In ten days, provided everything goes properly to plan (please God), I will be undergoing top surgery. I've been ping-ponging from doctor's office to doctor's office, tithing samples of blood and piss, listing all the medications I take and what they're for, having my heart and lungs listened to, getting weighed; there has been a sense of loneliness to every one of these visits that I cannot shake, and one that only increases as my surgery date grows closer. It took a conversation with a friend to help me tease out why this is, and ultimately, it's pretty obvious: making an active choice to undergo an elective surgery to alleviate the dysphoria that's dogged me for over half my life is one that, no matter how much support I have, is my choice alone. I am lucky enough to have quite a lot of support in this instance, but I myself made the decision to make a consultation last year, and next Friday, I'm the one going under the knife.
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People keep telling me that I will feel "more like myself" once the surgery is done. I understand what they're getting at and don't fault anyone for saying it. Obviously, though, this has sent me into a giant mental vortex about what my "self" is, whether there's a "pure" and "true" Will that's waiting to be discovered once my tits are removed and what that new understanding will entail.
I don't know, though. I can't really speak fluently on any theoretical version of the self, but I know my own experience with desperately trying to uncover my "true" identity, the real, authentic "Will" over the span of literal decades, and I've had no luck whatsoever. Perhaps this is because my own life has been a wild zigzag of unusual and distressing experiences – moving abroad and back, mental health issues, addiction, and, of course, the ramifications of losing my legs. How do you pin down a true "self" when you keep getting whipped this way and that as life rapidly changes in ways you can't control? Is the search for the "true self" a needle in a haystack sort of thing, a drilling-to-the-earth's core mission, or maybe some sort of Escher drawing where the very point is how baffling it all seems?
But...! On the other hand, I have control over this particular major change in my life, and barring some medical incident or surgery cancellation (again, please God), it will be a net positive experience. I almost fear the emotional intensity of it – the mental state of dysphoria I've struggled with for two decades will be physically culled from me, like necrotic flesh of the soul. Right now I can't bear to look at a photo or reflection of myself that includes my chest. It is a literal physical sensation of anguish. How will it feel to go to sleep with that and wake up with it gone, permanently, for the rest of my life?
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Tomorrow I have to go to the cardiologist for one final test. Assuming I'm not dying of a heart thing, I'll then have full medical clearance for the surgery, and after that I'll go pick up my oxycodone from the Myrtle Wyckoff CVS and probably get a taco from across the street and come back home and rest. I will be by myself the whole time, likely stuck in my head, likely anxious and a little lonely as I pick my way across the icy pavement.
Often enough I'm asked how I feel about the upcoming surgery. Frankly, I don't give a shit about the thing itself – this will be something like my twenty-fifth one (I wish I were exaggerating for effect). I know how to prepare and what to expect in the strictly medical sense, I know how it feels to be rolled on a gurney into the surgery theater and told "three two one" before waking up hours later with my body changed. That's fine. What leaves me anxious is the fact that I am about to face another clear-cut mental and physical "before" and "after", another bodily alteration that will fire me out of a cannon into very much uncharted emotional territory. I'm not sure I'm ready – honestly I'm not even sure what "ready" entails.
An "emotional journey", I guess. I roll my eyes: another one? Yes, Will, another one. Having thought about it, though, I have to let it be a journey and not a search, not for the meaning of my life or the essence of my self or what I "really" want and need. I know myself, know that if I put too much onus on trying to find absolutes I'll just keep flailing in feelings of disconnect and failure. My accident turned me into somewhat of an absurdist – I don't think the universe really gives a shit – but I see it as a positive turn. I give a shit and I continue to discover shifting forms of meaning as my life passes. And so it goes with this surgery.
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Ideally there will be a part two to this blog post in a couple of weeks or so. Maybe three, I don't know how long it'll be before I have the mental and physical energy. We'll see. As I'm pretty sure I've made clear, I have no idea how I'm going to feel afterwards. I mean, after all this rigmarole about my life changing radically once it's done, maybe I'll just heal up and get on with things. Who knows!
To be honest, I'm a little scared, a feeling I'm sure will only increase as the day grows closer. I know I'm not alone, in the sense that people I know will support me while I'm resting after the procedure, that thousands of other people have had the same surgery as me and so on, but just as well, this whole process coalesces into a sharp and visceral understanding that I and only I exist in my body, and that my actions are mine alone. I've decided to do this to and for only myself, whoever that "self" might be. That's how it should be, and in two weeks, if I have my way, that's how it will have been.
i love u so much bro!!!!
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