endo-wah?

i have stage IV endometriosis. it is an insidious condition where menstrual blood finds its way out of the uterus into the abdominal cavity, collects into blood tumors, (endometrioma) lays on otherwise healthy organs, (lesions) and sticks stuff together that shouldn't be stuck (adhesions.) there are 4 stages...stage 4 is the worst. there is a lot that goes along with having endo. it can really ruin your day sometimes, but im not going to talk right now about all the stuff that a person with endo experiences because, really, it's gross and you shouldn't have to know if you don't already.

lets go back in time for a moment...its 2004. im 26 years old. i have a new job, but i also have an OBGYN appt. i always went in march for my yearly. (YEARLY. yearly!...bwahahahahahahah!)

oh the innocence of those days. anyway i loved my doctor. i miss her to this day...she was wonderful. not only was she awesome at her job, she had the best bedside manner and the personality of an actual human! she was great.

so, i leave work early for my yearly (haha still making me laugh, i haven't used that word in forever) and i wait the requisite hour to see my doc. i never understood how they could get so very off schedule there, but it happened every. time.

pants off, on the table and cold hard speculum (ouch!) inserted...breathe in, breathe out. these were the last moments of me enjoying what i perceived to be normal female life. 

dr. G -"hmmm"

L- "what?"

dr. G-"well, your uterus is slightly tipped forward, i'd like you to have an ultrasound to check that out."

L- (unfazed) "ok is this something i should schedule right away? i just got a new job and all..."

dr. G -"i'd say you should need to get it looked at within 2-3 weeks."

L -internal oh shit monitor goes off

i honestly don't remember where our conversation went after that. i scheduled an ultrasound for the next week and worried my way through day and night until it came.

during my ultrasound, i watched the tech marking off big black blobs. i asked her what she saw. "well, you have two masses. one is very large." 

cue tears "is it cancer?" (silly girl)

UT "no, if it were cancer, it would show up as a different color. they look like fibroids to me. don't worry."

tears, tears, tears

two weeks later i am in dr. G's office. she is happy to report that i have a large pedunculated fibroid attached to the outside of my uterus and that's what's causing the tipping.. she isn't worried about it, and says we can either remove it or 'keep an eye on it' for six months.

tears "are you kidding? get it out! i want it out!"

ill note now that at this time i wore a size 4...last time in my life!

i was scheduled for surgery 2 months later. in the time between my yearly visit and my surgery, my belly grew and grew. by the day of my surgery i looked 5 months pregnant. (with one baby) i ate nonstop, i used to say i was "feeding the tumor." it was such a literal drain on my system. in the weeks right before i was to have my surgery, life became extremely uncomfortable. if i ate too much or had my period, there would be too much swelling and fullness down there and i would be in severe pain.

i had plans to go on vacation with my brother and his wife a week after my surgery. i was told that the whole procedure would take 45 min and i would be out of the hospital by the next day. travel would not be an issue.

boy were they wrong

they opened me up and got a horrorshow-(actual picture from surgery) the 'fibroid' was a 10cm chocolate endometrioma that had encompassed my right tube and ovary (every month the tumor would fill up with more blood as the old blood would turn a dark brown syrupy consistency)

the tumor was so large, and my insides were so tiny back then. it had pushed my uterus back into my organs, causing the tipping forward of my cervix dr. G had felt. endometrial blood had seeped into my abdominal cavity and stuck everything together. my poor mother was presented with pictures (!) and had to agree to let them take out my right ovary and tube.

a general surgeon was called in to lyse adhesions and put my organs back where they belonged. they worked on me for 3.5 hours. it took a very long time for me to come out of the anesthesia. i hurt. they had me on morphine. morphine sucks as we already know, but that didn't stop me from jammin on that button every chance i got. after recovery when i was brought to a room there was a very LOUD woman in there about to get discharged. oh, she was LOUD and the people in the hallway, LOUD and the light, oh so BRIGHT gah--it was awful. i stayed in the hospital for 5 days, i had a bunch of staples and a big ol bikini cut. i was out of work for 12 weeks. i was so lucky to have my mom take care of me. she didn't get a summer break that year! thanks mom :)

leg pain set in a week after my operation with my period (im a lucky girl, jealous yet?) it was a searing ow ow ow my leg's on fire! kind of a pain. over the next two years it would be ever present, to the point where i would limp by the end of the day. my mom's friend (OR nurse) told me they had probably left the retractor in one spot for too long, causing nerve damage. my RE (referred after surgery) told me he would have been able to save my ovary. everybody thought i should sue. i didn't want to sue though. i know dr. G did what she could, nobody intentionally hurt me, even though i was so very very hurt.

people don't understand chronic pain. they don't want to hear about it. they don't get that oh my god i cant think straight this hurts so bad. i was lucky to only have that severity of residual physical pain for two years. i do think it was nerve damage and just needed a long time to heal. i still ache many days, and i have a hard time sitting in one spot for too long, or crossing my legs. they just hurt. i think most of that is just pure endo pain though that operation and the two that followed didn't help things...

the emotional scab of having this fucked up condition is ongoing, and gets picked open often, say every 28 days or so. the physical results are constant reminders of how wacky my body is, how it just doesn't know how to be normal or function like a lady. i don't like to dwell on the bad side of what life has given me. that ultrasound tech could have found a cancerous tumor that day, i could have lost consciousness on that operating table, i could have died any number of ways since then.
**wow, not sure where that came from**

but i didn't. im here. im here and i have my funky uterus and its nasty habits and its aversion to pregnancy. but that's what ive got and damned if im not gonna make the best of it.