October 26, 2005

Cycles
by Lorraine Berry

A writer friend of mine, one of the most brilliant people I know, frequently says the kinds of things that wind up staying in my head, tucked away in some back room, and then, sometime later, re-emerges when that piece of wisdom crashes into some life experience I’m in the midst of.

In this case, we were talking about time. About whether it was possible that men and women had different conceptions of time. She argued that men see time as linear; women see time cyclically. "We can’t help it," she said. "Every month, we are reminded that we are part of a big cycle. We bleed. We stop bleeding. We ovulate. We bleed again." Time gets broken up and its repetitive nature is literally written onto our bodies. Men, as far as I know, have no regular reminder that time is cyclical. I imagine that it moves forward for them.

Okay. I know that this reeks of essentialism, the kind of essentialism that makes me crazy. But, I also think there’s some validity to what she said. And while all women do not currently menstruate, or no longer menstruate, the cultural reminders of women as monthly, cyclical creatures is there all around us.

On November 18, I will no longer be among the women who bleed. I've alluded to health problems before in this forum. For reasons that may elude a lot of you, I want to talk about the fact that I’ve chosen to have a hysterectomy in just over three weeks.

And I use the word "choice" deliberately. My uterus is a sick organ. It is making me sick, to the point where I have been in the hospital recently, so anemic that I could barely stand. I'm experiencing chronic pain. Two weeks out of the month, I feel like an overripe kumquat—squishy and swollen—and, if kumquats had feelings, my guess is that being overripe would make them as cranky as I've been. Cranky, and sad, and angry as hell that I'm a hostage to my body.

And yet. It's my uterus. The organ within which I carried three pregnancies and from which I delivered two healthy children. The organ that, every month since I was 13, has made its presence known. It's not like my liver or my spleen or my heart. I mean, I know they're there, doing their jobs, but it's not like those organs send out an all points bulletin to the rest of my body that special attention must be paid to it.

And my uterus is such a political organ. Our culture is engaged in an all-out war about what women may do with their uterii. Whether my uterus belongs to me, or as some would argue, it belongs to the government or my neighbor or anyone else who is anti-choice. And, truth be told, hysterectomies get a lot of bad press. Once upon a time, doctors removed uterii like they took out tonsils—if you were done with it, what the hell did you need it for?

I admit. As women I've known have chosen to have hysterectomies in the face of health problems, the thoughts that have gone through my head have been uncharitable. They were downright arrogant. They went something like this: "You are a victim of the male medical establishment. If a man had a small problem with his prostate, would we advise castrating him?" I really wanted to believe that most hysterectomies are unneccessary, that women have them because it’s more convenient to take out a uterus rather than work to fix a problem, that women's reproductive organs are only valuable if they're producing babies.

And then this happened to me. And so, I've avoided this surgery. I've tried alternative treatments. I've been determined that I should hold on to this part of me. And then, some other voice started speaking to me. The one that asked me questions like, "If this was your spleen causing you this many problems and pain, would you even be having this conversation? Wouldn’t you have gotten the damn thing taken out immediately?"

My uterus is not the essence of my being. I’m not a "womb-an." I have a disease that is going to get progressively worse. Its symptoms can be treated—in my case, unsuccessfully—but its cause cannot be eradicated without removing the organ where the disease is.

And so, I'm making this choice. To be healthy. To make a decision in which I choose not to suffer any more.

I'm scared. I have a lot of questions. I have no idea what life will be like on the other side of this surgery, but I am optimistic. I want to see what happens. I’m excited. I’m anxious. I’m also willing to share this experience with those of you who are interested. I have been so grateful that other women have been willing to reach out to me, answer my questions about what I’m going to be going through.

The writing process for me is two-fold. Its purpose is solipsistic—it puts me in the center of the story, allows me to make meaning out of the things around me. But its other purpose is to make connections with others. And I think it's the driving reason behind this post today. I want to let others in similar situations know that they're not alone, and I want to know that I don’t have to go through the coming weeks like an anchorite.

Writers don't have experiences; they get new material. I fully expect this to happen in my case. I'm already thinking about the time question. Will time pass in a different way when I'm not so anchored by a monthly calendar? Time will tell.

Posted by in Bio-Power, Body, Culture, Culture War, Ephemera, Epiphany, Feminism, Gender, Health, Image, Life, Motherhood, Privacy, Reproductive Rights, Sex, Testimonial, Writing
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