The Body has Opinions

The week began somewhere between the dialysis unit, the familiar hospital corridors and the growing dread of an upcoming procedure called ESD-endoscopic submucosal dissection. The doctors kept calling it small. “It’s endoscopic.” “You’ll be under anaesthesia.” “It’s a small surgery.” “Nothing to worry about.” Small. I know. I understand. I will be asleep. But there is something deeply insulting about being told not to worry when your entire nervous system has already decided that this is the week you are going to have a heart attack. As though anaesthesia is simply a nap with better lighting. As though the days leading up to surgery don't count. As though fear understands the difference between a small surgery and a big one.

The night before admission, I was introduced once again to the wonderful world of colon preparation. Have you ever done colon prep? Have you ever sat on a toilet drinking orange-flavoured liquid that tastes like someone dissolved a chemical weapon in Tang, while your friends are outside living their lives, partying, laughing, eating food, and you are producing enough liquid from your body to qualify as a minor tributary? The colon, apparently, must be pristine for the scope. Your dignity, however, is optional. On one hand is the poison I would actually like to have. On the other is the forceful poison I have to drink in preparation for the forceful surgery. I didn't ask for any of this.

I had been getting my routine dialysis, trying to get through the PET scan without having another panic attack, trying to move through the week with the fragile illusion that perhaps my body and I could negotiate a temporary ceasefire. But does the universe really listen? Or does it simply show you your frequency and then continue sending you things on the same wavelength? I don't know. At this point, I am suspicious of both the universe and my colon.

By the morning of admission, I was still at home waiting for my insides to finish their assignment. The prep was done, technically, but apparently my colon had developed a political position. It had decided that the cleansing tool was insufficient. It needed more time. I ended up late to the hospital because my body, which was supposed to obediently empty itself on command, had decided that this was an appropriate moment for civil disobedience. Who was going to explain this to the doctors? Who was going to tell them that my insides were revolting? That they did not want to be cleansed again. That they did not want to be inspected by a scope through my anus again. That underneath the very clinical phrase bowel preparation was a person who was fucking saddened, anxious and angry about all of this?

At the admission desk, surrounded by forms, questions and people who needed information from me, I could only say, “I'm unable to poop.” Which is perhaps the most dignified sentence one can produce when one is terrified, exhausted and about to have an invasive procedure. Because how do you tell a stranger, I am scared. I don't want to do this. My body has been through enough. I am angry that I have to keep handing it over to strangers. I am tired of being brave about things I never volunteered for. Who says all of that? And who wants to hear it? After all, it was a small thing.

Why are you even here? Why are you even reading this nasty little piece of work? I think the anger in my belly is simply coming out all at once.

Then, somewhere in the hospital corridor, a friend arrived. And somehow the hospital became less horrible because she was there. The staff were still annoying as hell, I think she noticed but at least there were now two of us silently witnessing the absurdity of it all. At some point, she asked me to tell her my entire medical history so that I wouldn't have to repeat the labour every single time another person walked into the room. It was such a small thing, but it wasn't. I don't think anyone had ever asked me that before. Not like that. Not, Tell me everything so you don't have to keep doing this.

Sitting beside her in that hospital room, I realised that even my family hadn't asked me this. And here was this girl I'd known for only a few years, willing to skip work, sit beside me, remember things I was too tired to repeat, manage the logistics, and stay through and through. And apparently beyond. Who does that? I think this is what friends who love each other feel like. For the first time, I felt like I could choose to trust someone. Something happened in my body when I realised that. My heart expanded. My lungs seemed to have more room. I could breathe. I could dance. I could exist without constantly calculating what might go wrong. Maybe safety is not always a place. Maybe sometimes it is a person who remembers your medical history so you don't have to.

Eventually, after what felt like an absurd amount of waiting in hospital clothes, I was wheeled towards the hybrid OT. The corridor had that particular hospital chaos, people moving quickly but speaking softly, machines beeping somewhere behind closed doors, everyone pretending this was an ordinary day. My body was shivering, and nobody could get me a blanket for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes. I lay there shaking, wondering whether this was some kind of immersive theatre experience called How Cold Can a Hospital Make a Human Being Before Surgery? Eventually they got me a warmer.

The doctor came in smiling and, in what I can only describe as Joker-from-Batman energy, said, “Missed me?” Of course not. There is something about doctors getting too friendly that irks me. But I also don't want the doctor who is permanently serious. So perhaps what I want is a doctor who is warm but not Joker-from-Batman warm. There are apparently many difficult negotiations in healthcare.

Then came the first injection of anaesthesia. Lying there under the bright OT lights, I felt the room begin closing in on me. My senses were no longer mine. Voices became mumbles. Mumbles became distant sounds. The lights became hazy. My body became something happening to me rather than something I was inhabiting. I was losing control. There is a particular terror in that moment, knowing that you are about to surrender consciousness to a room full of strangers and hoping that when you return, your body will still feel like yours. And then, suddenly, nothing.

Except apparently there was something, because I woke up during the procedure. Yes. During the one-hour-turned-three-hour procedure. There were several people holding me down, and the anaesthetist was telling me they couldn't give me more anaesthesia. I have faint memories of thinking about dinosaurs. I don't know why. Perhaps my brain, in its final moments of consciousness, decided that prehistoric reptiles were more manageable than modern medicine. Somewhere in this strange half-conscious state, the doctor asked me if I had worn lipstick for the procedure. Yes. I wore lip tint. I didn't want to look dull. Get on with your work, doctor.

I don't remember when the procedure ended. At some point, I was out again, and then I could see my dad telling me, “Don't worry. Just relax.” By the time I properly regained consciousness, I was being instructed about what I could eat and sent back to the room to be observed overnight. There is something surreal almost dissociative about waking up from a procedure and immediately having someone tell you what you are allowed to put into your body, as though your body hasn't just spent the last several hours being opened, examined, restrained and chemically switched off.

Back in the hospital room, my friend handled everything. The logistics. The payments. The running around. Every little thing that needed to happen happened because she made sure it happened. Who does that? Is she an angel? Was there some clause in the friendship contract that I somehow missed? That night, I watched her show up for me. And then I watched her partner show up for her- bringing clothes and food, making sure she was taken care of while she was taking care of me. Lying there in that hospital bed, I think my faith in love and humanity was securely restored. At least for now.

The recovery room was a strange little universe of liquids, instructions and hunger. I was allowed only liquids, and I was genuinely surprised by how good hospital soup and coffee can taste. Or perhaps I was simply hungry enough to consider hospital soup a luxury experience. I am still figuring out what I can eat and what my body has decided is now a personal enemy. My colon, apparently, has found its voice. It has opinions. Strong ones. Every meal has become a small negotiation between what I want and what my digestive system is willing to forgive.

The next few days at home were mostly okay, but there was still anticipation hanging over everything. The doctors had said things. There was a biopsy report. There was waiting. And waiting is its own kind of illness. You can be sitting safely in your own bed, wrapped in familiar clothes, with your own pillow under your head, and still feel as though you are suspended somewhere between two versions of your life. You wait for a phone call. You wait for a report. You wait for certainty. Meanwhile, the rest of the world continues behaving as though nothing particularly important is happening.

And of course, because life has impeccable comic timing, everything else decided to happen at once. An ex-friend messaged. A friend lost their shit and ended our friendship. My father couldn't manage his anxiety. It was my passed-away uncle's birthday. I was lying at home trying to recover from surgery while emotional grenades kept landing from different directions. Uff. Stop. Please. Can I breathe? Can life, just for a moment, stop asking me to respond to it?

My room began to feel less like a place of recovery and more like a command centre for various emergencies. My phone kept demanding attention. My body kept demanding rest. My mind kept trying to anticipate the next problem. I wanted my body to stop needing something from me. I wanted my mind to stop interpreting every sensation as a warning. I wanted, just for a moment, to cease to exist.

Not die. Not disappear forever. Just cease. Be nowhere. Be nothing that needs to move. Nothing that needs to walk. Nothing that needs to eat. Nothing that needs to explain. Nothing that needs to be brave.

By then, my head hurt. My stomach hurt. I had a fever. And somewhere inside all of this was a body that was simply done. So fucking tired. Tired of moving. Tired of walking. Tired of eating. Tired of breathing. Tired of being a body that requires maintenance when all it wants is rest.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that sleep cannot fix. The kind where your body doesn't necessarily want to die; it just wants, for once, to stop having to live so loudly. It wants to sleep, not ordinary sleep, but the ancient kind. The kind that feels like finally putting down a suitcase filled with stones you've been carrying for years. The kind where nobody is asking you to get up, explain yourself, answer a message, attend an appointment, take a medicine, drink water, eat something, stay positive, be strong.

Perhaps that is what these couple of days have really been about. Not the surgery. Not the colon prep. Not the biopsy. Not even the fear. Perhaps, they were about silent noticing. About creating a little ecosystem of human beings passing tenderness between themselves. Perhaps this is how we survive things. Not independently. Not heroically. But relationally.

You spend so much time believing that your body is betraying you. And then, every once in a while, someone shows up and holds the parts of your life that you cannot. You realise that maybe the body is not the only thing keeping you alive.

Maybe love is not always grand. Sometimes it is someone filling out the form while you are too tired to hold a pen. Sometimes it is someone remembering your medical history. Sometimes it is a partner bringing clothes to the person sitting beside your hospital bed. Sometimes it is trying on heels. Sometimes it is thinking about dinosaurs while strangers hold you down. Sometimes it is a quiet nap beside a friend. Sometimes it is simply someone saying, I've got this. You don't have to.

And perhaps, after years of being asked to survive, that is what I needed most.

Not another lesson.

Not another silver lining.

Not another reminder that I am strong.

I am tired of being strong.

I want to be held. I want to be fed. I want to sleep. I want my body to stop being a project. I want, just for a little while, to be a person instead of a patient.

So I think I'll stop here for now.

My body has requested a recess.

And, for once,

I'm going to listen.

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