I’ll Be Honest: I Was Super Scared

Going in to get a piece of my liver

Welcome to a new week Word Nerds!

If you didn’t get to catch my words last week about my Wednesday writing- my return to my long-time column ‘Life In The Grey’- you can check it out here.

And if you’re wondering about how the liver biopsy went, you can check out the extended piece (from this one here) today, below… Though I’ll probably write or share more soon, because it was definitely a new experience!

And this week? Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri? Hopefully you enjoy some new words cooked up just for you.

xo

I had a liver biopsy “today”.

(Last week)

I’ll be honest: I was super scared.

I find that two things happen in medicine, psychologically: First, we are the most scared about unknowns, and thus we are never more nervous than when we can’t predict a procedure or surgery. But also second: even once we can predict it and should adjust and let it feel commonplace… occasionally, our fight-flight-or-freeze takes over even more, because we simply don’t want to keep doing this sh*t.

I don’t want to keep doing this sh*t.

“I am more than this!” I want to scream (even though I know that compartmentalizing my life by primarily writing about health here, openly, but then trying to dance away from it in-person as a person is odd messaging for some but as ideal coping for me as I can get)… “I have work to do. I have value somewhere out in the world to someone. I am good at things.”

But none of that matters when you’re just a faulty body, fight-flight-frozen in an OR.

No one cares if I can choreograph a highly varied, multi style show in 2 weeks at home; A full show. Any topic. Give it to me. Consider it done.

No one cares if I can write a book in 2 days despite the pain. Give it to me. Any topic. It’ll be done.

If I weren’t a woman, this wouldn’t sound so arrogant by the way. And - to be fair - I hate sounding so bluntbraggy but… I also tire (occasionally) of not just being truthful. These are special skills that - ideally - help me connect to kind people when they’re out there (which is sadly less than you’d think).

These are not translatable skills.

No one who is making an incision near my ribs and then going in to get a piece of my liver is going to give a sh*t about the fact I really love musical theatre.

I don’t translate to the slab of stretcher and fluorescence.

Holding still for something painful and scary IS- no bones about it - one of the most taxing things we can continue to ask ourselves to do with our bones.

My brain has caught on by now. It has had more surgeries and traumas than seems sane; It wants off the ‘coaster.

But… I did it. I did the scary thing before the next scary thing. Now, I rest and wait.