Putting all the T in the TMI

Reporting in post-surgery, down one uterus and a cervix, up a few more holes in my abdomen, and post-good IV drugs and a million hours of sleep.

It's Day 3. My pain is very low and managed with the extra-strength ibuprofen. My middle is a little swollen and generally just feels weird/off. I've taken two short walks, one yesterday and one today, and slept for 2-3 hours after each. I've taken two showers, one yesterday and one today, and slept for at least an hour after those too. Sleeping is kind of my thing right now. Sleeping, healing, and not tracking the few email conversations I read enough to trust myself to respond to any of them.

This hysterectomy was a long damn time coming. In a world without health insurance approvals and doctors who like to start with the non-most-invasive option possible I would have done this about 8 years ago when I reconciled myself to the fact that Cora was our last baby. I'm going into the whole story here because I think women's stories are important and not talked about or studied nearly enough, but this is your warning if the title wasn't enough.

My periods got worse after each pregnancy. After Landon, an IUD kept them in check. After Claire it was an IUD + continuous birth control. After Cora it was an IUD + stronger continuous birth control. I'd been on some form of birth control since I was 18 and never had an issue, so using two kinds at once to keep periods away didn't bother me as long as it worked. And it did work and it didn't bother me for a pretty long time.

And then, about 2.5 years ago I started getting yeast infections. I'd get them treated and a few days later they'd come back. Then my skin, which in the last few years has become highly reactive, decided to develop a contact allergy to yeast, which means the cycle of yeast infection + contact dermatitis + yeast infection was unending and deeply, deeply awful. My pelvic floor decided to get involved and became WAY overactive, basically trying to shut down anything that might try to ever touch me. Sex, which is my very favorite thing, became painful and nearly impossible. I developed vulvar eczema in reaction to the creams and medicines, so basically my entire pelvic area was flipping the fuck out.

I saw my gynecologist many times, a dermatologist, a vulvar dermatologist, and a pelvic floor physical therapist (amazing; that therapy should be covered for all women, I can't believe I hadn't been to one before). After 2 years of trying to figure out why everything that had been working fine for fifteen years suddenly went haywire and the vulvar dermatologist (who I loved and was amazing, but is the only one in Dallas and it took nearly a year to get in to her) suggested it could be a long term reaction to hormonal birth control.

I went off it and the skin conditions improved tremendously but the periods were out of control and I simply refuse to have that level of monthly carnage in my life. So we did an ablation. We combined it with removing both of my fallopian tubes because once they've scraped and burned out your uterine lining you absolutely cannot get pregnant. So I did that in November. It was an outpatient procedure, I took off a couple days of work, didn't really tell anyone, and all was fine.

Except the periods didn't change. AT ALL. Turns out, in rare cases (OF COURSE), an ablation will "fail" due to adenomyosis, where the uterine lining has at some point decided to grow into the muscular wall of the uterus, and so I finally just got to take the whole thing out. The doctor was able to do it laparoscopically and my ovaries remain with me, so I don't have to worry about HRT or early menopause. I no longer have a cervix, so I no longer have to do pap smears or worry about cervical cancer. I can't get uterine cancer any more either and my risk of ovarian cancer goes way down, so that's nice.

My poor abdomen has three new incisions and hopefully been cut into for the last time. My insides feel swollen and a little confused. I'm home for the rest of April, exclusively resting for this week, and then likely increasingly working from home over the next few. It's amazing what surgery takes out of you. My pain is well managed and I feel pretty good, but I sleep a lot and it is clear it's the only thing my body really wants to do. I'm not supposed to lift anything over 3 pounds, and I can't do cardio for at least 6 weeks or have sex for 12, but I'm just glad to be at the end of what has been a very long journey involving way too many tests and scrapes and stirrups.

And now, back to sleep.