Allow me to speak louder than my scars

Abstract

In this paper, I have chosen the auto-ethnographic method to narrate a life-changing
post-surgery process, compiling a range of emotions, impressions, poems, and documents collected over the last two years of a significant recovery. In doing so, I attempt to expand the discussion and challenge the medical model notion of a ‘cured/fixed’ body, even the ableist idea of a ‘normal/active’ body. This paper aims to answer questions like ‘what does it mean to be a disabled body in recovery?’ ‘How should the disabled body be represented?’ And before someone can ask, ‘What happened to you?’ I will answer, controlling the narrative about me by giving a patient-process perspective. The paper is divided into four parts 1) ‘Our handshake’ - the introduction; 2) ‘What is going on?’ - The illness and medical technicalities; 3) Recovering through words - The after-surgery process, and; 4) Final thoughts - always an ongoing process. It was a concerted decision of the mind and a move from the heart to write as a researcher at the intersection between the personal and academic; it is always a blurred line to cross, but one with fruitful implications for the ‘not-disabled’ and Disability Studies community.