Your Body Just Wants You to Get Through This

For almost two decades, I lived in a body that terrified me. That’s finally beginning to change.

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When I was 20 years old, I found out that my blood was poisonous. I remember opening up an official-looking letter informing me that the cord blood I had donated after giving birth to my son tested positive for hepatitis C. I was told to talk to my doctor for more information.

I would learn from my doctor and from countless books and web searches that I had a disease that attacked the liver. It was passed through blood — needles, unsanitary tattoos, childbirth, and blood transfusions (how I had contracted it). I learned that I would likely feel fine for many years, and then, after a while, my liver could start to break down. It would stop cleaning my blood. I would become jaundiced and confused and might die a pretty horrible death. But even then, at 20, even with no symptoms, it was still in my blood — waiting. Waiting to make me sick, waiting to make others sick.

My body was not my body anymore; it was a collection of signs, warnings, dangers. My body was a terrifying place to live in.