can hope be a scar?

content warning: ovarian surgery, endometriosis

I’m sitting in the car, in the waiting room, in the hospital, in my bed. Waiting is a whole job of it’s own. But this time, I’m waiting for something that I want. Chronic pain has taught me to be willing to experience a more acute form when it means there will be a chance for some change for the better. Maybe that sounds sad or grim, but it’s simply the truth, and I’m not sad or grim. I’m relieved… happy even.

One month later, I’m sitting at my desk, at the window, in the soft glow of light filtering in through the blinds. Birdsong reaches me, and while it’s a few degrees too warm for my taste, it’s tolerable, and I feel calm.

Can hope be a scar? The 6-inch line below my belly reminds me that I went through something, but also that I could handle it. A timeline of flesh traveling across myself from debilitating menstrual cycles and a cyst rupture and chronic pelvic pain—to one less ovary-and-fallopian-tube, and a whole lot more living. It represents something.

I see myself in the mirror after a shower, and it’s surreal to see the thinness of the line as if I drew it on with a felt-tipped pen. Behind all the layers of muscle in the operating room, my brilliant doctor and her surgical assistant opened me up to discover what MRIs couldn’t show: a mass of organs all fused together behind my uterus in a singular clump of endometrial tissue.

I’m transported back to my favorite class in high school, an in-depth Biology 2 course. I’m out on my back patio working on a class project that’s worth a lot of credit. I carefully dissect away all the flesh from a mudpuppy specimen until only the skeletal structure remains. It’s tedious work and will take many days because I have to be so careful, soaking the specimen in a solution between sessions. One abrupt movement or miscalculation on tension or purchase, and I’ll damage something vital to the structure. I wonder if that’s what my surgery was like for my surgeons as they dissected away all the endometrial tissue in order to dislodge each organ without harming anything along the way.

I’m sitting with my thoughts, in my body, with my scar. And it’s as if I’m finally exhaling.

• Dream & Scheme Co-Working Sessions (June dates coming soon)

• Creativity Keepers Sessions every second-Tuesday (6/9)

• Guided Creative Retreat: Magical Creatures (Sat., 6/21 or Tues., 6/24)

  

• Taste of Japan at Takumi Town (Fri.-Sun., June 13, 14, 15)

• Justice Sunbird Sticker Fundraiser // Raising funds for the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), a nonprofit organization providing aide in Palestine + support to Palestinian refugees. @unrwausa unrwausa.org

• @jewishvoiceforpeace // jewishvoicesforpeace.org // Jews organizing toward Palestinian liberation and Judaism beyond Zionism

• Ways to support Palestinian creatives, artists, writers, and companies + orgs with actions we can take

© Kimberly Kuniko

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