cmdreamer

This year I felt myself break into a million pieces like the puzzles I used to complete with my Grandmother in the mountains. We’d marvel at the masterpiece we created and it always looked better than it did on the box. 

I would run my fingers over the bubbled pieces and marvel at how everything fit just right. Perfectly cut and perfectly placed. And then we would break it apart to put it back in the box. Up on the shelf it went, broken but preserved. 

But I didn’t just fall apart, I shattered. Pieces of me are lost forever in moments I wish I could forget but are burned into my mind. It started off so small that I didn’t realize so much of me was missing until I started to cut myself on the jagged edges of my anger. Razor sharp with a razor tongue, my rage masked the deep loss of who I was before I walked into that hospital. Before it all changed.

The first piece was taken from me when I was forced out of my body. Watching from the outside as I writhed on the table in pain. I never made a sound because I didn’t need to. My body’s uncontrollable shaking spoke for me. There was nothing I could do and I couldn’t take it anymore but they had to get the catheter placed. They just had to. 

When they finally got it, I remember someone clapped like they had performed a miracle. Like the violation of my body was something to be celebrated and I should be grateful.

My sight was the first sense to fully return. The walls were white but not white enough that they felt clean and fresh. In fact, I’ve been in enough hospitals now to say that they feel sterile but not clean. Nothing that happens in them constitutes that word in my opinion. 

I saw the doctor who clapped holding up the drainage bag. She was talking and I was nodding but it was like we were underwater. I didn’t understand a word she said. Out of the corners of my eyes I saw the four other doctors and nurses move around me to discard everything I had sullied as though they could ever erase the feeling of death in the room. 

My sense of touch came after. I was freezing and tight. Bending my limbs to sit up and start my move off the table was like bending the limbs of a fresh out of the box action figure. Except I felt completely used. 

I shakily got off the table and finally heard something. “You did great.” 

After a procedure like that, they make you change back into the clothes you came with. The clothes I hadn’t expected to take off when I first got there. I could hear them shuffling out there, working to make the room seem like I was never there. I wanted out as soon as possible but I was stuck staring at myself in the mirror holding my clothes. 

I couldn’t cry but I felt the pressure behind my eyes like it was only a matter of time. The bag that was now attached to my right leg was filled with red liquid and I felt the urge to throw up. “It’ll pass,” they had said. In my nightmares, I see blood. I don’t know if it ever really passed. 

I put the clothes on but felt like an imposter in them. Staring back at me was me but my eyes were different. Distant like I was still in the corner of the room, watching myself from afar. I needed to get out. 

Much later as I laid on the couch, uncomfortable and drained, I remembered something they said to me as I was leaving. Once I exited the bathroom, dressed in clothes that no longer felt like mine, I asked them about what I should wear. I had meant to say “to school, to work” but I guess I forgot to add it.

“Just wear sweatpants! They’ll hide it no problem.” 

Surprisingly, I think that’s the exact moment the first piece was taken. It was a life sentence of a loss of autonomy. 

From that moment on, I can only speculate when the other pieces went missing. It could have been every time I had to wait, hunched over in pain, waiting to be seen in the ER. Surrounded by more not white enough walls. 

Or maybe it was one of the times my bag unhooked. Was it the time I was putting children’s leggings away at my retail job? It was closing, thank God. One wrong movement and the bag on my leg tried to hang itself up. I ran to the bathroom holding the tube as tightly as I could but the damage was done. The manager that day was a friend and I laughed about it with her. I made a joke of it and counted my blessings that the store was closed. I apologized to my co-worker and explained what had happened. Because how could I not? It felt shameful to hide it.

I went home and I was off. My mom could tell. She tiptoed around my feelings until I dropped my napkin and burst into tears. It was such a small thing, something I can actually laugh at now, but some days I can reach out to that memory and touch it. It feels relevant, alive. And I feel that despair like an ache in my bones. 

It could have also been the day I got my suprapubic catheter placed. Laying in the same room where the foley was first placed, holding my mom’s hand so tight my fingers went numb. I was fully awake, eyes screwed shut, as a grown man placed all his weight on the end of the spiked tool. The “sharp” part was placed directly on the spot I would forever be open to the world and if I wanted to, I could turn my head to see the ultrasound. A visual of my bladder refusing to be perforated, fighting back against this foreign invasion.

I don’t blame it. I wanted to fight back too. 

My head was spinning by the time they finally got the tube in. The dizziness came from the fact that at some point, my curiosity got the best of me and I did look at that ultrasound. 

My mom left the room as soon as she could. She was terrified to let go of my hand but even more terrified that any more time in this room might lead to her body on the floor. I get it. I hated this room too. 

This time, I asked questions. “How do I care for it? How long do I need gauze? When can I take a shower? What are signs of infections to look out for? What can or can’t I do now?” My questions were thorough and their answers were vague. I was completely left in the dark.

“Just wash it like a normal body part.” 

“Until it stops bleeding.” It still bleeds every once in a while and that is apparently normal. 

“Tomorrow.”

“Redness, discharge, or swelling…but you’ll have all those things for a few days.” I had all of these for weeks. 

“You can do everything.” With research I found that there are things I should avoid. Like swimming in lakes for instance. Makes sense. 

With those ridiculously unhelpful tips I went to the bathroom to change. The experience was similar to the last. I watched myself in the mirror as though I was watching a video of someone else. She mirrored my movements, but I couldn’t feel farther from her. The bag was red again.

But in reality, it might have been the days that followed.

“You’ll be back to normal in three days.” 

To this day, I remember those words piercing my mind like bullets. There was nothing I could do to evade the onslaught of dark thoughts that covered me in netting, trapping me and holding me down. There must have been something wrong with me because by day three, I was still bed-ridden. I was still in pain. 

It was probably 2 weeks in when I started to feel truly defeated. The internet had been more forgiving, stating that by week 2 the incision would be healed. It wasn’t. In fact, I was still feeling the tearing tug of a stitch every time the catheter moved, every time I moved. It bled through gauze, my clothes, and I was nauseous all the time. But, according to the nurses and doctors, I was fine. It was “my normal.” 

By week 6, I finally felt relief. I could reach down and pick something up without pain. To be honest, I still felt pain then and I still feel it now, but going from a constant burning to the occasional stab is a win. I cried when I put my shoes on for the first time. 

As you can see, there’s a few times those pieces could have been lost. All I know is a few months ago, as I pieced myself together, I wondered if I’d ever feel whole again. If I’d ever move past the grief of the missing parts of me. 

And then it was Christmas Day. A day that I have a complicated history with. 

Someone has been missing from this day for 6 years. I feel his loss like I feel the loss of myself. For 5 years, this day felt like a chore. A day to get through, smile through, survive through. I’m used to those kinds of days. 

But as I sat there watching my siblings and parents open up their gifts, I realized that a weight had been lifted. I wondered if it went with the pieces. 

Then it hit me just as the clock struck 12:00 am on New Years. The puzzle is complete. I am complete.

The pieces I lost were part of a puzzle on top of mine. A picture created to be accepted by the masses. A protective shield to keep myself safe from judgment and perception. This year shattered me into a million pieces. And because of that, people saw me for everything I am and everything I’m not. It forced a vulnerability that I’ve craved for years. One that deepened connections with others and with myself because for once, I could be fully seen. 

When I look in the mirror now, I see me. And no, the clothes still don’t look right. So, I threw them out. I found clothes that do. 

In this story of annihilation there is a story of self-discovery. I still believe parts of me were left littered in all my worst moments but I can see the picture more clearly now. I can confirm that it does in fact, look better than the one on the box.