APPENDICURE

APPENDICURE  ·  LIVING IN THE IN-BETWEEN  ·  PART 2 OF 5 

What Was Taken.

It would take me months to grasp what that surgery had stolen — and honestly, I’m still sorting it out.

It took my reproductive system, the organs that gave me my children and later made me “Nana” to six grandchildren. Those organs weren’t just physical; they were the tie to my family, my legacy, and a continuity I had always taken for granted.

My belly button was gone too — so central, so intimate, a small mark from the place where I had once been in my mother’s womb. Just erased. GONE.Like mom. 

Facing the Scar.

The scar terrified me. I couldn’t bear to look.

The young resident took pride in her sewing that day, but her smile and perky tone were wasted on me. When the bandage needed to be removed eight days later, I couldn’t face it. My husband wasn’t up for the task, so we went to see my PC doctor, letting me remain blissfully unaware a little longer.

Every line of that long scar, with a hook surrounding where my belly button once was, became a marker of what this disease had stolen — not just organs, but identity, embodiment, wholeness, and sexuality, even though I was already ten years post menopausal.

Losing My Name.

My name was taken too. What had become of Colleen Bailey? I was suddenly some kind of enigma, a rare specimen, one in a million.

I was now defined as “XX-year-old female with stage 4 cancer.” My birth name, one I had always been proud of, was erased in a single moment. Every report since replaced my name with my diagnosis. Even my insurance company transfers me to a different line when I call.

Not for faster service — just a reminder: I am different now. I HAVE CANCER! 

The Emotional Rollercoaster.

Day two was even worse, the pain a relentless 10/10. Nothing could dampen the pain because my body felt unfamiliar. I had signed, I agreed, I had no choice. Somehow I still felt violated. My mind couldn’t catch up. Every breath reminded me that the pain wasn’t just in my body. Emotionally, it was a roller coaster ride through hell: numbness, anger, grief in unpredictable waves, loneliness pressing in every quiet moment, despair lingering long after visitors left and the hospital lights dimmed.

My husband never left my side; I still don’t know how he managed it. I silently worried if he could still love me, want me, respect me, as the shell of the person I had become.

Long stretches of spiritual absence left nothing feeling real or safe. Would I ever feel safe again, if my own body could betray me without warning? My deep connection to the ethereal world was gone. I couldn’t even recite simple prayers I learned as a child.

There were no words. Not for THIS. 

Peachy: The Loss I Couldn’t Grieve.

The emptiness I felt in those first days after surgery was foreshadowed by a loss that had come just days before — Peachy, my fur baby of seventeen and a half years.

In the days leading up to surgery, as my world narrowed to appointments, tests, and preparations, I didn’t realize I was about to lose one of the few constants that had always steadied me.

Just before my operation, I held her as she passed, wrapped in her favorite blanket, my hands resting on her fragile body while the vet administered the injection that ended her life. I was fully present, yet powerless to protect her.

I knew she wouldn’t be waiting for me at home — and still, I expected her to be.

It was as if she had slipped into the same shadow cancer had cast over my life, a quiet absence I could feel even before the surgery began.

The warmth, grounding presence, and quiet comfort she had always shared with me vanished, leaving me unmoored. When I stepped into the hospital, that familiar presence had disappeared entirely, leaving a hollow emptiness that followed me through every sterile corridor.

Her absence became part of the emptiness I carried through recovery — a personal loss layered over the physical and mental fractures of surgery, nearly drowned out by the chaos of my own medical crisis.

Her loss was only the beginning. The surgery demanded everything I had, leaving no room to grieve and forcing me to face an emptiness that stretched far beyond the hospital walls.

Losing Peachy foreshadowed the months to come — the isolation, the dependence, and the constant reminders of how cancer had already changed my life.

Each step of recovery became a delicate balance: navigating what the surgery had taken, physically and emotionally, while slowly reclaiming the fragments of life that remained — all while carrying the quiet, unfillable absence of the companion who had been there through it all.

Next time: The questions that loop in my mind.