Small Steps With Paws and Hooves by Spud Talbot-Ponsonby

Author:Spud Talbot-Ponsonby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Summersdale Publishers Ltd
Published: 2011-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

When I had a bath today, I saw my scar for the first time in a week. It stared up at me like the broad smile across my abdomen that it is. Like the scars in my mind which I have to learn to live with, I am learning to live with this one. In fact, I saw it in a different light today. I actually looked at it and thought; ‘As scars go, it’s pretty good really – pencil thin and white and fading. I must tell the consultant.’ A milestone thought.

One of the things I found hardest about the hysterectomy was the severance it caused from the natural world. Females are designed for childbirth. In our wild state, all paths led to finding a mate and reproducing to ensure the continuance of our existence. The seasonal cycles reflect the cycles of the female rhythm; but now my ovaries feel dulled by their experience and, with my womb gone, removed by a knife so alien to our ancestors, I wondered whether I would ever, could ever, feel included in nature’s laws.

Cancer kills in the wild. Survival of the fittest is a distant concept these days, yet this thought kept resurfacing. It felt hypocritical to talk about the bond with nature but then to run to our civilised technological advancements and the surgeon with his knife when my life was threatened. In the beginning, I was so shocked and pliable in the hands of the doctors that I thought little of any other road I could have taken. But after the operation, in the bleak moments of pain, discomfort and coming to terms with the new me, I thought often of this. Had I done the right thing? And yet, of course, I could never have refused the life-saving operation. Apart from anything, I had Barnie to live for. Sacrificing a few values is a small price to pay for my beautiful only son.

When I walked Britain’s coast I felt so accepted by the land and its personalities. Silly, perhaps, but I wondered if I would ever be included again. Would I be rejected like the runt of the pack, the unfittest? This trip is doing wonders. I love to feel the elements for what they are, not seen through a window or relayed through a man with a map and remote control raindrops in a BBC studio; and to know that we have walked the country with these elements. Things haven’t come full circle, because there is no going back to the person I was, but I am finding that there is still a peace in the mayhem. I may not have a womb any more, but I have a soul. And it is the soul which is me.

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