Phantom Limbs and Phantom Lives

A "phantom limb" is a phenomenon in which, after a person has a limb amputated, they still feel it there. The amputee might feel pain, tingling, soreness as if the arm or leg is still there. It has often been described that they feel this pain in the place -- the air, the empty space, the non-existence -- where the limb used to be. The phantom limb continues to live on in the neural impulses of their brain, and it lives not only in the past but in the present -- when an amputee may develop a disease or injury in the limb, for example walking by and "banging" their limb against a wall accidentally.

When I "started to get seriously ill" (or rather, when the symptoms of the illness became so strong that I could no longer brush it off or deny that my health was deteriorating) I was on a determined path through life. I was working hard and the future was bright.

It was more than that, my success felt predestined, inevitable, and unquestionable. I knew what I wanted out of life and I was all set up to get it. I had worked hard and earned my forthcoming success.

It was as sense of entitlement, even, a contract with the universe. I had paid my dues, set my sights, I was going to have a marvelous life.

The specifics aren't important here, but my entitlement included a high-powered, prestigious and lucrative career; an athletic, shapely look that I "worked out" to get; a chic lifestyle in a big coastal city. In this life I was always "on", fashionable and busy and powering my way through life.

As I went through the death-wrestle with the illness, it became increasingly obvious that my life had changed forever, and whatever my life would become, it was suddenly headed in a completely different direction.

The illness claimed my future, it claimed the life that I KNEW I was supposed to be leading.

For the longest time, I kept clinging to this dream, increasingly with a sense of desperate anger. Damn it, right now I am SUPPOSED to be working at high-priced consulting firm. I DESERVE that life. It's MINE.

But that life, that future, was chopped off, with as much finality as the blade of a thresher taking a hand. Once the crisis has been averted and the blood flow staunched, you look at that stump and know that life will be forever different.

I should be at the acceptance stage by now. It's been 14 years since I first saw the blades coming for me, since I knew I was going to get amputated.

I still wake up suddenly from a heavy sleep, a little confused about where I am sometimes. What am I doing in this little apartment in Denver? Aren't I supposed to be living in Manhattan right now? What are they doing at work without me, at the job I am supposed to be at? Where is all the money that is supposed to be in my bank account?

Sometimes when I am waiting in line at some charity clinic, a person looks at me, my manner, my affect, my resume, and they say, "You aren't supposed to be here." And I say, "I know." I'm supposed to have this life that was cut off, that I'm still attached to in my brain, although anyone can see it's long gone.

At strange moments, I still feel my phantom life. I wonder what is going on with it, as I can't see it. Is there a parallel universe in which Healthy CF is very busy right now? And what is she doing? Does she have a relationship? Is she on a trip to Europe right now? Did she buy a building to convert into her private headquarters? What is she wearing? Where is she going out this Friday night?

Maybe this is as far as acceptance goes for me personally -- a dull ache instead of a sharp pain in the phantom life is all I can ask for.