risk for as well. But if I don’t go on birth control I could get pregnant. If I get pregnant I will either have to carry a child to term, which I am unprepared for whether I keep said child or not, or get an abortion and then deal with the emotional fallout of that choice. And that’s with abortion still on the table (in at least 24 states), that’s with the possibility of contraceptives. This is the calculus that takes up half my brain. It’s a mass of contingencies and pain points and determining how much my body can endure before I have to course correct.
What I really wanted to talk about in this newsletter was a hike I took this week. The Manitou Incline: 2, 786 steps up a mountain with a 2,000’ gain in elevation. Something incredibly difficult that made me feel very accomplished. I don’t really know how to talk about that right now. Sometimes my body is a marvel. I am not a fan of the phrase being in your body, but I do feel like sometimes my brain is only lit up with my body’s activity. Like all I can be concerned with is the shift of my weight from my toes to my heels or the raw edges of my lungs sucking in oxygen at 8,000 feet. That is a meditative state to me. It’s why I like hot yoga and flexibility training. You can only consider one thing at a time: the rush of blood in your face, the taught stretch of the hamstring.
I’ll keep an eye out for any more prescient dreams. There is more to say in better ways, drop any good resources in the comments.
I love you
- Riley