Published 2015
RFD Magazine
“What part of ‘deformed’ do you not understand?” the first surgeon said, increasingly exasperated by me questioning his insistence I needed surgery. I was at the hand specialist practice in New York, but the top guy wasn’t available… so this authoritative opinion emanated from the other doctor in the practice. In his experience, he explained, people with as bad a break as I have, who opt out of surgery, return dissatisfied after the cast is removed. “You didn’t tell me how deformed I’d be” he mimicked, before editorializing he’s “sick and tired of it.” The first surgeon continued urging, with all his might, for me to choose surgery for “aesthetic reasons alone!” If I instead let my hand heal without surgery, I’d regain full functionality; all range of motion, strength, and flexibility would be returned to pre-accident standards. And yet, he remained emphatic I should have surgery– he could not imagine I would choose unnecessarily to be deformed.
“Deformed” is such a severe word, like a verdict for a crime I hadn’t committed. I simply had an accident; tripping over a large box, left where it shouldn’t have been, I fell awkwardly onto my hand. It’s not like I was being told I’d be “altered slightly.” The first surgeon was decisive, I was not just going to be “different” without surgery… my hand would be ugly.
My excellent friend Dr. Jill told me that if I went with the surgery, she’d get the guy in the practice to perform it. Dr. Jill has that sort of power: Dr. Jill is the cardiologist in New York. But I didn’t want a higher-level surgeon performing my surgery. What I wanted was no surgery at all. So Dr. Jill made another phone call and got me an immediate second opinion with the other top guy in New York. And I called Beatrice, got her to drop whatever she was doing, and meet me for that appointment.
It was my fault Beatrice wasn’t there for the appointment with the first surgeon. She wanted to come, but I had insisted it was ridiculous, since it wasn’t a leg or eye injury (as in, I could walk and see), so her presence wasn’t required. “I’m an adult,” I protested, joking “I don’t need you there holding my (good) hand.” But when I said that to her, I hadn’t known I’d be given the option of surgery vs. deformity–I really needed Beatrice for that level of decision.
I should maybe express how much I hate surgery. I joke that I’m “practically a Christian Scientist” as a means of informing medical practitioners, through the years, just how strongly I believe in my body healing itself.
I’m not a Christian Scientist, and I’ve been known to pop prophylactic baby aspirin to ward off a future heart attack I’m at no particular risk of… But I never entertain anything as extreme as an eye job, or as mild as a chemical peel. If I wore glasses, I’d eschew LASIK. If I’d been consulted at age four, I’d still be the happy owner of my tonsils. Beatrice knows my disdain for being sedated, cut into and sewn up, and she supports my aversion. And yet, I wasn’t sure what she’d think of the human she spends her life with being deformed, disfigured, made grotesque.
The second surgeon explained the process more gently, but still used the “deformed” word. His use of it confirmed its official medical nomenclature, rather than overstate a pessimism as I had hoped. Specifically, my accident had not only caused me to fracture and displace my fifth metacarpal bone, but its impact was severe enough to violently jam the last knuckle of the finger attached to that bone deep up into my left hand. Without surgery my bones would heal, but my knuckle would be forever visually lost. When I made a fist, there would be three, rather than four, knuckles showing. “How noticeable would it be?” I queasily asked the second surgeon. “Highly unlikely to be spotted across a busy street” he replied.
That night we had dinner with another married couple, Jason and Maria, and I was explaining the surgery vs. deformity dilemma. Maria, an attractive blonde, said “Definitely!” to having surgery. Jason nodded enthusiastically. He wanted her to have surgery “to be made whole” Jason said. However, he wasn’t certain, were it his hand, if he’d do it. Jason ruminated aloud about unexpected complications often accompanying surgery… then admitted how differently he feels about preserving his wife’s physical beauty than his own.
So, was this a queer decision Beatrice and I were making? Meaning, as a nonbinary person married to a queer woman, what standards of attractiveness are we free to embrace? Straight women are often forced to customize their looks to appeal to what is deemed attractive by straight men, print media, movies, ads, Instagram etc. There may be some crossover between straight and gay women, and of course exceptions in both cases, but it’s simply not the same. If Beatrice and I were a straight cis hetero couple, would she lean towards wanting me to have surgery? Or what if Beatrice, for personal reasons beyond conventional conceptions of beauty and perfection, simply wanted me to have the surgery? Should I undergo the additional pain, anesthesia, recovery, and inherent risk simply to please my spouse? What does it mean, body-wise, to be married?
Not every spouse asks the other if she, he, or they should get a haircut, but many do. I have a friend who shaves her pubic hair into a narrow triangular formation her husband prefers. Admittedly, I wear the cologne Beatrice likes, and I only wear the plaid trousers with the tiny lobster motif I’ve owned since college, which she doesn’t like (but I can’t bring myself to discard), when she’s not around. Although we share a toothbrush and a bathrobe, I retreat to a private space when cleaning my ears, clipping my nails, tweezing hairs growing where I wish they wouldn’t. When I walk back to bed after using the bathroom in the middle of the night (I sleep naked), I inhale my abdomen just slightly in case Beatrice wakes and tosses a passing glance my way. In essence, I’d like my spouse to find me attractive and be attracted to me as often and as much as possible. So, when exploring the option of deformity, shouldn’t I care even more than I care about hair and wardrobe, what my partner thinks? Although it was my flesh getting cut into, my bones being bolted together, my brain navigating the anesthesia… it somehow never felt like the decision was mine alone to make. So I stared deep into Beatrice’s eyes while the second surgeon awaited our verdict; double checking her response and then checking once more. Holding my good hand, she’d said, “Don’t do it.”
My future disfigurement is currently concealed by a hard white cast while my bones knit in seclusion. I haven’t let anyone sign, doodle on, or otherwise adorn the cast. I avoid luring attention to my camouflaged appendage in hopes I am somehow warding off future scrutiny. I’m not supposed to lift anything heavy nor use two of the five fingers on my healing hand. Beatrice’s spousing has been flawless— juggling 100% of things we traditionally split 50-50; driving our kids, cooking and cleaning up dinner, making our bed, doing our laundry. Additionally, she’s been covering my domestic duties as well; shoveling snow, stacking firewood, carrying all sorts of heavy things. I am so grateful to have a spouse like Beatrice, I cannot help wondering if she deserves a more flawless me in return. Even as I feel my hand healing beneath stiffened gauze and rigid plaster, I find myself silently speculating whether I should have undergone surgery so as not to burden Beatrice with the deformed version of me I’m currently gestating.
Will it be distractingly weird for Beatrice to hold my changed hand in the movies? Will it somehow feel different when I touch her with my permanently mangled self? Will I gerrymander position to duck my bad hand beneath tablecloths, jackets, scarves… will she notice all my subterfuge and find it irritating over time? Will I start wearing my wedding ring on my right hand, calling as little attention as possible to my left, and will that bother her? I simply don’t know and neither does she. For now, I’m just trying to imagine that I won’t look that different when the cast comes off. What part of “deformed” do I not understand?