Apr 25: The Detective Finds a Body (And It's Hers)
Hi there, lovelies,
I'm coming to you a week out from the first surgery of my life, a major surgery I have termed the deleterus. My doctor approved the change, because hysterectomy is such a sexist problem child of a term. (The clue is the hyster part, as in hysterical. Wombs/uteruses were believed capable of making women uncontrollably and neurotically insane. And we still use a term with this baggage attached. Yep.) Anyway, if you're recoiling like, uh, GB, this is TMI -- think about why for a second. It's just a part of the body, and because women have it, a maligned one we culturally either treat as if it's a secret taboo or a joke or make terrible laws about what women should or shouldn't do with it (and historically don't support care for the things we all have, like, you know, PERIODS, with free supplies and birth control). And the reason I'm talking about this is because only as I've started to feel better, have I realized just how awful I felt for the past couple of years, this last one the worst. And there's a point, I promise.
We're not encouraged to talk about women's health or women's health issues that are ubiquitous or nearly so. One of those is fibroids, which is what led to my surgery. I only heard about these from friends in a slack, so at least I wasn't completely blindsided by their existence. These are noncancerous growths that can be very small -- and cause no symptoms at all -- or quite huge (the largest ever removed, from a corpse, was 100 pounds!), and which 70 percent of women experience. The medical field has decided to use a chart of fruit to describe the sizes for...reasons...that remain vague and hilarious. Let's say I had a garden that ranged from lemon to a small melon. The actual code they put on the chart when I first went in was "Bulky Uterus" because that's something they cause, pushing and expanding it. Also, a great band name. After my nearly five hour surgery, the doctor came out, plopped down next to Christopher in the waiting room, held up his hands, and said, "Her uterus was HUGE." Don't be jealous. (Now that it's gone, everything else it was pressing on will go back to normal.)
Why am I telling y'all this? Well, like I said, I already -- despite still being in recovery and so I get tired and I have incisions that are healing -- feel better. I never skipped an annual women's health exam, not since I was in high school. But this stuff was NOT detected at my last annual. I went in on a problem visit in November, because the symptoms spiked right around the election. As I'd been telling myself all year, it was just stress -- the pandemic, the tyrant -- and I never considered anything more serious. The doc who examined me was like you could be 12 weeks pregnant with this mass, and you didn't notice? Me: I've been eating a lot of pasta and I thought it was pandemic weight? I had an extremely painful biopsy that was inconclusive, an ultrasound, similarly. The clinic I was going to -- which is majorly understaffed and overburdened -- misplaced results or didn't share them. I sat in a waiting room for three hours one day. I managed to extricate myself and get to a new doctor and the path became much clearer. He sent me for an MRI; we all agreed surgery was the right call. That took roughly four months from chatting with him to tests to surgery.
Having talked to many, many friends who've been through similar situations now, I know this was a best case scenario. There are a variety of procedural options--this one was best for me, but others may have only the fibroids removed or their blood supply cut off in hope of shrinking them, etc. Most people I know had to argue with their doctors for removal/treatment. Some were told to "live with it." Others didn't have insurance for removal and so just had to wait it out (menopause will usually do the trick). Some doctors won't do it if they believe you're too young to decide for sure you don't want to have kids. (I MEAN, FUCK OFF.) They'd rather you live in pain on the off chance you change your mind, because I guess women are so HYSTERICAL we can't know our own minds. My friends and acquaintances online who reached out because they've had or have similar issues were such a help. Being able to talk about it, hearing from everyone how much they were happy they had surgery, it helped.
Like, I said, I was lucky. I managed to find a doc newly moved here who was able to do the surgery laparoscopically, which is one reason why my recovery is going so well. But here are a few things I learned that I think are worth sharing:
- Don't just chalk up feeling like crap to stress! It might be stress. It might be depression. Or anxiety. Or both. But, and I know many of us put this off during the pandemic, don't count on it. Get checked out for both. I also went to therapy for the first time this past year for help troubleshooting a general malaise. I feel like my work process improved 1000 percent. You are worth following up on mental or physical issues. You deserve to know if there's an underlying reason you feel like garbage, because you deserve to NOT feel like garbage.
- You will have to be your own advocate. I'm happy to talk through this with anyone who runs into trouble. I know a little more about the ins and outs of this stuff from my former day job. But, especially where women's health issues are concerned, you will have to do your own research, you will probably have to force the issue of treatment and be a million percent clearer about what you want than you would in other circumstances. You may have to change doctors. It's worth it. Frustrating as all get out, but worth it. (p.s. If you don't currently have insurance, try the healthcare.gov marketplaces -- that's the insurance we have, and the bill Congress just passed allows for more generous subsidies this year; even if you couldn't afford it before, you might be able to now.)
- Talk about this stuff. It's the only way we normalize women's bodies and the things we all go through. There's no reason for everyone to be hacking through a forest of medical language in the dark.
- I'm so intensely grateful. For nurses and family who had a sense of humor and were unbelievably kind. For all the friends and family who reached out with well wishes and sent extravagant and thoughtful (and delicious) presents. So grateful to have this life that I have, and to now no longer treat ibuprofen as a vitamin.
Now I will go back to not working too much, which has frankly been the hardest part of recovery. I like working. ;)
I'm going to try not to take so long between these, and the next time I'll talk about writing and craft stuff, I promise.
Love, Gwenda
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