Why I’m opposed (and not opposed) to transplantation, as someone with a transplant
Transplantation was my bridge back to the land of the living.
When speaking with another transplant recipient about whether or not we have regrets about the things we put our bodies through, my answer was that transplantation felt like the next right thing, and I followed that all the way home.
Transplantation was my rebirth. I dissolved into the underworld and emerged entirely different. And I don’t regret a thing. Still it was and is the most physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually taxing thing I’ve ever done. And it’s opened up the question of if I knew then what I know now, would I have done it? Would I do it again, if needed?
I can’t say with absolute certainty but my thoughts have evolved since my initial transplant days, shooting out in two opposite yet connected directions.
The one is that I think transplantation has crossed an ethical line. With the emergence of xenotransplantation and extraordinary measures as science has evolved and advanced, my personal view is a line has been crossed that shouldn’t have been. And it feels like a frantic attempt to escape death. While it’s true that none of us want to die, I do wonder what might change if we became less of a death phobic culture. If death literacy was taught and rather than upholding this fighting until the very end narrative, we instead taught people to die well. Death is essential to me in unraveling the transplant narrative. I carry death in my body daily. And I don’t find that morbid. It’s a reality, and one people don’t want to acknowledge under the heroics of transplantation. The entire process is robed in “life language” : second chance, bonus days, gift of life. The phrases are ones I find nauseating and insufferable. If we didn’t view death as the enemy, how would it change how we live?
Why I’m against transplantation ties into why I’m for it. Which is the fusion of two lives into one body. In the natural world, in order for new life to be created, a merging has to occur. We see it in the earliest forms in bacteria and fungi. When I look at transplantation as a reflection of this natural fusion, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. One life gives way to another. My singular self is gone and my multiple self is here. The boundaries of my body have been redefined. This is, as those far wiser than me have said, the conversational nature of reality. To bear witness to that in my body is beautiful. It’s the pathways connecting me to so many other life forms, illuminating that my self is not a singular self but plural.
I think of all I am connected to, and how beautiful this is, and the different shapes my body has taken since transplantation and fusion (some welcomed, some not). I honour all lives that made my life possible, and all lives to which I am deeply connected. And I know one day my life will be fertile soil for the next life. I’m not afraid to die. We all must die. When it’s my turn, I hope to embrace it rather than fight against it, knowing this is the circle of life.
