Braised Uteri

It’s always interesting to me when there’s a crisis or problem in my life, how few people I consider close to me will actually check on me. I don’t mean stopping by my house with flowers and baked goods. I mean, simply, when they see me, ask me how I’m doing.

You don’t just start taking a medication that scares the bejesus out of you, one related to others that killed a loved one, without major trepidation. And I could tell by the looks on the faces of my friends when I told them about starting this that they knew how serious and frightening this therapy was to me. They were nearly as frightened as I was. So, when, five weeks later, hardly a one of them has even asked in passing how I’m doing, and no one even peeps when I’m in the bathroom every half-hour at work dealing with one gastro-intestinal problem or another, it kinda makes me wonder.

Have they forgotten? Have they been wrapped up in their own little world and don’t notice that I’m spiking a fever everyday, have dime-sized bruises all over my body, am popping pills, constantly eating to fight the nausea, and walking funny because the diarrhea is making my guts ache and leach blood? Are they afraid to ask because they don’t actually want to know?

It’s not like I’m depressed about it. It’s not like they have to worry I’m going to start bawling on their shoulder and tell them I’m afraid of dying. The worst that’s going to happen is I’ll say, “I feel shitty. I’m nauseated a lot, spend a lot of time in the bathroom, feel tired, feel weak, and evidently my hormones are going to get all fucked-up because it blocks estrogen production, or something like that, and I do not play nicely with progesterone, so things are going to be ugly for one week of the month, but overall, it could be worse.” There. Was that so bad?

But a few people have asked me how things are going. And those people are privy to my usual technique of trying to find the humor in the humorless. Like Leelu, bless her soul, will IM me nearly everyday and ask how it’s going. She’s such a gem.

Me: Ooooh, guess what?!
Me: My chemo med, methotrexate, is an abortion pill. I'm giving myself an abortion once a week.

Leelu: Hah!

Me: You know, all these abortions and no sex is just cruel.

Leelu: Does that mean it'll no longer be legal under the health care plan that's going through?

Me: Ugh, well, my diagnosis isn't pregnancy so thankfully the med is approved for other things.
Me: (thankfully?)
Me: (as if I'm happy to be taking it)

Leelu: I'm sure that people who genuinely need chemo are happy about it.
Leelu: You...I'm not so sure about. Your medical problems are a huge mess.

Me: Uh huh. And with a little more reading I found out that it's going to totally disrupt my menstrual cycle, which it did because this last one was enough to make me want to rip out my uterus and eat it raw.
Me: And the type of cancer my med treats is usually leukemia.
Me: Don't know how that makes me feel, but at least I won't be getting leukemia now.

Leelu: ...You'd better not. Or I'll have to do something drastic.

Me: What? Eat my uterus or get leukemia?
Me: Uterus might be good.
Me: You don't know.

Leelu: But raw?

Me: How many uteri have you had?
Me: I would imagine cooking would make it tough.

Leelu: Very few things are not improved by cooking. I would suggest braising for uteri, though.
Leelu: It's very fibrous to begin with, so you'll need a long, slow, moisture-rich cooking to bring out the best.
Leelu: Even if you do it tartare, you'd still want to dice it fine and season.

Me: See? What on earth would I do without you?

Leelu: Eat raw uterus, apparently.

Me: I go see doctors and they tell me, "You'll be fine, you won't have side effects, just take all these supplements so you don't die while on the meds and see me in 4 weeks so we can make sure your liver didn't die, but you'll be just fine." Pharmacist says, "Just take some imodium and an antacid regularly and it will be okay." This is no good to me. I need to know what to do when they're all wrong, because they always are, and how to properly prepare uterus!

Leelu: Is it any wonder that we hate the medical profession?

Me: Not for me it isn't.

Leelu: Not a decent cook in the lot of them.

Me: Right! I know. You know why? Because none of them have actually taken the meds they prescribe, so they have no idea that methotrexate + Triphasil = angry enough to eat uterus.
Me: And if you don't know that you can get to that point, how would you know the proper cooking techniques to satisfy this new chemically induced urge?

Leelu: It's a sad state of affairs. *shakes head*

Me: Yep.

Chickenshits who aren’t asking how I’m doing are missing out on delightful braised uteri conversations, I think.