52 Surgeries: What They Don't Tell You Before You Go Under (Paperback or Softback)

52 Surgeries: What They Don't Tell You Before You Go Under is a lived account of preparing for repeated medical procedures when the body has become a long-term site of intervention rather than a temporary problem to be fixed.

Written from personal experience, this book reflects on the physical, emotional, and psychological realities of undergoing surgery again and again — including fear, fatigue, dissociation, resilience, and the quiet work of consent. It does not offer medical advice, recovery timelines, or assurances of outcome. Instead, it names what it can feel like to live inside a body that must repeatedly submit to uncertainty.

This work attends to preparation rather than recovery, recognizing that much of the strain occurs before the procedure itself. It offers language for experiences that are often minimized in clinical settings, such as anticipatory grief, bodily mistrust, and the effort required simply to show up.

This book is for those navigating ongoing medical intervention — and for those seeking to understand the interior reality of surgical endurance without romanticizing strength or minimizing cost.

Linda Arbizu is a Peer Support Specialist, massage therapist, author, and trauma survivor whose work grows directly from lived experience. She has navigated domestic violence, the loss of a life partner, a near-death experience, and 52 surgeries. She writes this Living After Surviving Series to support those surviving trauma or learning to live peacefully after trauma - as a companion - not a guru - for those who are done surviving and are learning how to live.