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A friend recently asked me to find an article I wrote back in 1998 about having a hysterectomy; she was now facing the same procedure. I also recently delivered a version of this at a writing conference in Denver for a panel on "Sick Humor." Originally titled "A Womb With A View," it was published first in The Hartford Courant.
I'll answer your most important question first. Yes, I did get a second opinion. And a third, and a fourth, and they all said the same thing: For goodness' sake, have the operation, there's nothing else to be done. So please don't tell me there are other ways to do this, even if you believe that through meditation, osmosis, feminism, exercise, herbal teas or the systematic collection of certain retired Beanie Babies, I can be cured without surgery. I'm having the surgery and I need you to wish me well, OK?
The operation I'm having is a hysterectomy. They are removing what I refer to as my ``bits,'' those decidedly female organs wherein are lodged fibroid tumors the size of Delaware: items that are small for a state but on the largish size for carrying around under your belt.
I'm losing my uterus and ovaries, which is sort of like losing your house keys; something pretty essential and familiar will disappear -- poof -- while I'm not looking. Unlike house keys, I'm not about to have another set made. These were factory-issued parts and they are irreplaceable. The best I can do is deal with the loss and get on with my life.
Which poses an interesting question: What, if anything, am I losing? It's tricky.
My husband got into Serious Trouble when he compared my hysterectomy to an appendectomy. ``They're taking out a part of you that you've never seen, and since it is a part that isn't working right, isn't that an easy option?''
The answer is no, although I've been trying to decide precisely why the answer is no for a couple of months now. No, I'm not planning to have babies nor do I have principles preventing me from removing what ails me. So why should it be troublesome? A no-womber should be a no-brainer, right?
I'm scared, that's the problem. I'm scared of surgery -- as I always say, ``elective surgery'' has always been an oxymoron in my family, sort of like ``jumbo shrimp'' or "academic salary"-- and I'm particularly wary of anything that will touch what I've regarded as the sort of mainspring of my life.
I guess, to put it in architectural terms, my uterus and ovaries have always seemed like a load-bearing beam, crucial to the integrity of the infrastructure. I've come to think of them as inside information; I've come to regard them as buried treasure. Not that I've celebrated every period -- I have not gone out and bought red balloons on the fourth week of every month or anything -- but I've come to view cycles as vital and viable measurements of time, as small flags in the book of my life, as small markers that I can trace all the way back to the end of childhood.
But don't let me romanticize too much. There's a lot I won't miss. I won't miss concealing tampons on my person at all times as if they were unlicensed weapons (giving a whole new meaning to feminine protection) and I canceled my subscription to ``Menopause Today,'' a monthly magazine published irregularly (with some really small issues and some really full ones).
So, having cleared that up, this is what I need to say: that with everything else -- the emotional, the superstitious, the political, the historical, the pharmacological -- surrounding this event for me, the absolutely last thing I need is to be embarrassed about naming it for what it is.
When I wrote a note to my (male) boss requesting a medical leave, I thought more about his reaction to the news of this operation than my own: I feared that he would wince and shudder at the very idea. I felt badly for him. Yet if I were having a bypass performed or a gallbladder removed, I believe I wouldn't have cringed. I would have announced it as a challenge to confront and overcome: I could see it as a battle I could win with courage and fortitude.
I find myself - all that feminist theory aside -- needing to overcome the temptation to regard this hysterectomy as a kind of punishment, or penalty, or fine, or tax, for being female. You know when they put a ``boot'' on your car's tire when you haven't paid your parking tickets? Something metal, with teeth, not letting you move, but nothing -- they tell you -- to be scared of? That's what this feels like.
No, the loss of my ``bits'' isn't what worries me as much as the idea of the loss of myself.
You see, a whole bunch of women in my family have died before they turned 50. When I go for checkups and have to fill out those forms asking you to list your family history, I feel embarrassed to hand them to the nice office personnel, all of whom glance at them and then look at me as if they'll never see me again, as if to say, ``If I were you, honey, I wouldn't buy any green bananas.''
I have no interest in becoming yet another female family member to cash in her chips before the game is over; I'm having too good a time and I intend to cling fiercely to life, given half a chance. And this, I believe, is one of those chances. So I'll wallk around with an empty purse--I'll travel light, and maybe travel longer.
Twelve years later: No regrets, no problems, no second-thoughts, and still buying green bananas.
