It has been so long since I had my surgery yet, when I look at the actual pages of the calendar it hasn’t been much time at all. 14 months to the day since I went under the knife and changed my life for the better. I was so tired of being a slave to my body. I understand that being a woman and going through the typical cycle a woman faces each month is part of life, but I did not face what they typical woman faces. I have heard from so many women that they deal with their visitor for 3-5 days and they are done. God how I so desperately wanted to be one of those girls. My visitor did not stay for a few days and gracefully bow out when her time was done. She came in a whirlwind and disrupted my entire life while sleeping on my couch so to speak until the springs molded to her form. 3-5 days? I mean what is that? The paper cut equivalent of a period? If my visitor stayed for only 3-5 weeks, it was a blessing.
I have tried many times to explain it to people, but you just cannot understand unless you have lived through it. Baths were the only thing that gave me any comfort and I would make the water so boiling hot that the heat of the water would make me nauseous. While the hot water felt great, the scene that it left behind left something to be desired. I googled some photos to insert into this post to give you an idea of what my baths were like, but while those photos were scary accurate, they are just to graphic and close to the truth to use. Just imagine any horror movie where someone is gutted in the tub and you’ll get the idea. Didn’t want that image in your head? Yeah, well....imagine what it was like to actually be laying in it.
My doctor and I tried many course of action in order to make my life easier and some of them worked for a couple of weeks and uterine ablation even lasted me a few months. Other than when I was pregnant, that was the most reprieve I’d had in 18 years. It was supposed to be a permanent solution, but I never was lucky when it came to that. Going in to my hysterectomy I was terrified. Hell, terrified is not a strong enough emotion for how scared I was. From the time I was 14 or 15 and learned what a hysterectomy was, I wanted one. No more cramping or bleeding. The ability to wear whatever you wanted whenever you wanted to wear it. Not having to feel like an infant wearing a diaper while you slept at night....who wouldn’t want that?
At one point I had even asked my doctor about having one, but at the age of 20 without having any kids, I wasn’t getting it unless I was dying. 10 year later my visitor stayed for longer periods of time (pun intended) and she would come back more frequently than she had before. Yeah her visits were hell when I was younger but I usually got 4-5 weeks and sometimes 6 weeks between her visits. This just wasn’t the case at the end. My friend would camp out with me for the long haul and would stay for 2-2.5 months and then she would never move out. She would just go visit someone else for 3-5 days and then come back. I had no break. I was so desperately anemic I could barely make it through my day without a nap to help recharge my batteries. Life sucked. Upon my 10th time seeing my doctor for excessive hemorrhaging in as many months, my doctor said there was nothing left to do that would help me other than the hysterectomy. The one thing I had wanted for half my life was finally being offered to me, but when it was offered, I no longer wanted it. After all I had been through you would think I would be doing cartwheels to the operating table, but finality of the procedure, but that didn’t happen. I wanted to hide under the table and pretend that everything was fine and that I could suffer through it.
Sure it sucked to be out to dinner with my husband and bleed all of the way through my clothes and into the seat with no warning. It absolutely put a damper on my sex life. Romantic weekend away just my husband and I? HA! Better book an extra room for my uninvited guest. Swimming at the lake with my family? Not unless I wanted to reenact scenes from the movie Jaws. There were so many things that I was not able to fully enjoy and the promise of the surgery would give me my life back yet it was still the last thing I wanted. There was something about removing the essential part of what makes me female that hurt all of the way down to my soul. I was done having kids so it shouldn’t have even mattered, but the thought of losing that ability permanently was almost more than I could bear. I had taken so many preventative measures to prevent pregnancy that it would have been impossible, but all of those things could be reversed if I so desired. I likely would not have survived a 3rd pregnancy because of my heart, but that didn’t stop me from mourning the loss of the children I could have had. I had so many doubts and fears, but I had a great network of supporters that helped me.
Wifey’s mom helped me the most. She had been through the procedure really young like I was going to be and she came out happier and healthier in the end. If she could do it, couldn’t I? It was then that I began to look into the pros and cons. Let me just say that doing research did not ease my mind. I could find nothing but horror stories and bitter women who were left with the inability to ever enjoy sex again. Most women lost the ability to orgasm while many more lost all sensation and even more than that seemed to experience nothing but pain during intercourse. I was voluntarily signing myself up for that possibility? What was I thinking? I met with my doctor again and discussed any other option. We had done them all. Ablation, grew back in only months. Pills, made the periods never-ending and left me exhausted more than without them. The shot was the worst of them all. I bleed non stop for 7 solid months. I had no other roads available to me. I finally conceded defeat to the doctor and she told me the scheduler would be calling me in likely 60-90 days after the insurance reviewed and gave their approval. They almost always deny the first request and demand al other avenues be explored even if they have already been done. It was looking like surgery would be in 6-7 months once we waded through the red tape. Imagine my surprise when the scheduler called me only 2 days later and set my surgery for less than 3 weeks out. When the scheduler told me she was calling to set the date for my surgery, I could barely talk. A rush of emotion overwhelmed me and I begin shaking so hard the house should have fallen to rubble around me. When she told me I had been given emergency approval due to the seriousness of my situation, I began bawling. During my last visit I had a final pap done and it came back as cancer. It turned out that was a mistake and the actual results were pre-cancer, but the reality was there. No more hiding. No more cowering. it was time to get up and fight back.
The surgery was there before I knew it and I was certain it would be canceled due to my nerves making my blood pressure so crazy. Apparently I was not getting out of it that easily and I was sedated instead. I went back, fell asleep, and came out as less of a woman. I hurt in places I didn’t know even existed before, but I felt lighter. Not just because some of me was missing, but the never ending pain I walked around with for years was no longer there. The dull aching cramp was gone. Granted it was replaced with sharp pains from the surgery, but those were easily subdued with drugs in the way that the cramping was never able to be relieved. I was up and walking within hours. I was out of the hospital in 3 days. I was grocery shopping on day 4 and made a huge Easter dinner for my family on day 5. I healed at an amazing rate and I was able to fully return to all aspects of my life after 3 weeks. Way sooner than the 6 weeks I was supposed to be on bed rest and a hell of a lot sooner than the 12 weeks I was supposed to wait to be intimate again. I look back now at how scared I was and all of the grief I put myself through and it is laughable. Why was I so scared? It was the best decision I have ever made in my life. I have experienced life in a way that I was never able to do before and I look back on all that I went though and all that I have ahead of me and I tell life to bring it on. Give me the best that you have got and I will face it and come out better for it. If my hysterectomy taught me anything, it taught me that.
