Girl and Freedom
"Man and Freedom" by Ivan Mestrovic.
A man towers over the subway atrium at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic created the sculpture “Man and Freedom” as an expression of gratitude for the USA’s role in freeing prisoners from Nazi concentration camps.
He’s 27 feet tall. Held to what used to be the exterior of the hospital’s primary building by only two spots, he overlooks the busiest junction of the hospital. But his attention is not on us, the ants worriedly scuttling through decadent marble corridors to appointments where lives will be altered.
Both his eyes, his arms, and his couple tons of weights are directed upward. The Man has two staggered arms with open palms reaching toward the ceiling, the sun looming above the 20 floors of offices, and the heavens beyond the humid clouds of the midwest summer.
His feet and his back. Those are the only points where his matter mixes with that of the building— his only connection to us ants beyond mere proximity. This adherence is both a restriction and a protection, as without them he may be able to reach the skies he is fixated on. He may be able to free his lumbar region and twist higher, paddling with his feet. But also without these ties to the marble, he would fall face flat on sick onlookers.
When will he fall? How will he fall? What’s the number of casualties if he falls?
These are the questions we will spiral through if we are paralyzed by the chance the adhesives are not as strong as they seem. Thus is the eternal battle with bodies. We trust the bonds that compose us, keep us upright, and push us forward are not only present, but infallible.
When they are not, we are drawn to places like the Mayo Clinic. We fly a few states over after months of anticipation, trying to balance hope with the inevitable reality that nothing will be transformed in the way we’d like it. I stare at the Man and ask him what Freedom is.
When will I finally break? How will I finally break? Who will be there when I finally break?
These are the questions I spiral through as I sip stale coffee on Wednesday. Every time I breathe deeper than a sniffle, my face contorts and I end up weeping. When I let anything in, even air, it always ends this way.
The first doctor said there is nothing to do but what I have been doing. Slap bandages on gaping, open wounds and hope the top layer of skin heals one day. Pay no mind to the rotten flesh. The bugs and rodents finding home in the torn areas beneath. Just dab at the pain with cotton and maybe join a local hospital’s study where you will be poked and prodded about how it feels to be poked and prodded.
I would’ve believed him the way I have believed doctors like him for years. I would’ve passively accepted the pills and pretended like they help, all while picking up clumps of my hair from my bedroom floor or watching my skeleton emerge through my skin like a shipwreck every few months. I would’ve lied and act like I trusted their confident caulking of my fractured adhesives. But among my forefront qualities of sweetness and thoughtfulness, I am also stubborn and jaded. The latter traits have often served me better than the former.
For years, living the way I have has been doable. Not fun, but manageable. I flew home for treatments between class breaks, had friends who would accompany me to hospital visits, and I kept my medication intake to a fairly respectable frequency. I masqueraded as a healthy (albeit mysteriously aloof) young woman, completing her college degree at a half decent school.
What to most has looked like a success story has actually been a month-to-month gamble with my sanity. A viscous pursuit of attempting to be to be more than my pain, to prove to others that It didn’t Hold Me Back. The truth is that in all ways I have triumphed in spite of, never because of. My pain is not some magical energy source that has made me a kinder, more morally sound person. It has never been glamorous, and it has never, ever felt worth it. For eight years I have over-medicated, intentionally numbed, and mutilated a body whose only intent has ever been to protect me from further pain.
I had two options. My mother and I could pack up our bags and head home to our respective houses armed with nothing more than a scoff and two medications I have already tried, or I could’ve stuck around, calling another doctor every hour and begging for twenty minutes of his time.
The thing is you can’t even get mad here, even when you are on hold. It is the holy place of American healthcare, a carefully wound system of the nation’s best specialists in a few city blocks of top tier facilities. There is a fundamental understanding I wish existed beyond its delicate ecosystem: the solemn remembrance that everyone is sick at some point. Everyone is suffering, and it is our human duty to try and mitigate any extra harm we may cause. People hold doors open a little longer. People smile every time you meet eyes. People tie red ribbons with prayers on them in common spaces.
It is the only place I have been where being sick hasn’t felt in some way like a crime. A burden for others to fix or grieve. An edge lovers seek to soften or friends try to learn to love. Rather, being sick here here means two very clear things:
Your sickness is real.
This place might be your only shot at getting better.
On Thursday, I call at 7:01 a.m. before I even pull my mouthguard out. By some stroke of luck, I get a miracle appointment with a doctor whose speciality is the opposite end of the body. As in all hours of hopelessness, I take what I can get.
Hours later, I am in a clinic on a different floor with a different man telling me different things. To him, my MRI looks different. My CT scan doesn’t mean what others have said. My records reveal a different story.
Situations like these feel as natural to me as going to the grocery store. I have wrangled someone for a set period of time, and I must convince them I am enough to deserve their attention. I am desirable enough to love. I am kind enough to befriend. I am sick enough to help. After my elevator pitch of sickness, he tells me something I have been waiting nearly a decade for a doctor to say and to at least partially mean it.
I’m sorry.
Since leaving his office an hour later, I have been saying those same words to my body every day. While putting lotion on my cracked heels instead of neglecting them, brushing my hair gently instead of ripping, or carefully threading a mascara wand instead of sawing at my waterline, I say:
I’m sorry that I’ve frozen you. I’m sorry for being so angry with you. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I’m sorry.
The second doctor didn’t “cure” me, a verb that loses meaning quickly when you are sick. He did give me permission to get better and tools to slow down the internal forces against me. I do not have a pain-free future, and I never will. None of us do. Our bonds will inevitably break, and what joins us to present realities will always shatter. But though the future may guarantee nothing, it promises everything.
Tonight I lie on the ground with my neck extended over an arched traction mold, staring upwards at the books and trinkets on my shelves. My arms are twisted up above my head, staggered with open palms ready to accept whatever is above. I think of the Man. I think of Freedom.