Refill

Refill is a graphic medicine zine about vaginal estrogen, surgical menopause, and the loss that accompanies them. This work is published in issue 13.2 of ImageText, an academic journal that surrounds imagetexts such as comics, illustrated fiction, visual rhetoric, etc. If you'd prefer to flip through the zine, check out this project on Issuu.

Content warning for nudity and references to medical procedures.

A drawing of a Safeway pharmacy receipt, with “Refill by Megan Biggs” inserted into its text. There's a dedication to Karen Biggs for advocating for the author's health. Content warning for nudity and references to medical procedures.
I really need this medicine. I’ve been miserable for months without this medicine, but I’m also miserable applying it. I’m prone when I inject 2mg of estradiol cream. My body curls up, almost fetal, receiving life from a fickle mother.
She nurses me into health—like my own mother during my egg freezing and oophorectomy—and I sour in response. I was growing into my independence when this happened. Now, my surgical menopause has thrust me back on an umbilical cord.
When I’m standing during the day, the cream drizzles out. It replaced the discharge that used to soil my underwear. So much of my life was predicated by things spewing out of my vagina: blood, discharge, and cum at surprise intervals. Then nothing.
With surgical menopause at 20, my hand is on the trigger. I’ve never been in more or less control of my body. Never healthier or sicker. Never more of a maiden and a crone, a child and an adult. Will it pass? Or am I stuck in another unsavory cycle?