fragments from a hospital #2

I'm sitting on the couch and it's leaking from my incision. I feel the panic breathing down my neck as I'm trying to stay calm examining it closer. All of a sudden a bigger hole opens up and I lose all control. You're calling the GP and panic is in your eyes too. Your voice is trembling as you speak to them and I'm crying hysterically. I keep having images of my whole bowel opening up and everything inside of me falling out. Surgery really makes you acutely aware of what is on the inside of your skin. I was overwhelmed and grossed out by the experience. I wanted to put everything that didn't belong on the outside back in - out of sight, out of mind. 

Despite certain setbacks, I'm gaining weight and regaining strength. Life's giving me a rush and I'm wondering why healthy people aren't happy all the time. I'm able to eat whatever I want. I'm able to eat without rushing to the toilet. I'm slowly mending my damaged relationship with food. I'm able to leave the flat, do things apart from dragging myself to work and back home again. I meet you locally after you finished work in a cosy Indian restaurant. We eat amazing food and I feel so happy. I feel kind of normal in a surreal way. I feel so damn grateful that you stayed with me through this mess, that we made it through the kind of mess very few people ever need to come in contact with. In the summer we sit outside in a pub. I'm having a haloumi salad and a couple of glasses of rosé. I'm a little bit drunk and I'm chatty. I notice that you notice and you smile at me. I suddenly feel shy. It feels like I haven't spoken for years. The illness killed all my words, there was nothing to say only endurance to get through the suffering. I had become my illness. 

My body doesn't feel like mine anymore. My body failed me and my disappointance now rejects it. I'm trying to adjust, to accept, to reclaim it. But I fail to do it wholeheartedly, thinking it will happen on its own without much effort from my side and I miss out on the process. I'm healing physically, but mentally I'm just as broken. But at the time, I don't know that, I'm just enjoying life.

I'm in the hospital to see how my rectum is doing. The surgeon is playing with the camera, showing off to the nurses. I'm mildly amused. My rectum is useless and needs to come out. The surgeon suggests an unusual operation that may work due to me having two thirds left of my colon. He tells me to think about it and he will do the same. Later I will agree to having the unusual operation, thinking about a life without a stoma and still being well.