She is Bamboo

Content Warning: This post discusses suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and sexual abuse and trauma

My body, this body, how many times she’s nearly not made it. 2006, a bizarre ear infection. The bacteria traveled to my mastoid, a honeycombed bone in the back of my head. The air pockets in the bone filled with strep. They—the surgeons—couldn’t simply slice me open and remove the bone, replacing it with a plate. There’s but a thin membrane between the bone and the brain. Instead, they admitted me, placed me on my side, allowed the poison to drip from the myringotomy tube, saturating my pillow.

As my body released toxic waste, I told myself, These are the lies others have told me about me. Told myself, These are the lies I believed.

It took a full year on antibiotics to recover, regain lost tissue and weight, as my body fought her way back to center ground.

Later, 2021, a sinus infection that wouldn’t quit. Staph flourished, entering my cheek bone. My body endured surgeries, debridements, scraping bones. My body absorbed heavy doses of antibiotics for another year. Again. Bone. Bone near brain. Bone and bloodstream.

Bacteria is natural to the body, but here, in mine, it often rampages. Still she—my body—fought, with and without outside assistance…

continuing reading this article over at Write2Heal on Substack…