Vol. 58: Blood Not Funny

Today’s newsletter features a flash personal essay on my intense medical scare! Fun times! If this is not for you, please take care of yourself and feel free to scroll down until Books, Books, Books - I’m excited about the books & small businesses I’m featuring this week, and would hate for you to miss them.

CW: Medical trauma, dysfunctional uterine bleeding

This is a story I’ll tell over & over again until I get it right: In 2015, I started bleeding and didn’t stop. I was a few days shy of my one year anniversary of living in DC. I was nine months into a long-distance relationship with the girl who would become my wife. I had a normal period that ended, then restarted. Heavily. I leaked in my friend Shannon’s Jeep as she drove us back to DC after Thanksgiving. I cleaned up at a rest stop on the Pennsylvania turnpike, embarrassed; I didn’t yet know that I would be bleeding for the next week, that I’d require seven blood transfusions because I was so weak, that I’d have surgery.

I could tell you how when Shannon finally drove me to the ER two days later, I waited so long for someone to see me that I leaked on the ER bed and all over the hallway. I could tell you about the doctor with purple glasses who looked in between my legs, said, “Wow, if you hadn’t told me it’d been a month since you have sex, I’d have thought something tore!” I could tell you how my hemoglobin was just over what I needed for a blood transfusion in the ER, so they sent me home - only for me to pass out and go back during the same nursing shift. I could tell you about the eight hour wait for my first blood transfusion or the nurse that asked me to cut my own pill in half when I could barely sit up. I could tell you how, after several days of me not getting better, my mom, an OB-GYN at University of Michigan, flew to DC and I instantly felt comforted in her presence. I could tell you how when she arrived, we suddenly had the head of the GWU OB-GYN department in my room listening to my horrible experience at her hospital. I could tell you about my uncle, cousin, roommate, and the friends who visited me during those days in the hospital. Some of those friends I’m no longer in touch with but will always remember what they taught me about how to show up. Elise arrived almost immediately and folded up onto a chair at the foot of my bed. Noa brought Burt’s Bees Face Wipes and Diet Dr. Pepper for my mom. Sarah brought a heating pad and a framed photo of my girlfriend. I could even tell you how years later I told a version of this story on Capitol Hill, speaking out against bans on birth control. Ultimately I had a D&C, they implanted a Mirena IUD, and I haven’t bled since.

Too many people with uteruses have a story like this. It’s even more upsetting how many of Black women I know struggle with bleeding, abnormal period pain, pregnancy complications or more, and their pain is exacerbated by healthcare professionals who don’t trust that they know their own body. I had an awful time that was littered with the privileges I experience as an upper middle class white, ablebodied, thin and cis woman - at the same that I experienced the unique ways my gender & queer identity played out.

Here’s what I could tell you that isn’t quite mine to tell: As I was wheeled away for my D&C, my then-girlfriend called to tell me she’d come out to her mom. Scared and struggling so far from me, she told her mom that she had a girlfriend who was in the hospital. It was a big moment that both was and wasn’t about me. After my surgery, her mom never asked how I was doing.

When I went to the doctor to replace my IUD in December 2020, it had been exactly five years since my then-fiancée’s mom found out about me. I still hadn’t met her. Though it had nothing to do with me as a person, I often took it personally. It's hard to feel like a team when the closest people in her life didn't know me or pretended I didn't exist.

My method of birth control is lesbianism, but my IUD has meant peace of mind each month, so I decided to replace it upon expiration. Despite growing up with two doctors as loving parents, my previous experience created healthcare anxiety that I haven’t been able to shake; this was only exacerbated by my COVID anxiety. I was completely sedated when they put the first IUD in; over the years, when friends would ask my advice prior to getting their IUD, I never had an answer. Compared to bleeding out, the light cramping was nothing. But this time felt different. My fiancée took the day off work to come with me for the procedure. The nurse practitioner listened as I expressed my fears about my first time getting an IUD while awake, and then kindly explained that Mirena has been extended approval for up to seven years. "You can see how you’re feeling in a year or two," she said, "but we don’t need to do it now."

This is the story that’s still being written: On Friday, nearly seven years since my hospital stay, I’m going to replace the Mirena. Since 2020, I’ve married my wife and met my now-Mother in Law. We’re still getting to know each other, but she’s witnessed the love her daughter and I share. She’s accepted me as her daughter’s partner. When I was sick with COVID this past spring, she called me to see how I was feeling.

Books, Books, Books

• Currently reading: Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong is absolutely amazing. This is a scrapbook-style memoir featuring essays, photographs, interviews, podcast transcripts and commissioned artwork looking at Alice Wong’s upbringing, community, and work as a disabled Asian American. Wong is both brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny in her sarcasm. Highly recommend!

• Recent reads: I picked up A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres at the library since Traci has been promoting how good it is for years. It was the perfect book to read during my return to work - totally unputdownable and darkly fascinating. Sheeres handles with care those who were manipulated by Jim Jones. Content warning - the final scene was very hard to read. 

• In solidarity with the HarperCollins Union strike, I will be holding blurbs for all HarperCollins imprints until there is a fair contract! Shoutout to worker’s rights - you shouldn’t have to give up a living wage to work in the book world.

Small Business Corner

BOOKed Trips is a travel community for women who love books. The founder is the brilliant, well-read & well-traveled Jalisa, who curates intimate group trips with experiences anchored in a book by a woman of color. She just announced a 2023 trip to Bogotá inspired by one of my fave books of the year, The Man Who Could Move Clouds. Follow BOOKed Trips on Instagram and sign up for her newsletter for more. I’m dying to go on one of these trips, they look amazing!

We’re approaching the end of year gift giving and Libro.fm has the perfect gift for your fave commuter, runner, or minimalist who is hard to shop for. Libro’s credit bundles (formerly known as gift memberships) now come in 2-($30), 3-($45), 6-($90), 9-($135), 12-($180) and 24-credit ($360) packs. You also get a free seasonal audiobook for yourself when you buy a gift credit bundle! You can shop using my affiliate link here.

Self & Community Care

The Emergency/Tough Times Guide is a brilliant idea featured in Anne Helen Peterson’s newsletter on how you can foster a community of care among your loved ones.

Close Out & Gratitude

That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for reading and thank you to my wife for again trusting me with sharing a bit of our story. Today’s subject line is inspired by my favorite YouTube video which, 15 years later, I still find absolutely hilarious.

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