Tag Archives: Recovery

This Frail Body—A Future Memoir

Sometimes I think about writing memoir. I have notes written. Ideas. Paragraphs. Today, I would call it, “This Frail Body.”

An angiogram on Friday has left me shaken. I’ve experienced far worse medical procedures for sure, as any reader of this blog knows. My reaction is possibly excessive. But it is my reaction and I own it.

Maybe it’s the timing. I’ve had a few good months of very little intervention mostly because this procedure took a long time to get scheduled, not because my problems are over. Maybe it’s a last straw phenomenon. Maybe it’s because the stakes are so high.

I’m on blood thinners, so opening up an artery is a big deal. In preparation for this procedure, I’ve had to administer injections of a drug to “bridge” me off the blood thinner on myself, to my lower abdomen. I did it badly the first time, and I am bruised. An understatement. An area about 8 inches across my soft underbelly is red/black. There are smaller bruises tracing a trail of injection sites. I have to give myself another injection in the next few minutes.

I’m procrastinating.

Rather than become desensitized to the process, I’m becoming increasingly squeamish. I have to do it for a few more days.

Those bruises are now accompanied by several more from Friday’s incursions: blood draws, an IV, and of course the failed attempt to access the radial artery from my wrist and finally the successful access of the femoral site. Oh. And my neck. There was another access site there.

“Access” is an interesting word. The interior world of my lungs and heart have been “accessed,” skin cut, sternum cracked, ribs spread open, pericardium breached, heart and lungs sliced into, pieces removed, pieces added. Four times. These latest injuries are minor by comparison.

They are necessary for this project of continuing to live. “The team” as I’ve come to refer to the medical professionals who help me, is trying to find out if I’m eligible for a “minimally invasive” procedure to fix another failing valve. We haven’t even fully discussed whether I can be opened up again if this turns out not to be an option. The end of the road is within sight, and not in a good way.

“Minimally invasive” is still invasive. And this frail body wants to curl up in a soft bed wrapped in flannel pyjamas and home made quilts. Tea and toast are welcome. So is a little soft music. Maybe a little Blue Rodeo, maybe “Five Days in July.” I want to have a few favourite books on my bedside, read about crows, about other women’s struggles and insights. I want their bookish company.

Maybe someone else in a vulnerable place will want to read about my vulnerability. Maybe they will find solace and sustenance in my bookish company. Maybe I only need to write it for myself. Maybe that is a good enough reason. Maybe it is a task I could tackle soon. But first, more time under the quilts, in the pyjamas. Maybe I’d like the sound of knitting needles working. I’ll turn up the heat a bit and look out the window at the winter rains and in a day or so, feel good enough to make some soup.

(With deep thanks to my daughter and her partner for giving me this exact kind of refuge.)

Too hard to talk about

Fingers and Toes Crossed: The end of Jane’s no good very bad year.

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This story has gone too far. There are too many plot crises. It is, simply, unbelievable.

I’ll try to do this quick. In November 2023, it became apparent I would require heart surgery. My heart was damaged by radiation treatment I received to cure cancer I was diagnosed with in my 40s. As they prepared for surgery and did all of their tests, they discovered my lungs were also damaged by the same radiation treatment. I had lung cancer. Given the state of my heart, they couldn’t operate on my lung and vice versa. It took a while for the medical team to figure out a safe way to move forward. (In fact, for a short time, I was told that there was no safe way to move ahead, nor would they if they didn’t think I would live two years. I spent several weeks believing nothing could be done.) Fast forward: open heart surgery to repair one of my valves in March 2024 and lobectomy in early May. Two back to back major surgeries. Another valve would have to be repaired, but that was “in the future.”

The future came fast. My recovery peaked in August. The second valve was failing and on January 16, 2025, I had a second open heart surgery to replace the second valve. Then, the unthinkable: they had to go back in and fix a problem that happened in that surgery. A week later, I had another sternotomy. This surgery did not have to touch my heart, but had to be done. Trust me: I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have to. That was Saturday. Now it’s Wednesday. I’m sitting up beside my bed. Typing.

It’s a miracle I’m alive. I’m going to settle for that now. Thank you to everyone who has kept me alive and a special thanks to all the friends and loved ones near and far who have kept me in their thoughts. Every time, I felt the Operating Rooms positively crowded with your good vibes. It helped.

Here’s the really wild part: This is not my story; it’s a story I keep getting pulled into. I hope it is ready to let go now. I have things to do, words to write, a garden to grow, a bike to ride, people to love.

Moody Sky

A Heart Too Open

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I’ve been in my health crisis for over a year now. I think it was November 2023 that I learned for certain I would need heart surgery. So much has happened since then, even I can hardly remember it all. Soon I will have a second open heart surgery. It’s getting closer.

For weeks now, I have thought my surgery was imminent. It needs to be soon. But then it is not. I get slower. I try not to alarm anyone so I say I am like an old turtle. This is not a frightening image. But I am getting anxious. I have felt this way before and I know what this is.

As time goes by, the term “open heart surgery” becomes literal. My heart is too open. I feel too much. Everything is sharp. Especially words. After all, I’m still a word girl. This morning, I read the phrase “bed blocker” used to refer to elderly, vulnerable patients in hospital awaiting long term care. How awful is that? Truly heinous. This is how frail people are viewed? I guess so. This is, therefore, how I am viewed. I am a wrench thrown into the machine, an ailing human screwing up the system, a scheduling problem.

People don’t understand the liminality that illness brings. They can’t fathom vulnerability if they’ve always been well. They fear suffering more than anything, believing it will be unendurable. They cannot imagine joy can break through. So they turn away. First from suffering, then from any pain at all, then from discomfort and eventually even from mere inconvenience. I understand. To be inconvenienced is one step closer to discomfort, one step closer to pain, and one step closer to suffering. They want a buffer. This is how I have come to understand ableism. It’s part of the buffer. When I see it this way, I can forgive people’s ableism. But that doesn’t mean I don’t expect people to do better.

We are all human. We are all frail. We are all vulnerable. Suffering is inevitable. It is as inevitable as joy.

I’ll write again in a few months. Meanwhile, I’ll be attuned to joy. I hope you will be too.

Resilient?

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Someone called me resilient.

I’m just doing what’s next. Breathing in. Breathing out. I’m a big fan of breathing.

I try to be grateful for what I have (left) every day. I try. I try not to dwell on what I’ve lost. I try. Focus on the joy. But wow, that takes time. I had to live through pain to do that. That pain changed me. It burned me down to my elements. Maybe you know what that is like. Pain is terrible. Pain takes too much out of me and leaves me without the slightest bit of grace. No one would have called me resilient then. Maybe I don’t really know what resilient means. For now, the pain is mostly over. I’m grateful.

When I’m not in pain, I can focus on joy. The things that are beautiful. Someone said that 80% of what is beautiful and true can be found in a ten minute walk from your house. Flowers in sidewalk cracks. Kids. Dogs. Today I saw an eight point buck in the yard across the street. I realize not everyone is going to see that across the street from them. And he was sitting there like he owned the place. And I think he does. He was so still, I wondered at first if he was a statue. Then he blinked. I don’t know where he came from. Wonderment and curiosity are part of what is beautiful and true. If I had any energy left today, I would walk over there and see if he is still there.

I don’t know what people mean when they say words like “resilient.” I wonder if that buck knows? Is he resilient, living through the loss of habitat and finding a spot to be in someone’s yard? He’s just adapting. He’s doing what’s next. Breathing. Resting.

Maybe the worst word is “brave.” The idea that I have to be brave to live my life, to move forward every day with what I’ve got feels vaguely insulting. Nope. I’m just doing what’s next. Or maybe I’m looking at it wrong. Maybe we’re all brave. I’m no more brave than you when you have to get on a crowded bus or go to that job or to Costco or just live in this f’ed up world. I don’t want to be singled out just because I got sick. I don’t have to be brave to live my life, at least, I don’t have to be any more brave than you do. I have to be gentle. Gentle with myself. Understanding. I have to breathe.

As for “recovery,” that’s a word about nostalgia. To think about recovery is to look backwards, to look to the past. I’ll never be like I was and I don’t want to live in the mental and emotional space where that’s what I’m longing for or that’s the goal. Because it’s impossible. We can’t go back. Time only moves in one direction. I am what I am today. It is not what I was yesterday or last year. That’s the part I’m not supposed to say.

So I say, “Yes, I’m doing better.” Better than what? Better than I was five months ago. Worse than I was a year ago.

I am alive. I’m trying. That is enough right now.

Launch Day! Impact: Women Writing After Concussion

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It’s a big day. Impact is going out into the world after years of work. It carries with it the hearts of 21 writers who share what their lives are like after their concussions and traumatic brain injuries. I am so grateful to each and every writer who made this book possible and offer special thanks to my co-editor, E. D. Morin. I could not have a better partner in this work.

Our thanks also go out to the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting the creation of this work and the University of Alberta Press who believed in it and have done so much to make this dream come true.

Join us for our launch tonight if you can. It will be recorded and available on the University of Alberta Press website.

Also please view and share our videos about the project. They are amazing and another labour of love by the participating writers and by our film editor, Junyeong Kim.

Jane Cawthorne

Writer and Editor