Part Eleven: Blessed Burden

According to various news sources Amy Winehouse was found dead in London today. A twenty-seven year old life cut short. The police say the death is currently unexplained but given her history of addictions I don't think anyone really questions what killed her. Tragic? Yes. Unexpected? Hardly. This is the gamble you play when you have self-destructive tendencies. No one forced that woman to make the choices she did regarding her addictions and call me unsympathetic but there are more tragic losses of life to mourn and empathize with the survivors. One of my friends exemplified this in a Facebook posting today regarding the overwhelming outpouring of posts about Amy Winehouse and a severe lack of posting about the atrocities committed in Oslo, Norway yesterday. He said that it was appalling and unsettling that so many ostensibly care about the death of a young lady who (pending cause of death reports) more than likely knowingly brought this on herself and are either ignorant of or uncaring about 92+ dead innocents, many of them children, in Norway at the hands of a terrorist. (Remember kids, terrorists aren't just from a sandy part of the world.) I'm not one to pass judgement on people's priorities or level of empathy about world events but I kind of agree with him. What does this have to do with pancreatitis? Absolutely nothing. It was just the first thing I thought about when I say down at the keyboard this evening.

Know what else I'm thinking about? Purple Gatorade. It's refreshing and tasty. Also, tattoos.

I'm getting a tattoo of a pancreas at some point, hopefully sooner than later. I've never been more sure of a tattoo in my life. Since I first got tattooed (never, EVER refer to it as being "inked." I will smack you.) when I was 19 to my last tattoo this past fall I've felt strongly about everything on my body but this one takes the cake. Or the real estate on my skin required to make it happen. Immediately following my surgery, or at least when I regained consciousness and could string thoughts together coherently I thought it would be the best idea ever to get a pancreas tattoo. Not over the area where my pancreas is/was mind you, but a tattoo of a pancreas. I understand it may not be the easiest thing to picture because really, the pancreas kind of looks like a log of poo. Fleshy poo.

Kelley was the first one to say "Uh...I can't picture that looking good. It's pretty gross." But I could not be swayed. What better way to commemorate my trials by getting a symbol to remind me of what I went through and what I now deal with on a daily basis? Granted, I'm not just going to get a pancreas, it will be a bit more artfully done than that, but it will be an unmistakable testament to the organ that turned on me. I've already discussed the project with my friend and tattooist extraordinaire, Christina Sardinha-Wulfe. She's a doll. She's done most of my tattoos, currently doing a great piece on Kelley and my number one choice for body art. At this point in our relationship I would trust her implicitly to tattoo anything on me without telling me what it was first. This almost happened, actually, when we started on the project of my leg tattoo. I've got six monarch butterflies on my right leg and get comments about them constantly. Pretty manly, eh? A dude with a bunch of butterflies. How did this come to pass? Whilst hanging out at her then place of business years ago she told me that she had a dream about doing a sleeve of monarch butterflies on someone and upon waking up thought of me. Not sure if that part is true or not but when she told me this I said "Ok, I'm game" or something along those lines. Later we started work on the piece sight unseen and it's probably my favorite tattoo thus far and we're still not done with it. (On the subject of manly tattoos, I am the MANLIEST. Plenty of dudes have butterflies, hearts on their sleeve, and a little boy and little girl holding hands in a field with fireflies. Maybe I need a sweet tribal armband to right my tattoo badassery wheel. Or not.)

Getting back on track, our idea for a pancreas tattoo is getting pretty cool. She thought of doing the organ itself half dead/half vibrant for the dichotomy of what's going on inside my body and to go with my ideas of rebirth and vitality and such she gave the idea of adding Japanese maple leaves and cherry blossoms. The cherry blossoms are a symbol of impermanence and taking the most out of the moments while the Japanese maple is symbolic of going with the flow and bending rather than breaking against stress. The placement we're working with is pretty fortuitous because I have adjoining tattoos in the area already, one a pair of koi fish (a symbol of courage in Buddhism) and script that reads "We are blessed, we endure." My sleeve as a whole will be a testament to going forward. I'm stoked.

Not that I need a tattoo to commemorate the experience or remind myself of it, I'm reminded of it every day and not just with pain or discomfort. I've got scars on my abdomen and other places that will forever remind me of what I went through. I can't wait to scare kids who see me shirtless by saying my scar is from where the alien poppped out or something along those lines. I hope my scars never fade or go away. They're an important reminder and testament to the biggest change in my life and not just from a medical standpoint. Pancreatitis has made me a better person in the long run and saved me from myself. Huh. The thing that nearly killed me saved my life. Speaking of my little friend illness, he's been acting up a bit today. First with a bit of nausea and sufficient drain issues. I'm getting really tired of being in pain, let me tell you.

I know I've been a little lax with the storytelling portion of the blog these past few days but rest assured more entertaining anecdotes about hospital life are coming up soon. Chronologically I'm now onto the surgery itself and what happened afterwards which is pretty heady stuff and kind of important so I'm saving it for a rainy day. Maybe it will start pouring soon.