Standing in my cramped apartment, I gripped a doorknob with one hand and a pair of blue boxer briefs with the other. I had just attempted, for the sixth time, to insert my left leg into the appropriate hole.

‘I am in a fight with my underwear,’ I thought with grim panic. ‘And the underwear is winning.’

I was newly discharged from a ten-day hospital stay after having vital surgery on my knee, and I couldn’t bend my painful leg or put weight on it.

Surviving this surgery – and the other five operations needed to deal with my knee – certainly required at least some degree of stubbornness. But what really kept me going wasn’t grit or determination.

It was my queer community.

The difficulties with my leg started years ago. When I was 12, I was hit by a car and sustained injuries that were never fully treated. By my early 40s, decades of damage had caught up with me. X-rays of my left knee showed I needed a replacement.

At first, everything went beautifully. Five weeks after surgery, I was walking two miles a day.

But a fortnight later, I was in the emergency room. My knee had become painful and hot; the joint itself was grossly swollen. Even touching my big toe to the floor resulted in searing pain.

I had developed what one doctor memorably described as a ‘raging infection’. Emergency surgery followed; but the infection proved stubborn. Over a period of a few years, I returned to the hospital again and again with the same symptoms.

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After a third operation, I ended up having the knee replacement removed completely – leaving me with my dramatic underwear struggle.

After each surgery, my life would shrink again. I had to reserve all my energy for my job, and I left my apartment only for work and the occasional medical appointment. Yet I still couldn’t bring myself to ask for help.

I had spent my entire adult life being a carer. I’ve been a nurse for more than two decades, so helping other people has never been difficult for me – accepting it is another story.

I grew up in a large farm family with what I lovingly refer to as a subscription to the Jesus Christ School of Medicine. If a doctor wasn’t eventually going to look at you and say, ‘Jesus Christ, why didn’t you come in sooner?’, then it almost seemed embarrassing to seek care.

I carried that fear-of-help attitude well into adulthood. Asking for assistance felt like admitting defeat – so I tried to cope by myself.

During one of my many hospitalisations, my friend Bryn stopped me short. ‘Here’s the thing, Kelli,’ she said. ‘If you’re allowed to help me, but I’m not allowed to help you, what does that really say about what you think about people who need help?’

I started to object. Then I stopped, because she was right – and I realised what had been staring me in the face all along.

My queer community has been a vital part of my life since I came out in my late 20s. Some I’ve known for decades; others came to me through nursing, comedy or activism. Like many LGBTQ+ people, my chosen family are the people I call first in a crisis. Except, it seemed, this one. 

So, I sent out a ‘reply all’ email, admitting I couldn’t do this on my own and asking the people closest to me for help. 

When I was measuring my life in surgeries and appointments, my queer community kept me from disappearing into myself

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Suddenly, I was accepting daily assistance from a long relay of people who quietly filled in the gaps my body couldn’t. My queer friends drove me to appointments, picked up prescriptions, carried groceries upstairs, took my cat, Lulu, to the vet when I couldn’t, and stopped by simply to keep me company.

When I was struggling to navigate my overstuffed apartment with a Zimmerframe, one of my exes arrived with the woman she was dating. Together, they spent the day rearranging my entire bedroom, moving furniture, clearing pathways and hauling away bags of clothes and books I no longer needed so I could get around safely. It was all so matter-of-fact; they simply saw something that needed doing, and did it.

I put it down to the fact that queer communities have long practiced collaborative care. We are so often alienated from our biological families, we build families of choice. 

While I would never of course compare my health problem to the worldwide AIDS crisis, it’s a powerful example of how those chosen families became even more crucial, with LGBTQ+ friends providing mutual aid in the form of organising meals, transportation, bedside vigils and practical support.

For me, my queer friends showed up in dozens of practical ways. When I was measuring my life in surgeries, central line dressings and follow-up appointments, my community kept me from disappearing into myself not only by rallying around with practical help but also by continuing to ask my opinion on dating drama, inviting me to drag show fundraisers and generally behaving as though I had a future.

And some of the most beautiful moments of my healing journey were when my mom or sister visited, and my biological family blended with my chosen family.

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As someone who had spent years caring for patients, being on the receiving end of support felt strange at first. Then humbling. Then transformative. I had always thought caring for other people and accepting care from them were opposite roles. Instead, I discovered they were simply two turns in the same conversation.

I’m doing much better now. I have a functioning knee replacement again, and haven’t had an open knee surgery in more than six years. Most days I can even climb stairs without thinking about it.

Of course, the scars remain, both physical and emotional. But so does the lesson that communities become communities because everyone gets a turn to carry and be carried.

The friend who came over to help me get dressed one morning wasn’t just performing an act of kindness; she was participating in a community tradition that says someone doesn’t have to be in your household to be part of your extended caregiving family; that if someone can’t carry their groceries, you carry them. When someone can’t get to an appointment, you drive them.

When people talk about queer communities, they often focus on the very real challenges we face – but I maintain we’re not the problem; we’re often part of the solution.

Looking back, I wasn’t really fighting my underwear. I was fighting the idea that I had to do everything by myself. Thankfully, my queer community had other plans.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected]. 

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