Moving Out: The Day the First Apartment Closed Its Doors

After two years of waiting, the telephone finally rang on March 20th. A date was proposed: April 11th.

My reaction was not the immediate relief, but pure panic: "Impossible, it’s the day of the birthday party at the pool with Jaja’s friends!" How was Doudou going to be able to manage that all alone? What was Jaja going to think of my absence?

Yes, I almost refused. Because, in my head, the priority was this moment of joy. A birthday is sacred.

Then, reality took back the upper hand: I was told that if I refused, I would go back to the bottom of the list. Two more years to wait? Maybe. So, I called back. I accepted.

The weeks that followed were complicated. It was a strange mix between the preparation of the party, the cake (to be a little present all the same), and the whirlwind of the pre-op appointments.

I had to learn to tame scary words like "urinary catheter," "injections at home," "compression stockings," "laparoscopy," or "double anesthesia," with that sword of Damocles hanging over my head: the high probability of having to undergo a full opening.

You don't just part with your uterus like you change a handbag. It is the first apartment I offered to my children. That is where it all began. As for my "egg boxes," they allowed me to keep them. That’s at least something!

It’s not just an organ they remove; it’s a page you turn. It’s a strange mix of sadness: that of having to leave this part of my body and my history, and of vital necessity, because of the different pathologies that were squatting in the apartment.

I had to cut a piece of myself off in order to continue to be whole. Sometimes, life imposes forced moves on us. We leave a place that we have lived in, where we created memories, and even if we know it is for the best, it squeezes the heart a little. I went through that, between the pool party in my head and the reality of the operating room.