As hard as it’s become to love my body through the challenge heart failure imposes on it (and if I’m honest before h.f.), I absolutely don’t not-love her. I do worry that she will up and leave me altogether. The truth is, our relationship will end because all bodies end. It’s no secret that all of them are fallible and impermanent despite the corporatizing of them that says we can make them otherwise.
The disease has damaged my heart, but it doesn’t have to do any more damage if I can get proper treatment. Of course, proper treatment is expensive...
I need help, but since I don’t believe in getting or asking for something for nothing, for (and with) my heart, I propose the following exchange.
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I'm only recently accepting the extent to which my physical body has been intrinsic to how I self-identify. The realization has come on the heels of a bunch more that are the result of the heart failure (cardiomyopathy if you like big words) diagnosis in September. My body has changed significantly in the way I use it for self-identification purposes. [...]
So there we were living our happily ever after when our communication kept getting interrupted. The signal was poor. Eventually our conversations were curt and stilted—we probably secretly blamed each other for the poor signal. Turns out we were both wrong. (As far as doctors have so far surmised. This is idiopathic—without known cause).
darlene anita scott 