The Questions My Rare Diagnosis Papers Begged Me to Ask

I reach into my purse and pull out a piece of paper. It’s a remnant from my doctor’s appointment yesterday, my most recent check-up. White, crisp data. Simple numbers distributed on a page in an orderly fashion. It is so clear to me these numbers and letters don’t possess feelings. My name is at the top, my birthdate and age: 34 years. Thirty-four years. I feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes in these years ­— in the last five alone. It’s dizzying. I notice sorrow creep into my belly. I sigh.

It’s just a piece of inked paper, but for me it is a constellation of cycles of diagnosis and recovery. What’s in a diagnosis? How is a diagnosis acted upon by time, by five years of time?

It’s about to be solstice, the day with the least amount of sunlight, and most darkness. I’ve allowed in both the darkness and the light, because it’s all true. To try to deny any part would be futile. I believe it’s all part of me, stardust, the universe, trying to experience itself in this unique embodied form, in this lifetime, in this human body —this seemingly broken body that I’ve painstakingly put back together again, one tear and laugh at a time. The white paper says: today’s clinical visit summary.

It’s about to be the new year. A new year, as if things change in a day. I guess sometimes they do. On New Years five years ago I was flying to India, intuitively knowing I had to go to shift my life. I was seeking and finding no answers here. So what do privileged people from Boulder do when that happens? Go to India. Go somewhere else to find yourself, to find the part of yourself you already know to be true, but you’re terrified about accepting, so you give yourself a glamorous and culturally-appropriated intervention. Thus, I went to India, because I had an intuitive hit from my future self that I needed help to shift. And I sat in temples and meditated and frivolously stated that I was open to whatever help I would receive. “I’m open.” Just help. Guess I should have been more specific. I started feeling ill two weeks later on the flight home. The white paper says: trip to India is seemingly unrelated.

Now, it’s about to be my birthday — 35. I feel like a crone. I’m not trying to be funny here; archetypically I feel like a crone. Metaphorically, I’ve spent the last five years contracted in winter, and am just now crawling out to feel the rays of sunshine pierce my inner seed. I’ve been under a blanket of snow while my purpose has been working on me. On the outside it looks like I’ve been sparkling, like I’m the model patient, like I’ve triumphed over incredible illness. True. In my past life as an actress I painted on the face; as a patient, I added the smile.

Underneath the surface I went from professional seeker of the silver lining to professional griever. 

I’ve grieved, and grieved, and grieved. I’ve lost, and let go: of my past I didn’t want, of my past I didn’t get, of my future that can’t be my future anymore, of my future that will be, but I’m scared to own. The white paper says: next check-up in three months.

So on this upcoming birthday, as with every birthday, I will have gratitude to be taking another breath, because it is precious. And I will have fear, as with every birthday, of what I will become in this year. Both the potential for another shattering, and the potential for stepping more fully into my expansion. I feel exhausted by the freedom of choice and responsibility that comes with being authentically human. And my specific version of human is to burn brightly, but not burn out, or more accurately, to not burn out again. So what will I become this year as I continue to step into my purpose?

Let’s not forget this piece of paper with scattered data in my hand. This paper tells the tale, of diagnosis, of feeling fragmented, of it not being fair, of slow improvement yet continual destruction over time. It says autoimmune hepatitis, pancytopenia, enlarged spleen. It says to continue Prograf. I feel my doctor’s thoughts pour through the page as he typed the numbers, “You haven’t let your liver disease define you. That’s as rare as your disorder.” There’s the prescription he stapled to the back for a new blood test to see the level of my liver damage. The word “cirrhosis” bleeds from the page and takes flight in the air, and my liver increases its weight in my abdomen.

In the unspoken white of this paper are five years of heartache, pain, not being seen, acceptance, grasping, identity, new identity, discovery, joy. I don’t want to be sick. But I don’t know how to be healthy.

And who am I now? 

Of solstices, New Years and birthdays, of that which dies away and creates new space. Of slowing down, feeling the anxious beating of my heart in my chest at night, because I don’t have time to waste. I could die at any moment. And then there’s another breath. Follow it.

I wonder, how does the seed know about gravity, or how to find the sun, or which way is up? How does it know where to put down roots and where to grow, or where to hold true or expand?

And I wonder, how do I write about this experience, own my experience, and continue to live my experience in a way that can inspire others who are in their own crisis?

I don’t know. I guess I just continue to be.

So I neatly fold the prescription and the piece of paper, and place it delicately in my purse, with reverence, because it holds the last five years of my history. And I find my hand on my heart sensing for my next breath. My cells, my family, my liver, my relationships, the earth beneath my feet, the stars over my head, the seed of my purpose — it all holds my history.

Lead photo source: Thinkstock Images

Follow this journey on Zina Mercil

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