Earlier this year, in a calm and piercing tone, my gynecologist informed me that my uterus was shaped like a heart. Perhaps with only one way to respond to such a diagnosis, I asked, “Is this why I love deeply?” Despite my efforts to lighten the mood, she did not crack a small. To explain what she meant, she clutched a paper and pen and outlined my uterus: first drawing the vagina near the base, the cervix at the midpoint, and then the ovaries and fallopian tubes near the crest. According to my physician, the two circular Fallopian lines were even more round than average. Yet, the organ’s evolution was pronounced by patches of subserosal flesh that fused into one thick mass, supporting the left and right ovaries, expanding my uterus into a heart-shaped form. I sat in awe, cataloging a list of people I would boast to about my distorted flesh.
Some people have a uterus shaped like a light bulb, with the fallopian tubes bulging like circular disks, while others, like myself, find the edifice transforming over a lifetime—brick by brick—with the invasion of fibroids, polyps, and other cellular growth. For some, the development might cause heavy menstrual bleeding and brutal pain to the point that they might rely on painkillers to get through the day or opt-out of the pain by having a hysterectomy. For others, excessive fibroids might appear like an early-term pregnancy, a swollen abdomen that never disappears. My fibroids placed massive pressure on my bladder—causing frequent urination—and could shift into a pleasant form, confirming the insight of Haruki Murakami: “I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.” But beauty comes at a price. Given the growth, what I realized was a profound and irreprehensible truth—no matter how many sit-ups I did, I would never be able to get a six-pack, let alone a two-pack.
Fibroids are both ubiquitous and mysterious. On a basic level, they are benign tumors that can be as large as grapefruit, but like many people who possess them, I knew very little about fibroids until I was diagnosed with them. My ignorance is partially due to the poor education system in the United States, but it is primarily due to how little research is conducted about women’s reproductive health. Undoubtedly, most people become well-acquainted with the outer workings of genitals. Still, until a dilemma arises, few people know the reproductive-related ailments that plague us. Reading the scientific literature about fibroids one article after another is like reading a second-century Greek papyrus. But more than anything, only some claims expose the origins and prevention or indicate how different groups are impacted. In the US, the research mainly argues that focuses on how it disproportionately affects Black women. However, real-world studies have shown many cases and some of the highest points of uterine fibroids in middle-income countries such as Australia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. Reading the longitudinal data shocked me because I was privy to what physicians told me or the many conversations I had with Black women about fibroids—relatives and strangers —believing this was the fate of Black women alone. While the diagnosis occurs earlier and the pain may be more drastic for Black women, fibroids do not only impact Black women. By menopause, approximately eighty percent of people with uteri will develop fibroids, yet the investigations about the condition are patchy, at best, but elementary in how it characterizes its casualties.
Identity does not guarantee that one acquires fibroids, so why does it get understood as a Black disease in the United States? While scientific research must consider how different groups are impacted by disease and how we can improve their health, this shows us that fibroids need to be better understood, or rather, people’s health cannot be reduced to one’s melanin content.
Perhaps one day, fibroids research will reveal something more meaningful than a flippant or comical remark about the structure of one’s uterus. In the meantime, I can only hope that I will love intensely.
A Word
I contributed an essay for “Betrayed by One of Their Own” for Mobility Dispatch, a forum to present short, experimental text and multi-media works engaging contemporary crises and catastrophes. My text discusses Eunice Rivers, an African American nurse who played a role in recruiting patients for The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Males, popularly known as “The Tuskegee Study.” Rivers aided and abetted in one of the longest-run unethical medical experiments in the United States. The eldest daughter of a Georgia farmer, Eunice Rivers, was one of four Black public health nurses in Alabama when she was recruited to work for the Tuskegee experiment. Although her role in the study did not entail designing the experiments, she was responsible for dispensing medication to the men in the study. On the surface, she actively participated in a study that did not provide the men with medical care—even though there were treatments for syphilis by 1947 (the study continued until 1972). However, given that she was African American, like most of the men in the study, she often drove them to doctor’s appointments or served as a mediator when the physicians were dismissive of the research subjects. Some argue that she was complicit; others believe she was merely on the lowest rungs of the study without any real power. Her legacy within this well-known study is often omitted, though it raises questions about the pallid failings of omission when people have blind faith in medical experiments. If you want to know more about this medical history, I highly recommend reading my essay. The other contributors to Against Catastrophe series include Josephine Rapp, Sinthujan Varatharajah, Lotte Warnsholdt, and Nelly Y. Pinkrah. The other contributors discuss genomes, travel, and erosion. I highly recommend this.
Several weeks ago, I conversed with the artist and musician Obaro Ejimiwe at Gropius Bau to discuss love. When I was asked by the video artist and film researcher Pallavi Paul to contribute to her artist residency, I decided to start with the Persian poet Rumi. Starting from the vantage point of “Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love,” Ejimiwe and I recited poetry and prose by Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and more. We reflected on our vulnerabilities and gathered the emotional valence of the room by expanding the boundaries and definitions of love. Unfortunately, this gathering was not recorded, but we hope to continue a fruitful dialogue that expands our creative practices from a compassionate lens.
A Read
Phoebe Chen’s “Christian Petzold’s Afire Is the Summer’s Most Beguiling Film” in The Nation: The author beautifully sketches the latest film by Petzold without revealing too many spoilers. I agree that you leave the film reflecting on the climate crisis’ appearance in Europe, but I think there are elements of sexuality that the film falls short of.
Justin E. H. Smith’s “My Generation” in Harper’s Magazine: Although there were parts of this text that made me question the North American and middle myopia about what and who is considered part of his generation, I like the way that he uses his musical journey to place himself, and the world that he knows as a marker for who he is.
Robert Lee Williams’s “Good Writing in a Bad Place: How One Incarcerated Writer Feeds His Craft” in Lit Hub: The essay does not disappoint in capturing the significance of reading, even if one is captive. One paragraph that caught my eye was:
Books release my imagination from confinement. I travel to 19th-century England, to a bazaar held in Dublin. I land in Paris, where I live vicariously as Jean Valjean, a criminal redeemed, first through decree, then by his good works.
I hope everyone can tap into their imagination, with and without love.
In solidarity,