Hot waves of panic lick my diaphragm. It’s 5AM and I know it’s going to be a bad day. I can’t afford a bad day. I owe three pieces of writing and my very full time gig starts back on Monday. But it doesn’t matter because I don’t get to…

I went to the Emergency Room this week. I REALLY didn’t want to. Partly because we’re still in a global pandemic (yeah sorry, I know you were hoping it was over. It’s not… so pull your damn mask over your nose.) Even though precautions are being taken at hospitals and…

“Your tele-health visit is scheduled for Friday at 11:30am. Please be prepared to answer a call from <insert human voice> at the scheduled time…” It’s not the first time I’ve heard this robo-voicemail message punctuated with a single human-spoken word since the world changed in March of this year, and…

Remember high school? It was all about categories. Specific labels and pre-existing groups you could commit to so fully that it was like a built in identity cloak wrapped around your shoulders; a parameter against which you could contextualize everything and everyone else. The options varied depending on your school…

It’s been a year and three months since I underwent a radical hysterectomy at age 35. Hysterectomy. Sometimes I can’t believe we still call it that. I think about it every time I have to say it. Sometimes I slip and joke that they removed my “hysteria,” only no one…

On losing something I wasn’t sure I wanted — It’s been 82 days since I had my uterus and all its appendages removed in what my surgeon and I have affectionately dubbed “not your grandma’s hysterectomy.” Once removed, my fallopian tubes and uterus were found to be so ravaged by endometriosis that my specialist was confident I never would…

Dear My Recently Ripped Out Uterus, I have a box of your stuff. Pads, tampons, a few random boxes of Cyclen you left here. I know it’s awkward, but it’s probably best if you’d come and pick it up so I can move on. The month since you and your…

A week from today I will undergo a full abdominal hysterectomy. I am 35. I have no children. By the time you read this, it will have already happened. When you next see me, I will be sans uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes, which according to an astounding amount of…

This is the story of how I ended up ugly crying in the hospital parking lot yesterday. It’s also the story of how a perceived biological imperative continues to erode my autonomy over my health. I promise, I’ll make it as funny as I can. Yesterday, at the behest of…