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Thursday, February 24, 2011

stitched up and sprouting


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 Surgery number 2 is behind me and today, 10 days later I finally feel better.  The best part is that I got to have the catheter removed.  Yeah, I had a catheter in for the last 10 days.  Horrible.  Turns out the issues they were dealing with were more complicated than anticipated and I ended up having emergency surgery on my urethra.  Bleck.  The whole thing made me grouchy, now I'm much better!!

The good news:  all issues were addressed and there was no evidence of any other issues so my lady parts get the thumbs up!!  The remaining pain is nothing now that the damn catheter is gone, funny how at some point pain becomes relative. 

I've done my best to pay close attention and remain introspective during this journey, it's been an emotional roller coaster for a variety of reasons I was surprised to discover.  When we lost our baby a few years back I was far enough along that I had to be induced and my feeling at the time was that I wanted every drug possible to make me as numb as possible.  I wanted to be unconscious, I didn't want to participate in one second of that labor.  That feeling continued after I had the baby, I took quite a bit of Valium & painkillers in the following days.  I floated through it in a fog and told myself I was alright. 

I finally sobered up and got angry about the whole thing, I started asking the Goddess some intense questions, I got some real answers and it changed my life.  Ever since then I've been careful to be as present as I can, to listen to the lessons that are revealed.  I know now that many of my life lessons will come through my struggle for total health.  I've got a long list of things to work on though I've crossed off a fair amount of them in the last two years.

The pieces are sliding together, 
I'm becoming me.  

Friday, February 4, 2011

Darkness before Dawn

I've been very hesitant to make this blog all about my health issues.  My quest for better health has been a huge struggle in my life most notably for the last couple of years and so it's inevitable that it would leak into this space but I know how tedious it can be to read about someone elses' health problems so I've tried to be selective about what I share.  One thing I've been pretty open about is our quest to get pregnant.  I know there are quite a few couples out there that have issues in this arena as well and I've appreciated having other bloggers input about their journey so this is one topic I've addressed and now I know there are at least two bloggers who come here just for this reason so I want to give the update on my testing. 

I can't express how glad I am that I listened to the little voice in my head that kept telling me to go in and get the thorough once over to see if everything with my lady parts was oky-doky.  My little voice (who grows louder every day thankfully) kept telling me that everything wasn't okay and she was right.  My new ob-gyn specializes in infertility, she was the first one who ever really listened to my list of complaints and took me seriously, she too felt that the list of issues warranted testing.  The first thing we did was a vaginal ultrasound which immediately revealed that I have a septate uterus, a very large cyst and a uterine fibroid.  She was concerned about the cyst and wanted a better look at the uterus so she ordered an MRI.  The results were concurrent with her findings during the ultrasound plus the test provided a diagnoses of adenomyosis. 

I've been on such a roller coaster since all of these tests started coming in.  A big part of me is relieved to know what is really going on and know that I have the insurance to have it taken care of.  A very big part of me is seething with rage that I can barely contain at times over all of the doctors who I tried to get to listen to me when I told them that something was wrong.  When we lost our baby a few years ago they told us they did every test they could on both of us to figure out what went wrong and both my ob & my ob surgeon are AMAZED they didn't see the problem with the uterus during any of the ultrasounds we had done during pregnancy or that they didn't look at the uterus at all for a miscarriage cause.  I believe it is clearly a case of us not being insured at the time and them not wanting to delve into it for a state aid charity case.  But besides the inept doctors (which isn't new to me in my previous experiences) I'm also pissed at all of the other non-traditional healers (medical intuitive specifically) I have been working with these last couple of years.  That one is tough because I went out on a limb to trust them and to have faith in their spiritual process to guide us to a healthy pregnancy and baby.  EVERYONE kept telling us that we were over our hurdles and it was time to go for it and start really trying to get pregnant.  It devastates me to think what could have/would have happened if I had somehow managed to get pregnant again (which even both docs I have now acknowledge was a miracle the first time around due to all of my issues lining up the way they do to hinder fertility.)  My uterus is too small due to the wall up the middle to carry a baby.  We would have either lost it again around the 5mo mark...again...or would have had to deliver prematurely and risk all that comes with that.  I just keep thinking to myself, WHAT THE FUCK????  I had an entire fucking team on this ONE health issue and not one single damn person could figure it out.  I've been trying to see what the lesson is in this....maybe I'm still too close to it to see it clearly but so far I'm not getting it. 

So now the next step is surgery.  I met with my surgeon yesterday and while I believe him to be knowledgeable I'm concerned with his approach.  For one he doesn't think it's important to remove the fibroid.  His logic for this was pretty fuzzy, he seemed to be telling me that it was a much more involved surgery and he didn't want to 'put me through that' without any consideration for the significant amount of people in my family who have died from cancers or the fact that I made mention that in a year from now I won't have insurance any longer so I may not be able to do anything about it if I don't get insurance after my job is transferred.  

I'm so frustrated, it feels like I don't have anywhere to go for real solid answers.  This is all so confusing and it enrages me to think that I have to hold these doctors hands through all of this to ensure that they don't screw me over again.  And my medical intuitive?  She dropped the ball big time.  After all of this came out I emailed her and told her of the results and point blank asked her how it was that she with all of her spirit helpers and all of her years of doing this work wasn't able to clearly see what the issues were- at least with the uterus- and instead was compelling me to go ahead with trying to get pregnant.  Her response was so amazingly idiotic that in spite of my anger I had to laugh.  I'm still amazed.  Not once did she bother to explain in any manner how she missed this, neither did she apologize or offer any suggestions about my exposed conditions.  She did say that if I needed any further assistance after meeting with the surgeon that I could call her for a free session and she would help out.  Well, after the adenomyosis diagnosis came in following the reading of the MRI results I emailed her again and asked her if she knew anything about adenomyosis, that was two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything from her since.  So FUCK YOU LADY!!  How could you sleep at night or live with yourself if you were taking someones money and advising them in matters of health only to find out that you were horribly wrong- without apologizing or bothering to right the situation you just go on with your life and your business? 

And to make matters worse I've got next to no support group as I go through this.  My mom of course is my rock, she's always there for me and I felt so much better when I thought she was going to be able to come here and be with me for this operation & recovery but last night I found out that isn't going to happen.  She's in the middle of closing on a house so she can't leave in the middle of all of the financial stuff.  I'd been keeping a pretty stiff upper lip until she told me that.  When we got off of the phone I was devastated. 

My husband is not known for his nurturing or supportive abilities.  He means well in his own way but he's never had to or been bothered to figure out how to be helpful in the ways that I need him to be.  This was never more apparent to me than when I had my feet operated on, thank the Lord & Lady that my parents were here for that or who knows how it would have gone.  I keep reading all of these blogs where these women have these amazing circles of friends and family that are there for them through their struggles and crises, last night at work I was reading a new blog and the woman was talking about how a friend of hers had some severe complications during childbirth and there were dozens of women who organized to breast feed her baby while she recovers in the hospital.  It was so touching and so beautiful I started crying at my desk.  I feel a massive void in my life where a nurturing community should be.  Aside from my mom there isn't really anyone.  I talked to my best girlfriend about the test results when they first came in and she was concerned but was going to be leaving for vacation in a couple of days and I haven't heard from her since.  I don't want to call people and whine, I loathe talking about it honestly but it would be great to just have someone who would call/email from time to time to check in and just say they were here.  My mentor, Swan, has totally ditched me.  She finally answered my question about whether or not we were still training and or hanging out together and said yes to both counts but hasn't answered an email since.  I just stopped, clearly she is too busy for me. 

I hate that this is starting to sound like a pity party, though I am indeed feeling a little Eyore-ish about the whole thing.  I know everyone has their own problems, such is life I guess.  In the meantime I'll journey into this darkness to find out what she is trying to teach me, this- like so many of the journeys in my life will be a solitary one it seems and there must be a reason for that too. 

Into the deep................