So, I don't Know how to Ride a Bike

I have not ridden a bike since I was about six or so.  I had a pink bike with white tires and white grips and pedals and a Snoopy basket on the front.  I took a pretty bad spill at which point I remember my parents informing me that I was officially too big for my bike.  I could ride my older brother's bike.  

But it was a boy's bike and it had spiky pedals on it and I chose not to.  And then I eventually forgot how to ride a bike.  Having grown quite a bit since then and having recently acquired a bike of my own, I figured it was time to try again.  So, the adage is that you never forget, right?  Time to put that to the test!

Bertha is a different beast.  She's a Schwinn out of the 70s, we gather.  And to be perfectly honest, I expected to take right to it away.  It's not that I wanted to put "it's like riding a bike" down as a proven thing, but I have decent balance in a few contexts and, well, I wanted it to come pretty naturally.

I have no idea what I'm doing.  I get the general idea of not leaning too far forward or too far to one side or the other, but putting it in practice has been kind of tricky.  

I'm thirty-one years old and I'm learning to ride a bike basically from scratch.  My pink bike with the Snoopy basket (it was Joe Cool with a giant strawberry, if we're going to be specific) did not have any gears, and I pedaled backwards in order to brake.  Whelp, apparently I do remember the pedal backwards part somewhere in the back of my mind because I definitely forget to squeeze the handbrakes and get confused when pedaling backward doesn't slow me down.  And as for the gears, I know how to drive a manual transmission car (I've actually driven manual longer than Andy has) so I get the concept of what's happening between torque and such, but I don't know how to "feel" when it's right to shift gears on the bike yet, let alone feel comfortable enough to reach to the middle where the shifter is.  

But on the plus side, my bail reflex is pretty solid.  I can jump off like a champ when I think I'm about to hit one of the parked cars in the lot.  Andy says he jogged more in that first adventure, chasing me for support, than he probably did in the last year.  

And I've already managed to smack my shin the pedal, get a nice bruise going already.  I've counted three, officially from the adventure.

By the end, I was launching much more cleanly.  I could go straight with some confidence, pick up speed, and glide.  But turning, well, that I don't think I quite get, yet.  My weight has to shift differently, and I definitely haven't figured out where to lean.  Not ready for the road yet, certainly, but off to a good start, at least.

Survey says:  I'm learning all over again.  I get the concepts intellectually, but it's going to take some practice.  And I'm willing to take the practice in small lumps.  Andy says that I did far better than he expected, but there's a small part of my pride that twinges a bit when I just jumped off instead of completing a turn correctly and I see a little seven-year-old neighbor whizz by us on their bike.  I'm also not keen on flipping over the handlebars or running into parked cars if I can avoid it maybe a little more so than when I was six--to be honest, my special awareness is either totally there or totally not, and I'm very aware of that at this point in my life.  

There are a lot of little things that need to be remembered all at once: don't lean this way, sit up straight, keep your feet moving, be aware of where traffic is coming from, relax, don't run over Andy, watch out for the ruts in the driveway, brake by using the brakes and not pedaling backwards, figure out how and when the shifter works, don't eat concrete, make sure your helmet is on correctly, amongst others.  I'm having a terrible time trying to balance all of that while literally balancing myself.  

A friend pointed out a comparison recently--I had bombarded him with different ways to improve his swimming stroke, things that I knew how to balance instinctively on a few levels, elements that I had committed to muscle memory without having to think much about them.  The last mile I swam, I was definitely thinking more about these things, why I was positioned the way I was, why I twisted the way I did during the pull phase and how I got into position for the glide phase, etc.  I simply need to grow these pieces for bike riding, build that muscle memory.  

So to that adage, "it's like riding a bicycle: you never really forget," I say that there might be a statute of limitations on there.  Either that or I was always terrible at riding a bike.  Also possible.  More data is needed.

Melvin and Me, Part 12: Representation

I was watching some Netflix the other night and happened to turn on Bright.  It's an urban fantasy, where orcs, elves, and magic exist within our modern world.  There are some interesting thoughts and parallels happening as part of it, but I was very distracted by one character.  

In the movie, there is a man called Poison, the leader of a gang.  Even though he is in a wheelchair, he is a towering figure, with the incredible power he holds in his part of the city.  He is after the magic wand the main characters are trying to protect because he wants to fix his body, to walk again.  And then he yanks up his shirt to reveal that he couldn't even shit like a normal person, showing his colostomy bag.  

The moment was intended to shock you, to make his desperation seem more pitiable and understandable by the extremes of his situation.  The colostomy bag was a gimmick, a device to help push that emotion.  I couldn't shake the discomfort I was feeling from this scene.  

Thinking further, I can only recall two other situations where I have seen ostomies mentioned in some form of entertainment.  One was during a Whose Live is it Anyway? show, where one of the improv artist's battery pack for his clip-on microphone fell on to the table and when the other on stage with him asked "What is that?" he replied "Oh, it's my colostomy bag."  Other people in the audience laughed; I felt my family members casting side glances at me to make sure I was okay.  

The other was featured in Archer.  One of the characters ends up paralyzed due to Archer's selfish negligence, and there is a brief moment or two where we see him with an ostomy as well as a couple of complaints about pissing and pooping in a plastic bag.  This again is a device to make us feel bad for this character's situation, that we understand all the more why he is so angry at Archer for putting him in that situation.  

Pointing out that for a bag change that all looks remarkably clean, but otherwise with good detail.
Also, it was very difficult to find this one, short screen capture.

I don't like my situation, sure, but I accept it and recognize that it is actually a very livable situation.  When I see an ostomy used as a plot device to pity the character, that's not okay that the only image visible of people with ostomies is a face to feel sorry for.  That's ableist as hell.  Thinking about it, that's all too frequently how people with more visible disabilities are shown in movies, tv shows, and whatever else, as a character to feel sorry for or someone that we label as "strong" or an "inspiration" for how they continue to live a life that is normal for them.  The person in the wheelchair isn't there to be your inspiration poster fodder.  The individual with Down's Syndrome isn't there to brighten your day.  The scars of a burn victim are not there to make you feel better about your rough day by comparison.  Finding good representations of individuals that are blind, disabled, autistic, whathaveyou, where they're not there just to add drama or be some kind of plot device to further someone else's character development is tricky.  There are good examples, good stories that involve people with disabilities without exploiting those disabilities because those characters are treated like people and not accessories.  

As a good example, take Toph from Avatar:  The Last Airbender.  Toph is blind but is also a very the most powerful earth-bender, able to channel her other senses to connect with the earth in a different way than others distracted by what they see in front of them.  Her family tried to protect her, treating her with such overbearing concern that she wasn't allowed to do anything for herself; Toph is too strong to stay hidden away and "safe."  There are moments where she struggles and others where she makes sarcastic jokes about her own world.   That's the kind of way to include a character with disabilities, making it part of their normal life and highlighting how they adapt to their world in a positive way.  

People with ostomies (ostomates) aren't nearly as visible as other potential disabilities that the screenwriter could have chosen, for whatever purpose they were considering inclusivity.  Why depend on the audience to understand something comparatively obscure when the instant visual of a pair of crutches does the work for you?  I feel, sometimes, that maybe I'm not a blue person, that because I'm not as visible people cannot know that I have special needs--instead, I feel more like a minority.  It's hard to find good statistics on how many ostomates there are; the trend tends to land between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Americans.  There's another reason my disability isn't a top pick:  it is in no way glamorous.  Dealing with an ostomy is ultimately dealing with bodily waste.  How do you spin that into something interesting for your story?  Well, either a quick laugh about pooping in a bag or to make you feel especially bad for a character, evidently.  

I'll say it again.  My situation isn't sad.  My situation isn't something that I need to you feel sorry for.  I am not asking for special treatment, but I will advocate for the things that I need.  I don't see myself represented in many different spaces, and I am beginning to realize on a deeper level two things for myself that I've been told in other contexts:  a lack of representation leads to a lot of misconceptions and it would be really nice to have some kind of positive representation to point to and identify with.  Even in my experience, I've encountered confusion on why I have an ostomy, that they had believed it was only people who have some kind of cancer that get ostomies, among many ignorant but well-meant questions.

I choose to be my own representation since there is not a large swathe of it in my sphere currently--even the articles I can find are from CCFA, UOAA, or a couple of curiosity pieces in other places, but don't seem to have a broad reach.  Hell, when I was looking at a list of famous ostomates, I only recognized three names.  If anyone has a suggestion where a character in a movie, book, show, whathaveyou had an ostomy but it wasn't used negatively, I'd love to check it out.  So far, I've been writing here to a small but dedicated audience and otherwise starting a lot of interesting conversations.  And for right now, that's not a bad start.  I will do the most I can in the sphere I'm in.  I will make my sphere a safe place to discuss difficult things and ask awkward questions.  I will do that by being bold and by being open and being patient as I educate others.  That voice matters.  That presence matters.  We are a community.

Empathy Hack: "What Else would you Like me to Understand?"

Bouncing off of the last blog post, it occurs to me that some additional strategy might be helpful in generating a welcoming environment for people to open up in.  It is hard to find a place to insert yourself in a conversation, sometimes, when you have something really important or difficult to say, for some people more than others.  Even people who don't have any trouble talking about themselves in general can still have trouble talking about things that truly matter.  

We need space to tell things.  Sometimes, we need to know that we have permission to tell a story.  Sometimes, we're waiting for an invitation, particularly for those places that we really need to feel heard.  It's also hard to find the right way to tell people that you're ready to listen or that the place is safe, without sounding glib or possibly bringing up something that the other person isn't ready to talk about.  

So Andy and I have adopted a phrase that helps us create an open invitation to that space, shamelessly adapted from our therapy sessions:  "what else would you like me to understand?"  This usually comes in the middle of a conversation, once myself or Andy have talked about our day or something that had been on our mind.  Occasionally, it starts the conversation, particularly if we notice that the other is particularly agitated, usually dropping the "else" in that situation.  This is an open invitation to talk about something that we've needed to talk about.  It states an intent to listen and provide a safe forum to talk about difficult things, a space where it's safe to be vulnerable.  

It works pretty well.  Anything that has been resting beneath the surface, the kinds of things that I didn't want to bring up because it wasn't the right time, the parts I didn't want to talk about because I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings, a roiling emotion that I haven't been able to figure out, these concerns are welcome and valid in that space.  Not having to carry those thoughts around any longer is immensely helpful in and of itself, but feeling that I'm heard tends to be what I really need.  I feel valued as a person in that space.  I feel that my concerns are valid in that space.  I know that that person cares for me in that space, because they cared enough to make it.  

I've had an earlier variant of this same kind of idea:  "What is the answer to the question you've been waiting for someone to ask you?"  However, the wording of this, while neat to chew on, tends to confuse people more than the direct simplicity of "what else would you like me to understand?"  The latter does not require the person to put in the form of a question and answer.  "What else would you like me to understand?" leaves it open for vague feelings, frustrations, grievances, weird thoughts, to further discuss something that needs more attention, or a great deal of other things.  

In those moments, where you're having a meaningful conversation or if you want to open the door to one, I encourage you to give it a try.  I cannot promise that the individual will take you up on that invitation--perhaps they're not ready to discuss--but I know that even if I cannot accept an invitation, I'm always glad to receive it.  There might be another time when I truly need it.

The final trick, of course, is actually listening, but that's a topic for another day.

Mind Reading

When posed with the ever-entertaining question of "what would your superpower be?", I have a set answer:  super-speed.  Hands down.  It is easily the most versatile skill, apart from perhaps telekinesis, but with the added perk of an increased metabolism that precludes less of a beer belly than a telekinetic might end out with.  Flying is nice and all, but you'd still get there faster with super-speed AND have most of your errands already done for the day.  Start a fire with fast-friction.  Move something heavy by taking smaller parts of it very, very quickly, or throw something with the force of super strength by accelerating the throw.  And with all of that newly-freed time, do something for yourself.

The one that always confused me the most was hearing people's thoughts.  That confusion stems from a few different points.

1.  How it is portrayed in common media
2. How scattered my own thoughts are
3. The irrational fear of my own thoughts being overheard

Now, I don't know how anyone else thinks, necessarily, but I know that in movies, tv, and the like, hearing thoughts somehow happens in complete sentences (most commonly) or occasionally an interpretation translated without the audience "hearing" it too.  All in all, they're linear conclusions and usually clear understanding.  Now, how I think and how I suspect others think is more nebulous than that, full of half-formed sentences and masses of feeling that aren't interpreted in words (but could be if given time) and a mush of memories and associations mixed in for good measure while still taking in physical sensations around you.  There are times that I cannot make sense of my own thoughts, so I would wonder how in the world someone who was "reading" them could sort it out without knowing the language context into a clear, single statement to report to the non-mind readers in the audience.  

And yet, I would propose that there is some level that we want to have people read our minds.  Well, maybe not all the time, certainly, but maybe at least some of it.  I think there are many things that we would love for others to simply understand without us having to give voice to it or fumble through an explanation.  So in context of my permanent colostomy and levels of depression and anxiety that come along with it (let alone all of my dark thoughts that come along with that) there are some things that I wouldn't want out in certain situations or audiences.  However, there are definitely times where I wish I didn't have to reach out when I needed compassion, that it was suddenly there.  I have pined for people to read my mind and know that I need help.  

This is something both my father and I do--we wait until someone asks us the right question to talk about something that is bothering us.  I've realized over time that this means that some things I really need to talk about end up being left alone to fester.  As I'm learning how to recognize some of those needs a piece at a time, I still don't always know the right way to bring them up.  I'm also trying to increase my understanding of what some of these emotional needs are, learning to ask for support instead of waiting for an invitation. 

More than once I have tried to bring up an important subject with someone only to have it shrugged off with platitudes or my conversation partner redirecting the conversation to themselves.  So, I do take this into account when discussing depression in our society, when I hear persons encouraging people to reach out--this is only half of the equation.  I promise you that people in your lives have been asking for help.  The other half of the equation is that we need to be receptive and open to those responses, make it a safe place for people to be vulnerable.  

If our response to people trying to open up or talk about really important is "You'll be fine" or "I'm sure it'll be okay" or otherwise shifting the conversation away from the person speaking to the person hearing accidentally or intentionally hijacking the conversation (tricks on how to avoid that here), then that effectively shuts that individual down.  It's hard to reach out, but it's especially hard to reach out when you've been shot down from speaking what's really on your mind.  Placing all of the responsibility on the individual hurting to break past their discomfort and depression to put themselves out there makes it more unlikely that they will do so if it is not welcomed with some level of grace.  And on the same coin, no one is expected to read someone else's mind.  It's a balance, the individual reaching out for help and the help maintaining an open, safe place to be helpful.  

It would be nice not to have to ask for help.  It would be nice if people just somehow knew when others are hurting or even what to do.  I can't be upset at people for not reading my mind, much as I would like that shortcut.  I need to advocate for myself in that way.  What I ask is that when someone reaches out to you, that you try to be receptive to it and meet them where they are.  Don't brush off their concerns; sometimes that innocent complaint is hiding something deeper, that your "strong" friends just don't know the best way to ask for help.  And thank you to those that have found their own ways to reach out; thank you to those who have been willing to respond helpfully; thank you to those that love from a distance.  

Let's try not to make people wish for mind readers.

Time Travel

There’s an interesting troupe in sci-fi stories regarding time travel, where the individuals who have gone back in time are obsessed with not affecting any small thing in the past, worried that even a tiny change could cause a time paradox or some kind of irreparable damage to the future by ripping holes in the fabric of space and time.  The other extreme is its own troupe, then, featuring characters trying to prevent some kind of terrible disaster by instigating a very significant change of some kind, such as removing a dictator or stopping a particular event.  Regardless of whether the party traveling back in time intended to change it, we are then usually brought back to the present, the changing persons now the only persons that remember any other history and trying to sort out just what is and what isn’t different amongst others who see their reality as the true “normal.”  And, they almost always go back to change something else, this time with more intent, ultimately invoking more and more change as they try to undo the damage or attempt a different change after the success of the first or whathaveyou.  The story ends with the individual either managing to set everything back to what they were (more or less) or accepting a certain level of changes in their new reality.  

Dealing with timelines and alternate realities is a lot of fun, trying to think about what steps have led characters to be where they are, working to pinpoint the most significant moments that changed everything else.  Moments could be comparatively insignificant in some ways; they could be very obvious, too.  Some story dynamics are strict enough to imply that ANY change, even accidentally stepping on an insect in the past timeline could have drastic consequences on the future.  

Traveling back in time begets more traveling back in time to continue to fix more things, all in the intent of preserving or bettering the timeline.  The tension of the story depends on it.  Outside of these stories, though, people don’t worry about the decisions that they’re making today with quite the same anxiety.  Sure, we worry about decisions and how they might affect us, but we don’t worry about it changing the future.  Does that distinction make sense?  Why don’t we approach the same present, where we are actively creating the future, in the same way we would about preserving the past?

I think some of this is self-preservation, that it is too much pressure to worry about every decision and how it might be changing the future.  However, I think some of this, too, is that we don’t think about it.  We’re wrapped up in so many components at once that we don’t even focus on the present until something forces us back there or we’re thinking of too many things that we want to get to or enough elements at once that nothing is really receiving our full attention.  

There’s a bit of a balance to thinking of the future while living in the present.  How do we encompass enough awareness of the future without being overwhelmed by it or miss out on its creation by being disconnected to our present?  If we live too much in the future, how can we cope with disappointment in our present?  If we live in the past, what decisions for the future happen without us in the present?  How can we cultivate enough awareness to know the difference?  It seems to me, then, that the best thing we can do is make the most solid present that we can, preserving the future as we actively shape it.  What things can we do better today to resist the desire to go back and change it in the first place?  

If it helps, remember that you are a time traveler--traveling at a rate of one second per second, but still a time traveler.  

Melvin and Me, Part 11: My Skin is Angry

Melvin and I have been plodding along now happy to ignore each other for the most part recently.  Sure, I have to schedule in the next bag change and empty out the bag when it gets to be too full, but, as predicted, this is becoming less and less of an event.  However, whether it's from sweat the change in seasons, or something else, I have a couple spots on my skin now that are breaking down a bit around the ostomy site.  The problem is that these spots tend to ooze a bit--weeping, if you will.  This makes the adhesive less sticky.  Any kind of oozing, too, ultimately bothers the skin around it in time.  I've learned that any time I feel an itch underneath that appliance that it might be worth changing early in order to address the irritated skin underneath.  Thankfully so far these spots have not been in areas directly around the seal itself, but it still has been under the flange square, a component of the support around that seal.  In other words, it makes me nervous and more than a little annoyed worrying that the likelihood of potential leaks increases.  I know that irritated skin could eventually spread up further up, perhaps as the cut component of the flange now rubs up against a different area.  Maybe the sweat from my workout (saturated into a tight-fitting stealtbelt) sat against this open area for too long, even when it was exposed.  Maybe a loose but protective covering of gauze is still better.  

Out, foul spot, out!

Actually, this is the spot looking much better than it had been.

I've stopped wearing another layer under my t-shirts, to expose this area more to open air.  I've alternated between a protective bandage and leaving it open.  I've washed it multiple times per day, even with the final remnants of the post-surgery soap.  It's stopped weeping, but it's not going away quickly.  

I resent having to take care of my body sometimes, specifically because of how I have "othered" my body in order to keep parts of me safe through all of my various physical needs (discussed a bit further here and here).  I pay attention to my body only in terms of "what is it now?" laced with impatience and scorn.  And I lose some of my own uniqueness and the full depth of my experience as I do that.  But most of us do that to some extent--we ignore somatic sensation, everything that our body is feeling or doing, until something hurts or doesn't perform as expected/desired.  But how our body opperates in space, how it interacts with our environment, is still an important component of how we experience the world, coloring our perspective with its own particular flavor.  With all the conditioning that I've had to expect my body to be failing in some capacity, there's a lot of missing compassion there for an important part of myself.  Hell, I'll call it "running a systems check" to detach my body from its own humanity, only reading the error report like a practiced pessimist.  In the same breath, I'm also very aware of how much better it is compared to where I've been at other points of my life and grateful to be where I am now, just to make it more complicated or maybe just to add some guilt for being down on those hurting parts of me that aren't imperfect simply to inconvenience me.  

Practically, it's another thing to watch out for--debating between talking to my ostomy nurse or a dermatologist first currently.  Emotionally, it's another thing to do and be worried about.  I've been increasing the frequency of bag changes, partly because this means that I'll be washing the area more thoroughly and swabbing with some skin protectorant, particularly since I just received my next shipment of ostomy supplies.  

**Mini-Rant** So, I went to recorder my ostomy supplies, but due to some minor credit card fraud recently, Andy and I had to get a replacement card for the one that I happened to have on file there.  I updated this information prior to completing the order, but something was still not going through correctly.  I received some notifications and a couple of voicemails.  However, when I called the number listed in the voicemails, I had three solid minutes of advertisements, where I had to opt out of insurance, AT&T universe or something like that, and a few other things.  I hung up in disgust.  I'm trying to order MEDICAL SUPPLIES and they're trying to sell me shit.  My cart had $400 worth of ostomy supplies and they wanted to know if I wanted to watch more sports channels?  I found a different number to call in and sorted out the issue, but I'm still looking into the right avenue to clarify that this was decidedly not okay.  **End Mini-Rant**

With summer starting to show its face, I reckon that sweat, sunscreen, and water are going to be a different component to consider with my ostomy--not that I couldn't go swimming or enjoy the outdoors, but that I will need to be cognizant of what my skin's needs are to maintain that area as well as possible in the process, listening with a more gracious ear than I had been.  

Of course, I'll keep you posted.  Gross pictures and all. ;)

Unclench

Andy and I ended up spending at least part of our anniversary weekend starting to go through our kitchen.  There are a number of different things that we’ve held on to, a number of items that had very good intentions but are not used practically or otherwise are not in a place where we can easily get to them.  There’s one cabinet we refer to as “the black hole,” one of those corner cabinets with a tiny door but a lot of space, the kind of space where things go never to be seen or heard from again.  This tidying process, therefore, is two-fold:  we’re clearing out different pieces that we don’t actually use and we’re reorganizing the things that we do.  Thus begins the analysis of what we need, what we want, and what we’re actually going to use and putting it in a place that has the best functionality. 

I have two modes—there’s treasure mode, where I want to keep everything because it has a story, and there’s purge mode, where I am happy to remove anything that I haven’t used in the past week.  Understandably, we seem to get the most done when both Andy and I are in the latter, and we’ve definitely started that direction.  In my brain, I’m approaching the process with “what would I be upset to end up unpacking if we were to move?” 

This is easy in some places—the extra microwave can find a new home; the rollerblades neither of use can be donated; the dresses that are a size or two too large can be donated, too.  But I hit a wall when I went into the bathroom.  I have a stock pile of medical supplies.  IV sponges, topical analgesics, tape (about six different kinds, actually), gauze, sterile saline, “chucks,” wraps, pre and post surgery soap, and a number of other things, stored away in Styrofoam container that once shipped my temperature-sensitive medication.  The container itself was well-organized, lines of different sizes of gauze and items tucked away neatly, and it was normally high up in the bathroom cabinet, out of the way but ready when needed. 

I pulled it down this week and actually started to look through it.  Some of the saline was dated back to 2014.  While I don’t expect saline to go “bad” in the same way as I would other things, I recognized that I genuinely did not have need for it right now and clearly had not in over four years.  But it was still harder to go through that bin and decide what I should keep than it was to go through than any part of my closet.  Hell, this is even the second or third time through some of these pieces.

I can unclench my fist.  I can let go of some of the plan C and plan D options that I’ve kept. 

When I get sucked back into my trauma vortex, one of my main responses is to freeze.  This makes sense—I was in many situations where I could not move for safety’s sake, whether it was holding still to allow for the precise placement of a needle or a stitch or simply because everything hurt too much for any movement to be “safe.”  I’ll still move my arms and legs, but my torso will stay as immobile as I can possibly manage.  My therapist has suggested trying to, if I feel safe, do some movement, try a couple of small stretches just to remind the muscles and consequently myself that it is safe to do so.  I can unclench.  The fist that I didn’t realize that I was making; the particular flexion of both of my feet even as I’m “relaxing;” a clenched jaw and tightened temple; the breath I didn’t know I was holding; I can let those muscles relax.  I don’t have to steel myself all the time.

And it’s scary, to try to move or allow those parts to relax when my instinct and training has been to stay frozen to protect myself, to isolate my torso to prevent more pain, prevent more damage.  In thinking out how to describe this, I am consciously wiggling in my seat more than usual as I find myself locking up again, needing to remind myself physically as I try to work through the emotional element of remembering what it feels like to be in that space.  It’s not a nice space.  There are certain images that I immediately go back to, certain places, specific sensations—a particular series of stretches in my torso help me remember that I’m not there anymore, ground me where I actually am once again.  I’m learning to listen for those indicators.

Digging through my old medical supplies, sifting through old medical paperwork, it happens to put me back there, back in those unwanted, dark places remarkably fast.  It seems weird to hold back tears as I’m dumping out the partially-used bottle of sterile saline or squirting out the remains of the pre-surgery soap; this required pausing from time to time, a few careful body rolls to remind myself that it was okay to move, and a fair bit of mental coaching just to empty this damn box.  I kept parts of it—gauze and tape are always useful—but I cleared out most things that were specific to the worst of my medical disasters. 

It was time to let these pieces go.  It is hard to convince myself that it is safe to do so. 

I have four (five?) of these little red pillows (pictured in this post) that I received after each abdominal surgery, an object used to apply positive pressure against sneezes, coughing fits, and laughter so that any new stitches would hurt a little less.  I wanted them partially to have them around the house in the event they might be needed again and partially as a pride factor, that I had earned these small consolation prizes through my sufferings.  I’m still keeping one, but I don’t really need the whole set.  Shedding these when I had honestly needed them in strategic locations around the house is hard, too.

Even after that major sifting, I know that there is more that I will still go back and get rid of, that this will be a continuing process trying to find the balance between being prepared and being paranoid.  I give myself permission to be afraid of falling apart again. 

But, I can in the meanwhile downsize my full pharmacy to a corner store.