Waiting on medical test results is a next-level embodiment practice. As is an MRI, if one is prone to losing one’s—insert the appropriate-inappropriate word—in spaces the size of a tube sock. An embodiment practice is designed to bring a person’s consciousness into the actual “meat” of the human experience. Walking the dog, paying attention to the environment, waiting on medical test results, being upset about a recent MRI, and sensing the musculature between the toes as the gut rumbles a question about breakfast.
I think of it as mindful, emotionally-present embodiment. Juggling bones, viscera, and a spectrum of emotions as a dog hunts varmints in snow banks, and a flashing danger sign off in the distance announces there may be signs of a medical tornado.
A few months ago, I would’ve said embody-surfing the threshold of the unknowable future was impossible. Even during bucolic periods. For me then, maybe it was impossible. Maybe there was a necessary, but snoozing me-element. And, maybe that missing me-element woke up as trees bent in the wind prior to the medical tornado arriving. Maybe the threat of an onslaught of mayhem brought forth my lost Captain Marvel. And maybe, Captain Marvel knows a thing or two about embody-surfing thresholds.
It’s only a guess.
In slightly over a month, I learned there were potentially cancerous lemon and half-sized lemon masses consuming space in my pelvis and met with an oncologist. I ejected myself from an MRI horror movie and withstood ninety minutes sandwiched in an open-MRI panini grill. Then, I was told my lemons were likely benign, had surgery scheduled to remove benign lemons, and went through a grizzly marathon of pre-operative testing. Twenty-four hours ago, I decided to vote my sweet old lady ovaries off the island because old lady ovaries leasing space to lemons don’t realize they have a tendency to go from casual acquaintances to rampaging murderers. As an aside, and not the point of this essay—isn’t humankind incredibly blessed to have the medical capabilities that science has relentlessly worked so hard to achieve? My decision to evict the ovaries was based on recently updated 2017 research. During this period, I also worked, paid bills, cleaned the house, sent birthday cards, met regularly with a therapist (damn right), shoveled eighteen inches of snow, and waded through deep drifts to the back of the yard to donate to the compost pile.
Thirty-eight days between finding out my sweet old lady ovaries could be harboring murderous lemons and tomorrow, meeting the surgeon for the second time. The doctor in scrubs, manning a six-armed robot, and me, covered by a dish towel under anesthesia. Juggling bones, viscera, and a spectrum of emotions as I undergo my eighth surgery—I only know the number because my mathematically-minded son wanted me to recount how many there had been. My dating life with the scalpel began with removing dormant wisdom teeth, followed by a biopsy of the lining of my uterus, a caesarian section, a pin in my left knee, an ERCP in preparation for gallbladder removal, my uterus dramatically exiting the island soon after, and now two old ladies housing benign lemons. As another aside, and not the point of this essay—though it might be something I write about in the future—survivors of trauma tend to have higher rates of medical issues.
“Captain Marvel” understands our body has done a miraculous job getting to now. This body went through many, many, many murderous lemons in the form of people-encounters, hanging on long enough for the reclamation of pre-birth wisdom we may have thought was lost when the teeth were removed all those years ago. That’s what I believe about this kind of “Captain Marvel” strength, intuition, and wisdom—every human is born with it, and sometimes it goes missing.
I recommend intently watching this trailer. It’ll flesh out my meaning.
Embody-surfing this threshold as the medical tornado rolls through me tomorrow feels incomprehensibly calm. I imagine it is the eye of the storm I am sensing. There are lemons and old lady ovaries preparing to be undone by the surgeon. Captain Marvel is at the helm and advising the rest of me to hunker down until the storm passes.
Is it possible to go through another trauma, an expected and chosen trauma to remove once useful organs, and also rejoice over my reunion with a lost and precious piece of me in the process?
I’m known for my oppositional thinking.
This threshold appears to agree, gently holding the wretched and the blessedly beautiful simultaneously.
Of course, it does.