thank you for health

I went to the doctor today for the first time in years. I've had this uncomfortable panicky feeling at the thought of going to a doctor. Nothing's wrong--just going in for an "annual" check-up. And yet the whole process seemed overwhelming.

As I sat in the waiting room, I felt the familiar ache of hospitals. Nights and nights in the hospital with Derek, wondering what was on the other side of it all.

In the exam room, I hugged the light gown to myself, knees tight. I imagined running. What if I just left? Well, it certainly wouldn't be flattering to run down the hall with my backside exposed, & that was enough to stay put, as if holding myself in would keep me from exposing my own skin.

When the doctor came in, the questions started. The only thing worse than the inevitable physical investigation of my only body is the line of questioning about my body and what I've done to it and how it reacts to my life. Why, in that moment, does my skin feel foreign?

I was thinking today before I went that it kind of amazes me that we wake up in the same morphing bodies every day.

After what felt like too much time, the doctor handed me a piece of paper: take this to the lab, then take this to scheduling. At the lab, a lady sat me down and asked for an arm. "I think there's a vein here," she said, wrapping a band around my arm. I read a historical piece on the wall about phlebotomy as she stuck the needle in. "You aren't afraid of needles, are you?" I looked down at my tattoos and laughed. "Of course not," she said. "Maybe we should try the other arm," she said as the vial remained empty. "Sorry to stab you twice." I watched in a trance--the red, deeper than I thought, run into the small plastic tube.

The pressure of the needle under my skin brought Derek to mind once again. How many times had they connected his veins to lines and tubes? And that's just needles--what about the trach? The feeding tube? The catheter? He had all of these externally internal remedies for a microscopic mutation festering in his cells.

The body was not made for all of this.

When I think about death, I think about what happens to the body--the pain it undergoes, the struggle that ensues. I wonder what it feels like to be so connected to scientific life sustainers. I never want to find out. When I think about personal care, I know that if I had a choice, it would always be DNR. The body is weak; it does not wish to be beat to be barely alive.

Thinking of all that Derek went through, I am ever more grateful for my health, and my fear of a small trip to the doctor seems silly, but it's the thoughts of him that make it frightening--how strong he had to be because he had no choice.

 So this is it, what's on the other side of the hospital comings and goings--fear of the body, sadness in knowing a small fragment of the ache, a deeper ache in being alone (without him plus the doctor's questions: looks like you wrote you live alone? And you're single?), and then the return to the bright outside. Like the day that he died, and I stepped out the automatic doors, surprised that there could be a sun in the sky after the sterile lights had emptied me of all emotion.

A hot day in summer, a long walk to the bus, a dog at the park, a cool evening on the couch, a small spot on each elbow crease. Like the spot on Derek's hand, covered in makeup at the funeral, makeup that I rubbed off with my fingers that would not let go. But did. And back to the sun-- days coming and going.

It's almost August.