The Tiger and the Cage

May 23, 2022
In this dark and riveting work, poet Bolden (Malificae) documents the intersections of body, medicine, spirit, and society through the lens of her own afflictions. The author was diagnosed with dysautonomia at age 12, endometriosis shortly after, and a list of related and possibly unrelated conditions that worsened until her eventual hysterectomy at 33. As she recounts her medical odyssey alongside her race against the fertility clock, she reveals the failures of both language and medicine to address the complexity of chronic pain (“ believed me inexactly—that I felt dizzy, that I saw stars... but they didn’t believe me exactly”), while juxtaposing her experience with the history of 19th-century “hysterics” at France’s Salpêtrière Hospital, who were taught to perform their alleged madness for their doctors’ research. Like her predecessors, Bolden is a frequent victim of gaslighting by doctors who regard her issues with indifference—one gynecological surgeon, after accidentally puncturing her bowel during operation, exclaims “the pain is in Emily’s head” before realizing she “also ha a sizeable fibroid.” Of her mother’s silent reaction, Bolden writes, “It has its weight. Every single time.” Her lyrical language carries that weight, transmuting rage into catharsis when she liberates herself from an existence dictated by “producing a biological offspring.” This stings as much as it astounds.

July 1, 2022
A poet chronicles her lifelong struggle with uterine issues and the medical system that never took her seriously. Bolden's health problems began early: The third time she got her period, she remembers, her cramping was so intense that it caused her to faint and vomit, sometimes simultaneously. In the following decades, she underwent eight laparoscopic surgeries to relieve her chronic pain, the last of which resulted in an accidentally punctured small bowel, which dangerously exposed her to sepsis. She also lost feeling in her legs and one of her arms due to a herniated disc, a condition she may have acquired from years of taking Lupron, a drug that was once used to treat advanced prostate cancer as well as endometriosis. As Bolden's health deteriorated, she felt pressure to try to fall in love, get married, and have a child before having a hysterectomy, which became the only viable solution to ending her chronic pain. This process was complicated by the fact that Bolden had never experienced any kind of sexual attraction and suspected that she was asexual. Her struggles were compounded by a medical system staffed with doctors who never really listened to her or took her condition seriously. "Every time a doctor questions what you say, what you experience, what you know, marrow-deep, of your own body. It has its weight, and that weight is fear," she writes. "It is difficult to trust in your experience of the body when the people you trust to take care of that body deny that your experience is true." The author's lyrical descriptions and emotional honesty render this harrowing story hard to put down, and her critique of the medical establishment is both sharp and fair. At times, her forays into stories outside of her personal experience--such as a group of "hysterical" women who were viciously exploited in France in the 18th century--can be distracting. A well-written, deeply researched, and searingly frank memoir about reproductive health.

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