anti:freeze

I spent a good portion of 7th - 12th grade in clinics and hospitals, teaching myself advanced algebra and trigonometry, reading Shakespeare, and writing research papers while tucked between starched white sheets, waiting in lobbies, or curled up on examination tables.

9th grade was probably the worst. I missed almost the entire year. If I had not scored As and Bs on papers and tests, I probably would have been held back for poor attendance, medical excuses aside.

Doctors sizzled my joints with electricity, glued electrodes to my scalp, watched as I walked down the hallway, listened to the distinct patter of my feet (expecting to find a Parkinsonian shuffle). They slid me into an MRI machine, recorded my sleep in a lab, made me drink tall glasses of barium so they could see inside my guts, experimented with medication, and sent me to psychiatric wards, all to find answers to the old, tired riddles of my life: How come Karrie flops like a fish? Are these seizures for real? What causes the tremors in her right arm? Why don't the drugs stop her migraines? What causes her ice-pick-in-the-eye headaches? Why do her leg muscles sometimes collapse right beneath her? Why do her intestines burn and stab and swell almost every day? What is the rash that heals and returns on a mysterious cycle? Does she have PTSD? What is wrong with this kid?

Meanwhile, boyfriends dumped me like a body in a ditch. Literally. They left me convulsing in dark corners of the school hallway, hoping nobody saw them with the freak girl. Track coaches told me I shamed the entire team when I collapsed in seizure at a meet.

Later, when I ordered my medical charts and read them front to back, back to front, I learned that my parents were in on the joke. They thought I was nuts. They thought the seizures were a phase, one long, horrifically expensive fit. They conceded the headaches: pain made sense to them; seizures did not.

Over the years, I learned to fight against doctors who sought to poke, prod, invade. I have shoved paramedics away. I have demanded full disclosure. When necessary, I have refused to provide my name. But I also know when to lie still and clench my jaw.

When a doctor snipped chunks of flesh from inside me a few years ago - no anesthetic to stop the sharp vagus-nerve reactions - I never forgave her (even though she was right; it turned out I needed surgery.) The problem was not the pain.

So I admire the author Bee Lavender. I relate to her book, lessons in taxidermy, even as I sit in awe of her strength and wisdom. Her medical horror story is infinitely more brutal than any I have ever seen. A list of her ailments (from memory): thyroid cancer, malformed teeth, jaw surgery & subsequent wiring shut of her mouth, surgery for double vision, skin cancer, appendicitis, a genetic disorder, a violent car crash, and lupus.

And yet, she writes without self-pity. Her story is both intensely personal and intently human. Those of us who suffer different (and likely, lesser) medical horrors will nod in recognition.

She, too, has acquired a pugilist posture. She fights and fights for autonomy over her own body.

I am so grateful to have found this book. Everyone should read it.

I will be posting a review of lessons in taxidermy on the reviews, commentary & interviews page of Invisible Insurrection later today. Check it out.