3-year Colectomy Anniversary
—Originally written April 18, 2019
Depression can be a physical thing. It can be the lack of energy, absolute lethargy, the inability to rally. It can be the feeling in your chest or in your stomach no matter how you try to pull yourself up. It can still hang over your head like an anvil. You're looking at the anvil and know it should be on the ground where you can strike things on it. But this is Looney Tunes and now it's hanging above your head by a cartoony old, thin rope. Most of the time, you're the only one who seems to be standing underneath it, though some look on and offer their words of comfort or advice from the circle around you. But their voices fade in and out and cross, and, in the end, they're only words and good intentions.
Despite all this, or because of this, I have been the strongest version of myself I could have been since my diagnosis, colectomy, and long recovery since, but coming back to a normal life after life-changing surgeries takes some time, physically at first, then emotionally later.
This photo was taken a couple days before I had to leave my son for New York City and Memorial Sloan Kettering. Three years ago from today (April 18, 2019), he was a baby boy and had already saved my life and given me so much to smile about.
It was hard to leave him for my massive surgery. In weeks leading up to my colectomy, I saw a lawyer to draft a will. In the hospital I had rented a breast pump—to no avail. From the devastation to my body, I lost my breast milk within the first days of the colectomy. When I returned to him two weeks later, I could not breastfeed him. I could not lift and hold him due to the 8-inch incision down my belly. I could barely take care of him; I was weak and sometimes very ill.
Tomorrow, April 19 (2019), marks three years since the day I had my total colectomy, the removal of the two organs that were carpeted with thousands of polyps with high-grade dysplasia. It was a near-miss and a miracle that I lived—and this is only thanks to my pregnancy which brought out the symptoms.
My heart is filled with joy and breaks in leftover sadness when I look at how small and new my baby was when mommy had to leave him for the hospital in New York city and for days and days of physical hell. How I longed to be with him, normal and able to nurture him. When I came back, I had no energy and was unable to lift him for two months. I slept a lot and was hospitalized for various reasons until my next major surgery that same year in September, when they would take down the ostomy, and I would be unable to lift him again for another two months of his first year. His grandmother and father and the nannies I hired gave him so much love, and I did my best too. He was—and ever is—so adorable and inspirational and sweet.
The good news is that the polyps in my colon, miraculously, were not cancer. I believe this is due to the intuition I had from my early 20s to give up meat (gladly) and seek out antioxidants and fill my body with healthy things: greens and more greens, goji berries, flax seeds, bee pollen, teas, sprouted grains, mulberries, etc. Nowadays, without a large intestine, I do not absorb as much nutrients from foods and cannot eat all the fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds that I would like to. But I am able to eat salads again. It's been a long road figuring out what I can and can't (and really shouldn't) eat.
For the month leading up to this major, life-saving surgery, I kept to myself and made no announcement to far-off friends and family. But then... the day before, I felt the need to share and this was my facebook post, to which many comments of strength and prayers came in response.
April 18, 2016: So I'm here in the city for a major operation tomorrow/tues at Sloan Kettering. I'm staying upbeat and positive despite anxieties, thanks to lovely words and caring from my family and close friends. Please keep me and my baby who I will miss for a whole week [wound up being 2 weeks] in your thoughts. Just wanted to share with you all that the key to life really is Love: it helps so much with the long, windy road ahead. That's all, thanks!
When I look at this picture, taken the day before my major operation at MSK, I see the last image of me "normal"—but dying,
Ironically, on my three-year anniversary of my life being saved in an eight-hour crazy operation, tomorrow the 19th, I am going to Sloan Kettering clinic to discuss some issues. I will take advantage of this time to enjoy the journey, the city, and a museum or two.
I wonder what the purpose of all this is. I have had so many amazing experiences in my life—opportunities to lead study abroad in Paris and Italy and create courses and teach at the university, as well as directing short plays, documentaries, and films with students. I loved being a French and Italian professor, and my students, by and large, loved me and always said I made learning fun.
Today, I feel very different than I did pre-colectomy. I still know, as I said the eve of my colectomy, that "the key to life is Love," but I cannot help but wonder what the road ahead will look like with so many serious, added worries. But the illness, for all the havoc it wreaked (and thank God I'm still alive now somehow) has helped me be a better person, and I'm very, very thankful for this. I'm able to mother my son and help him develop and grow. I'm still seeking the best gifts of all: Love, faith, and hope.
The best are the special people who share who they are in vivid ways. I hope this increases because Life must go on, and one needs all the creative juices to flow to reshape a life that needs mending. Outlooks need to change. I need to visualize wondrous things that make life worth living and find meaning—perhaps community too. It is always so hopeful to meet kind new people. Some people can do empathy—and I so appreciate the exchange. I'm looking forward to a local art show that will celebrate how art lends healing power to those with chronic illnesses. I have a poem in it but it's not that good (yet?). More to come.
