The Power of Makeup

I’ve been thinking a lot about makeup recently.  I saw a friend post about the #PowerofMakeup online movement.  It’s an interesting concept, and I’m glad it’s given me something to pause and reflect upon.  Wearing makeup is a personal choice and not something that I think anybody should be ashamed of doing, the same way women should not be ashamed of NOT wearing makeup.

I know that makeup dramatically changes the way that I look, enough that when I come back from vacation at the beach or from a period of illness my family always has a double take when I “put my face back on”.  It takes only about 10 minutes a day but it makes a big difference to me. There are very few places I will go without wearing it.  The interesting question is: why?

I have been officially wearing makeup since I was 14, and honestly a little before that as at the ages of 12 and 13 I BEGGED and PLEADED with my mother to let me wear something more than clear mascara and lip gloss.  It’s something I’ve always loved to do but I didn’t stop to wonder why. 

So if you’ll please forgive the following bout of navel gazing, I thought it would be helpful to put my thoughts on paper.

REASONS WHY I WEAR MAKEUP:

1.       It makes me look feminine.

Now before you start raving about how I shouldn’t conform to society’s expectations of beauty and whatnot, please understand that I’m not wearing make up to look pretty for OTHER people.  There are plenty of days that I wear makeup where I (and my family) are the only ones that see it.  I wear it for me, so that I feel pretty and feminine. I highlight the features I’m proudest of (my eyes), use it emphasize others features that are pleasing but sometimes get overlooked (my lips and cheekbones), and use it cover flaws (my skin).  Wouldn’t life be easier if we could do that for everything?

2.       It makes me feel my age and replaces some youth I’ve lost along the way.

For most of my life, my body was locked in a ferocious battle with a disease called endometriosis.  The disease and the treatment I have endured have left some pretty devastating effects and scars.  The obvious surgical scars are across my belly, which never sees the light of day, so I don’t worry about those.  However, there are scars in my face that are a little more subtle.  As a 33 year old who is dealing with menopause due to a hysterectomy, I have learned that this surgery (the most common surgery for women in our country) and the hormone therapy afterwards is a big joke.  I’m 33, but my body is convinced it is 63 no matter how many estrogen patches and hormone pills I throw at it.   There are lines that are etched around my eyes that shouldn’t have shown up for at least another 10 years.  There are bags under my eyes almost constantly.  I’m losing elasticity in my face that I didn’t even know was there before.  I’ve lost most of the hair in my eyebrows.  Sometimes there’s adult acne that my body decides to throw up because it likes to make me crazy.  And then the issue that I perplexes me the most: somewhere in the last 5 years during my struggle my eyelashes turned white.  It’s really strange, I know, but they’re basically gone.  Every day I wake up, look in the mirror, and I see an old woman where a thirtysomething should be.   However, with 10 minutes, some powders and paint I can recreate a lot of that. I can make my eyelashes dark and full,  paint my eyebrows back on, reverse some of the damage premature aging has created, and bring my facial age back into the 30s again.   I feel like me again.

3.       It is my battle armor, my camouflage, and my war paint.

About 95% of the time I don't feel well.  It might be phantom pain left behind by damage done to my nerves from the endometriosis.  It might be scare tissue left by all the surgeries. It might be part of a new condition that I suspect is there, but haven’t been able to diagnose yet.  I don’t take medication to deal with any of this (I hate pain meds) so I just suck it up and smile.  Or the pain might be of the mental variety, as I battle those twin dragons of mental health, depression and anxiety. However, if my face looks normal I can fool most of people around me into thinking everything’s okay.  And if they don’t treat me like I’m broken then it’s easier for me to not treat myself like I’m broken.  It makes it easier to focus on what I need to do every day and not give any extra attention to the war that is playing out in my head. If I look strong, and powerful, and feminine I can convince myself that is what I am.  Makeup helps with that.

4.       It is a form of artistic expression.

I love art.  I’ve always loved art and even though I’m no Rembrandt, I love to blend and shade and contour.  My face just happens to be one of my favorite canvases to play with.  I love to see what happens when I combine different shades or tones in unexpected ways.  I love it when I get some difficult eye makeup so right, it’s like magic and I’ll be checking myself out in the mirror all day.  I love buying new makeup and playing with it. For the most part I’m not a loyal buyer of any brand in particular.  High-end eyeshadow makes me just as happy as the shimmer I found in the clearance bin at the grocery store.  I am not a very organized person in general, but my makeup kit is always organized and has a proper storage place in my bathroom cabinet.  The case has been loved and treasured and houses a plethora of brushes and paint.  It is the case of an artist.

Most of the time I’m wearing makeup, even when I do quick errands or work out.  People have commented on it and I’ve jokingly replied “A good Southern girl doesn’t leave the house without mascara and lip gloss on!” but that’s not true.   Really, it’s just me.  I just really like wearing it.  

10 Things I Learned From My Hysterectomy

Having a hysterectomy at age 31 is pretty brutal, and as a result you tend to learn some life lessons. 

Before my hysterectomy I had a laparoscopy which was supposed to remove an ovarian cyst.  While I was preparing for that surgery, I came across a really helpful list on the Internet of "10 Things I Have Learned from my Laparoscopy" (http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Ovarian-Cysts/Top-10-things-I-have-learned-from-laproscopic-cyst-ovary-removal/show/518374?page=1) 

Boy, I wish I had a list like that for my hysterectomy!  As I have a dear friend going through this in the next week or so, I thought I'd write down some of the hints, tricks, and lessons I've learned during the last two weeks in hopes that it will help my fellow hyster-sisters out there!

1. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Statistically speaking, it is the second most common surgery in the United States with an average of 622,000 women undergoing this surgery each year.   There are currently 22 million women in the United States who have undergone this procedure and one out of every three women can expect to have it before they turn 60. But statistics can seem cold and unfriendly when you're lying there on the hospital bed.  So here are some other options:

Hyster-Sisters: most of those 22 million women are online and talking about their experience.  And you can find the best vault of knowledge about ANYTHING (and I do mean ANYTHING) related to hysterectomies at http://www.hystersisters.com/.  They'll prepare for your hysterectomy, be with you through the surgery (you get a special roll call/shout out on your surgery date!), recommend what outfit to wear home, and be there to help you through the healing process.  There is no question too weird, too distasteful, or too painful to ask them.  And it helps to know that you have an online community just waiting and ready to accept you with open arms. 

Friends and Family -  You will find out that you are way more loved than you ever thought possible. I was very open about my surgery because I knew I would need all of that support.  From visits, to meals brought over (more about that in a second), cards, and Facebook posts you will find an outpouring of love.  I find it very hard to ever ask for help, but I am making a very conscious effort to ask for something when I need it.  I found it gives others a service opportunity they didn't have before (most are extremely excited to help) and it strengthens our relationship.  Plus I know that I will be there if they ever need anything.

2.  FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD.
And when those Friends and Family converge on you and say "How can I help?  Can I bring you a meal?" you'll get really overwhelmed really quickly.  Luckily, I have a sister who is great at organizing crowds.  She signed our family up for www.takethemameal.com and became our meal coordinator.  It was so nice to not have to worry about the coordinating of who would bring what when and just be grateful and excited when the meals showed up.  The only downside is that Steve is now bemoaning the loss of his girlish figure from all these cookies :)

3. PANTS ARE THE ENEMY.
There's lots of talk on the HysterSisters website about "swelly belly".  For those who are uninitiated, swelly belly is where your stomach swells around the incision site, especially for those who have abdominal hysterectomies.  Now with my hysterectomy, I've compared scars with some of my C-section friends, and my scar is about twice their size.  They've got nice little 6 inch scars.  Mine runs from hip to hip.  From things I've felt, read, and things the nurses have let slip, I'm pretty sure my doctor was up to his elbows digging around in there.  That's hard for a body to get over.  So there is definitely some swelling.  My normal pooch (that most of us girls have right below our belly buttons) swelled to unbelievable proportions and is just now sort of getting back to normal.  Some of the Hystersisters say it took theirs 6mos-1year to get back to completely normal.  That makes most of your old wardrobe now defunct.  And bless their hearts, the Hystersisters do offer these lovely "waistband extender kits" which to me just look like you're wearing granny panties and can't button your jeans.  So I stayed away from those, but hey- it's an option.  http://www.hystersisters.com/store/accessories/waistband-extender-kit/

 In addition, those incision sites?  They hurt.  The thought of wearing anything with any sort of button and zip waist makes me squirm in horror.  Some hystersister recommend wearing maternity pants for the first few months after your surgery.  I don't know that I'm that far gone- although I have considered it.  Instead I invested in several pairs of maxi dresses and skirts that have elastic waists and are nice and flowy.  That was one of the best things I've ever done.  They are so comfy!  And with no pinchy waist parts. 

4. PEOPLE VISITING THE HOSPITAL IS A BAD IDEA.
So many people have said, "Oh I wanted to come see you in the hospital" and I am oh-so-glad they didn't.  For several reasons.

The day of your hysterectomy they'll dig out some internal organs, stitch you back up, and then send you to your room where you will be expected to GET UP OFF OF YOUR STRETCHER AND WALK TO YOUR BED!  My response: "Unless you are Jesus here to heal me, I'm not getting up and walking off of this thing."  It took several nurses and a round or two of some anti-anxiety meds to get me onto my bed.  So get ready for that.  Had I been mentally prepared for that I might not have been such a whiner.

Oh, who am I kidding?  I totally still would have been a whiner.

You're in pain, you're in recovery, and you're under the influence of many pain meds.  Make sure that whomever does come to see you knows that.

But don't worry about it too much- you won't spend that long in there.  I had an abdominal hysterectomy WHERE THEY SLICED OPEN MY STOMACH AND REMOVED THINGS and less than 36 hours later, they let me roll out of the door.  As I was informed, this is the norm now thanks to some new health care system laws.  And honestly? I was ready.  I even talked them into letting me go a little early (which wasn't that hard because the nurses were so ready to get rid of me).  So you won't even be in the hospital that long. 

Just tell everyone to wait until you get home.  And if you aren't up to seeing visitors tell them "No, I'm really not up for it".  I did it several times.  Because honestly, there are times that you're just going to want to sleep.

5. BE READY TO WATCH SOME JUNK TV.
I thought, "Oh, I'll make sure to have a nice stack of books to read".  Bad idea.  After the surgery and on the pain meds I was so loopy, I had an even worse attention span than usual.  I'd try to read and end up falling asleep.  I'd try to watch movies but loose interest half the way through.   My saving grace was Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.  I developed an addiction to the shows Nashville and Grimm. Nice little 45 minute episodes that I could nap inbetween. And that's pretty much all I did for the first two weeks.  After about 14 days or so, I started getting back to my normal self and picked up some books.  But for awhile I really wasn't up to reading! 

6. HORMONES ARE THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL AND ACNE.
Once they remove everything they're supposed to remove, you'll go into surgical menopause.  And everything I read on Hystersisters is right: It hits you like a semi truck on days 4-6. 

There were tears.  Like snot running down my face, worst PMS of my life, "I don't even know why I'm crying!" tears.   And they lasted for about 3 days.  Then miraculously I woke up one morning and they were gone!  And then...the hot flashes settled in. 

Now, I can't be on any hormone therapy for 6 weeks because of my acute endometriosis.  Estrogen feeds the endometrial cells and we have to make sure that every single one of those suckers dries up and dies.  Otherwise they could come back to haunt me and stick all of my organs together again.  So what do you do?  I stand in front of my freezer a lot.  And I live with my hair up in a ponytail.  At the recommendation of one of the Nurses, I take B vitamins and Folic Acid and those seem to have reduced the number and intensity of the hot flashes immensely.   I also get to experience some really fun (not really fun) night sweats.  I have several pillows and I just change them out during the night when one gets too funky.  I do a lot of sheet laundry.  It's just life and we're getting used to it.

Those are all of the weird things that happen with menopause.  Now the upsides: 

• I AM COMPLETELY PIMPLE FREE!!!  Yes!  I turns out it was those hormones that caused all of my skin problems all along!  I'm having the best skin I've ever had in my life. 
• Once the PMS funk had passed, I am having the most stable and positive moods that I have had in YEARS.  Seriously.  I blame anything mean or harsh that I said in the last 19 years on hormones. 
• My constant craving for sugar and sweets and empty carbs has disappeared.  Y'all, I used to eat all the time.  Like ALL THE TIME.  It helped a little bit with the nausea (which again, was also caused by the hormones of doom) but mostly I just craved food.  Constantly.  It's a very interesting experience for me to only eat 3 times a day at meal time and not crave more during the rest of the day.
• All the nausea and headaches and pain caused by the endometriosis (which came on so slowly I just thought I was getting older- didn't realize there was anything THAT wrong) is gone.   I seriously feel like myself for the first time in years.  And it's a wonderful, wonderful feeling.  It's one of those things where you don't realize how screwed up you really were until you feel better!

7. WATER BOTTLES ARE YOUR FRIEND.
This is another tip I read on HysterSisters.  Take a waterbottle or two and stick it in your freezer.  Let it freeze complete solid and then stick it in an old gym sock.  It's the perfect size to sit on your incision while you watch TV and rest.  They'll tell you to alternate cold with heat, but if you're anything like me and my hot flashes, the idea of heat is totally repugnant.  So I just alternate cold and not cold.  And it feels heavenly.  Best of all because it's in a bottle and the ice is so thick, it won't melt as quickly as an icepack and it doesn't leak.  It's the best thing ever.

8. PILLOWS CAN BE HELPFUL.
They'll tell you to take a "tummy pillow" with you to the hospital to help you get up and walk around.  Personally I didn't find that very helpful but apparently some do.  However, I did find the pillows very helpful in that I am a side sleeper and after abdominal surgery- side sleeping is almost impossible.   But pillows propped up strategically can help. Position #1- If you can roll on to your side, slide your bottom leg straight, and move your top leg up in a 90 degree angle (kind of like a yoga position) with the pillow under it, you can sleep on your side.   Position #2- If you create a little nest out of pillows on either side of you, you can kind of turn sideways on your back and it's kind of like sleeping on your side- but you're still on your back.  Honestly, as comfy as Position #1 is, I've found the swelling in the morning is a lot less painful and stuffy in Position #2.

9. GET OFF OF THE PAIN PILLS ASAP.
I'm not talking like the day after or anything.  If you need the pain pills take them.  The only problem with being on the pain pills is that you can't actually feel anything.  You'll be up and walking around and feeling fine- when you're anything but.  I weaned myself off of the pain pills and on to Ibuprofen and Tylenol as soon as possible.  This helps dull the pain, but you still know where and what is hurting.  It can help you target your ice pack.  It will also keep you resting like you know you should, but won't if you're painless.  And if you get used to the way your incision/etc feels then you'll know when something is wrong or really wrong.  I had a pretty bad bladder infection in week 2, but I don't think I would have felt it if I was still on the pain pills.  I'm glad I was off of them and able to say, "You know, I'm hurting in places I didn't hurt yesterday and in a very weird way.  Time to call the doctor!"

10. LEARN THE HYSTER-ROLL.
There are actually plenty of posts about this on Hystersisters.com, but I just wanted to point it out.  You will not be able to sit straight up after your surgery.  I'm 2.5 weeks out and I tried it the yesterday and it still hurt like %^&*.  So how do you go from lying down to sitting up?  You do the Hyster-Roll.  When you're lying down, roll up onto your side.  Bring your knees in at a 90 degree angle, or dangle them off of the bed, couch, etc.  Using your arms, push yourself up going hand over hand until you are sitting upright.  It'll take you awhile to get used to getting up like this.  There were several times where I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, forgot that I had an incision and tried to sit up like normal only to fall back into the bed in extreme pain.  However, if you keep working at it, the Hyster-Roll gets easier and easier and becomes a habit. 

I'm not going to lie.  Getting over a hysterectomy is hard.  It's hard physically, and it's hard emotionally.  Don't be afraid to take the time and space that you need to recuperate.   Make sure you have a support system in place.  But more than anything: remember that you are loved and you are not alone!

Prelude to a Hysterectomy, Part II

(If you haven't read Part I, you can find it here: http://kingdomoflala.blogspot.com/2013/05/prelude-to-hysterectomy-part-i.html)

Part II: What A Mess.

Steve looks down at me in the bed and says, “You need a hysterectomy.”

Now remember, I’m still in post-surgery cavewoman mode, so I reach out from the bed and pinch him really hard on the arm. “That’s not funny.” (I thought he was teasing me because of our conversation before the surgery.)  “How did it really go?” 

At this point he’s taken a good full step back out of my reach and repeats, “You need a hysterectomy.  The doctor came out in the middle of surgery and said they couldn’t remove the cyst.  It’s too big.  And there’s too much tissue.  And you have severe endometriosis.  And you’ve got organs growing on other organs.”  He shows me some of the pictures they took during the laparoscopy. 

“You see all this stuff that looks like grape jelly everywhere? That’s endometriosis.  And you see that line, that’s your fallopian tube, with your ovary totally tucked behind where it should be.  The Dr. says that as you are now, you’re completely infertile.”

I digest this, still in cavewoman mode.  “So they didn’t take anything out.”

Steve: “Nope.”
Me (yelling): “Didn’t you tell them to take it all out if they had to???”

Steve (totally calm- this is why we’re together): “I did tell them that.  But your Dr. wants you to have all the facts and then make the decision.  You’ve got three choices: leave everything the way it is and be in pain, remove the cyst via a C section like surgery and have it come back to be in pain, or a full hysterectomy.”

I flop back on the bed and give a very cavewomanly snort. 

We go home and Steve feeds me chocolate, Percoset, and episodes of Justified.  He’s a good husband.

Wednesday: I spend all day researching my options.  I know all about hysterectomies now.  I know about the different kinds, I know about the procedures.  I know about the risks, I know about the alternative options.  I’m not a Jedi Master of the National Library of Medicine for nothin’ folks.

But what I don’t know are all of my details.  What has my doctor so concerned?  What made him walk out of a surgery like that?  There has to be more than what Steve remembers. I look at the pictures again and again.  I look up pictures of healthy pink ovaries and uteruses online and compare them to mine covered in grape jelly and contorted into weird shapes.  Not looking so good. I have a post op appointment set for Thursday morning at 9:30 am.    

Thursday: We get to the Doctor’s office at 9:15.  He’s off on an emergency C section so it’s going to be awhile.  The nurses decide to go ahead and get me processed and back to a room though.  One of my favorite nurses is doing the weight, temperature, blood pressure, etc.  While she’s doing all this I ask her, “So, did he tell you about my surgery?”  She nodded and said, “He says you need a hysterectomy.”  I take a deep breath.  “Yep.  That’s what I’ve heard. I’m wondering if he’ll tell me about other options?”  She nods and said, “Oh, of course he will.  But you need to know two things.  #1: I’ve worked here for 10 years and I can count on one hand the number of times he’s walked out of a surgery like yours without touching anything.   And #2: I can also count on one hand the number of times he’s recommended a hysterectomy to someone your age.  He’s pretty serious about this.”   Me: “Oh goody.”

The doctor finally makes it in and he’s able to tell me what I’m seeing in the pictures.  The grape jelly stuff is Stage IV Endometriosis.  This is when your uterine lining goes a little haywire and grows outside of where it should (i.e. your uterus).  The problem with this is not only is painful, but if left unchecked for a while (like mine had) it swells and bleeds with your cycle and causes inflammation and adhesions in the surrounding tissues.  And mine is growing on my uterus, bladder, and kidneys.  And then there’s the adhesions. The adhesions are bad news. Because of these adhesions, my uterus is now fused with my colon.  My ovaries are completely twisted around and fused with another section of my lower bowel (big time concern because of a really bad history of colon cancer in the women of my family.  You don’t want anything growing anywhere near there. Ever.) There are a few uterine fibroids hanging out (another concern because my mother had a hysterectomy in her 40s due to uterine fibroids).  And The Hulk is still there, hanging out between the ovaries in all its softball sized glory.  Although now instead of thinking it’s a hemorrhagic cyst, they think it’s an endometrioma, a benign tumor caused by endometriosis.   

Why didn’t they see any of this stuff before the laparoscopy?  Endo is particularly hard to detect outside of laparoscopy because CTs, ultrasounds, xrays, etc aren’t in color.  And color is one of the only ways you can ID Endo.  Adhesions are also very difficult to find outside of a visual confirmation.  So it took the laparoscopy to find all of this.

We talk about alternate options to a hysterectomy.  Most of the things the doctor suggests are things that I’ve read about the day before.  And they all have a reoccurring theme: the cysts, the endometriosis, the fibroids, they will all come back and we’d have to do it all over again.  Meanwhile I will be going through the same awful hormone cycles, periods, bleeding, cramps, and cystic pain.  And putting myself at a higher risk for fibroids and colon/bowel cancer. (And it could also possibly be causing some of my IBS symptoms).  And for what?  There’s a less than 3% chance Steve and I will ever be able to have our own children.  And honestly, with all this growing around in there, that percentage goes down even lower. 

I ask my Doctor: “So, when you first got in there and you saw all of this” (gesturing to the mess in my  pictures), “What was your first gut reaction?”

He looked me straight in the eye and grimly says, “Hysterectomy”. 
So I take a deep breath and say, “Ok.  That’s what we’ll do. Let’s talk procedure.”

It has to be an abdominal hysterectomy- not a laparoscopic or vaginal- to get everything (like The Hulk) out.  In addition, because everything is fused to everything else with adhesions, they need to be able to see AND feel the difference between the organ tissues.   This guarantees they don’t take a chunk of my colon off with the uterus. 

And of course I ask, “Is there any chance that this could be cancerous?”

The doctor replies that we won’t know for sure until the pathology comes back from the labs, but that he would be shocked if it was.  Everything looks very benign.  So that’s a relief.

My next question is, “When?”  as I’m assuming they’re going to wait a few weeks till they can schedule an OR or something.  The doctor says, “As soon as possible.”  He then brings his scheduling nurse in to set it up.  She tells us that the soonest date will probably be June 4, but that the Dr really wants it sooner than that (this sets off alarm bells in both Steve and my head, as I have a dear friends with cancer who needs a similar surgery at UAB and they’ve got her scheduled for mid June.  Something’s up). 

“Also”, the nurse tells us, “it’s going to be a little tricky to schedule because he wants another surgeon in the room with him.” Again alarm bells….that seems unusual.  So we nod and leave the office, assuming that it’s going to be in early June.  That afternoon I get a call from the doctor’s office.  They’ve scheduled the surgery for Monday, May 20 @ 7:30 am.  This time was not available when we were there earlier in the day.  I’m willing to bet they bumped someone out of this slot.  Again, alarm bells. I think the doctor is more worried than he’s letting on.  And that makes me feel even more secure in the decision I've made.

So Friday, I set about getting everything ready for next week.  The people at work are incredibly understanding and very helpful.  I have short term disability insurance (which I don’t really remember signing up for, but that I’m very grateful I did now) which will cover the 6 weeks or so that I’ll be out.  And my staff is so supportive.  I really do work with some of the best people in the world.

The other thing I really wanted to do before surgery is see my psychiatrist and my therapist.  After all this is a pretty monumental life change.  But I don’t hold my breath- it takes weeks to schedule an appointment and get in with either one of them.  But just for fun, I call Thursday afternoon to see if either has any cancellations.  And miracle of miracles, they both do.    I was able to see both of them on Friday and have full support from both.  That means a lot to me, as I know that this will not be an easy transition.  But both were very encouraging and agree that in the long run this will probably be the best choice for me and my health.

Recovery time for something like this is similar to a C section.  They’ve told me to plan on 6-8 weeks.  However, I was also told to plan on an entire week out after the laparoscopy and aside from the Percoset I took the night of, I was painkiller free most of the time.  Up and walking and back at work three days later.  Compared to the amount of pain I’ve gone through with cysts and cramps, it was really no big deal.  I’m hoping that the same will hold true from the hysterectomy surgery.  I know I won’t bounce back quite as quickly, but I’m hoping to be up and moving around at least a week afterwards.  We’ll just have to wait and see.  I don’t sit still very well.

So I apologize is this has all been too TMI.  It’s been incredibly therapeutic for me to write and I thought it might help squash some of the rumors and shock that’s flying around out there. 

Basically, I feel like I have been guided along on this process (not sure why or why now) by God’s hand.  Things have fallen into place step by step.  I feel a real measure of peace about the whole thing.  I have considered other options, but have determined that this is the right course for me and my family.  I appreciate all of the love, support, and prayers that you have showered over me in the last week.  Keep ‘em coming…because I’m pretty sure I’ll need it as I go through the recovery!

 

Prelude to a Hysterectomy, Part I

So some of you know that I’m having surgery on Monday.  To those that don’t, well….surprise! I’m having surgery on Monday. I’m having an abdominal hysterectomy.

Now obviously this is not a surgery that you just rush right into.  And obviously there are many possible treatments out there for things like endometriosis.  I’ve had several very concerned (and I am so grateful that they are) friends that are worried it’s a little overkill.  So I thought I would set the record straight as to what I’m doing and why. 

WARNING: I’m going to be talking about my inside girly parts and their workings.  If this makes you squeamish, turn away now!

Part I: The Build up

I’ve had ovarian cysts for years.  Sometimes they’re just painful enough to be annoying.  Other times, I’ve ended up in the hospital with doctors convinced I had appendicitis.   I always had painful cramps and yucky periods, but didn’t think much of it because, hey we’re girls and cramps hurt and periods are yucky, right?  It was just the way my body worked.  So I ignored it and went on with my life.   I was on birth control for a little while to help treat some of the symptoms.

Then I got married, and I wanted babies.  Who doesn’t want babies?  I knew because of stuff that Steve had going on with his body, the chances that we would get pregnant were very very slim.  Like less than 3% slim. But miracles happen, right?  I wanted to do anything I could to increase those odds.  So I haven’t been on birth control for the past three years (which I believe has contributed to some of my current issues) and as you know, nothing happened.  No babies.  Anytime I mentioned this to my GYN, he asked if I wanted to run some tests, look at fertility drugs, etc and I always shrugged it off saying “Oh maybe sometime down the road”…just kind of ignoring the obvious. 

So about a year ago, I started having crazy, and I mean CRAZY emotional mood swings, and they got worse with each month.  They were awful, and they total reminded me of those crazy emotional frenzies I used to fly into when I was a teenager.  There was no doubt in my mind that they were hormonally driven. 

But everything was fine, right?  “Right”, I convinced myself.  “Everything is fine.  You’re just imagining it. Or maybe you’re just getting older and this is what happens in your 30s.  You go nuts like you did at 16.”  Totally normal.

Then there was the spotting in between periods.  That’s normal right?  Everyone has that at some point or another, right? “Right” I convinced myself again.  “Everything is totally normal”.  At my annual in May 2012, the GYN said he could run some tests if I was really concerned, but I waved him off.  I was fine.  I was normal!

I was back in his office a few months later complaining of cystic pain in my left side.  I was also anemic for the first time in my life (this was the first clue that something was very wrong. I’m never anemic. EVER.) I took some iron pills and felt magically better- so much less tired!  I had been draaaaaaggggging for months now.

They did an ultrasound and found that I had a quarter size normal cyst on my left ovary and a baseball sized hemorrhagic cyst (that means ‘filled with blood’) on my right ovary.  Okay, I’m not fine.  This is not fine or normal at all!  But, these cysts go away on their own.  So we decided do some “watchful waiting” and see if they would shrink over a couple of months.  At my GYN’s recommendation, I went back onto birth control, just to normalize everything.   And for several months I regularly marched into his office every month to get rescanned.  Finally, we got to the point where he said, “Lexie, there’s no change.  If you come back in here next month at the same size, we’re going in to take it out.”  Okay, I agreed.  And went on with life.

Two weeks later, on Monday morning I woke up with a really sore throat and fever.  I went into my regular doctor’s office convinced that I had strep throat.  They did the full workup: flu, strep, CBC blood count, etc.  I tested positive for strep, and my white blood cell count was up.  Anything above 10 is abnormal, and mine was at a 12 (but that’s totally normal for strep).  I got the strep shot, a steroid shot, and a prescription for a serious hospital grade antibiotic. 

Tuesday morning, I was at home recovering when I had severe abdominal pain.  The pain in my throat was nothing like the pain in my lower stomach.  I couldn’t even unfold all the way.  I figured it was just the antibiotic messing with my digestive system and muddled through, watching all the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” reruns.

Wednesday morning, I woke up at 4:30 am in so much pain that I knew it wasn’t the antibiotics.  And I had a fever.  I went back to my regular doctor thinking it was appendicitis (again, given my past history I probably should have just gone straight to by GYN, but I wasn’t thinking, ok?).  They did another CBC on me and my White Blood Cell count had shot up to 21 in two days on TWO different antibiotics.  This is most definitely NOT NORMAL.  She sent me for an abdominal ultrasound and general surgeon consult.  The abdominal ultrasound was inconclusive, but the blood cell count was so screwy that the surgeon was still worried about appendicitis.  So he started poking around on my stomach.  He hit one spot to the right of my belly button that hurt so bad my leg flew off of the table and my knee missed his nose by mere inches.  “Yep, I think it’s appendicitis,” he proclaimed.  “Let’s get a CT Scan.”  So off I went to the hospital for a scan.  I had to drink the nasty barium milkshakes and get the contrast and all that fun stuff. 

Finally after a few hours they did the scan. I went back to my room to wait for the radiologist and surgeon to consult over the results.  10 minutes later, the radiologist came to find me.  He said “The surgeon wants to talk to you”.   I was taken back into the radiologist’s booth where I could see the cross sections of my abdomen.  I’m trying to listen to my surgeon talk to me on the phone, but I’m looking at my CT scan and all I can think is “What is that giant blob in the middle of my lower stomach?  It’s got tentacles or something.”  I finally tune back into the surgeon and he’s saying, “...not appendicitis, but a very enlarged ovarian cyst.  Can you call your GYN tonight?”  I looked at the clock and laughed. “No.  It’s like 7:30pm.  His office is totally closed.”  The surgeon replied back completely seriously, “Then call him first thing in the morning.  Send him these scans.  He needs to see them as soon as possible.”  I agreed that I would, and went home. 

Thursday morning, I went in to the GYN’s office.  They looked at the CT Scans and confirmed what the surgeon had said: that giant blob with tentacles was the cyst and it was very very angry.  So my Dr. sent me back in to get another ultrasound just to compare it to the previous ultrasounds. 

Now, something I’ve learned about ultrasound techs: they will not tell you ANYTHING about what they see.  I’ve asked them repeatedly and they’re just not allowed to do it.  So alarm bells went off when the tech asked me, “Now honey, is this cyst on your right ovary or your left?”  Me: “Uh….right…..I think….”  Tech: “Well, I just can’t really tell because it’s so big it's touching both.”  Awesome.   I immediately name the cyst The Hulk because it’s soooo big, and soooo angry.

I walk back to the consult room and the GYN tells me, “We’ve got to take it out. We’re going to book you for a laparoscopy as soon as possible.”  The nurses start running around and booking the OR.  The soonest they could find OR space was the following Tuesday, which is normally my GYN’s day off, but he said he would come in to do the surgery (which I thought was really nice of him). 

So I limp through the weekend and make it to Tuesday.  I’ve read everything I can about Laparoscopic cystectomies.  I watch videos.  I learn about the different kinds of cysts.  I read about the recovery and what makes it easier and better.  I had done my research (like the librarian I am) and I was prepped.  We roll into the hospital and the staff got me ready for surgery.    Before I got all woozy, Steve and I had a very serious conversation that went something like this.

Me: “You know **** ( a very good friend of the family- name kept confidential) went into a surgery like this in her 30s and midway through the surgery they decided she needed a hysterectomy.”
Steve: “Really?  What happened?”
Me: “I’m not sure entirely.  I think there were tumors or something.  Anyways, at that point she didn’t have any living family, so my mom was her Power of Attorney.  So the surgeon comes out midsurgery and tells my mom, ‘We need to do a hysterectomy, do we have your permission to do so?’  And my mom had to decide this poor woman’s reproductive fate in a split second.”

Steve: “Whoa.”
Me: “I know, right?  I just want you to know that if they come out and say the same thing to you, go ahead and say yes.  I won’t be mad.  Your priorities are my health #1 and everything else #2, k?”
Steve nodded: “Okay, got it.” 

And with that we were ready.

 Sidenote: For those you who know me well, you know I don’t drink- like at all, ever.  So Steve thought it was hilarious to watch them give me loopy drugs.  Apparently I was dancing in my bed and yelling things like “Whoo hoo!  Now, this is the good stuff!  PAR-TAY!” while the nurses just shook their heads.   Totally embarrassing.  I have no memory of this at all.

I wake up about an hour or so later, completely feisty and hungry (that’s how I always wake up from surgery- I pretty much turn into a belligerent cavewoman).  The nurse started feeding me cup after cup of ice chips and finally let me have a Sprite.  Meanwhile, I’m blasting her about why doesn’t she have a Library Card and how she really should get a Library Card, and she really needs to read the Sookie Stackhouse series.  I think she was very glad to drop me off into my recovery room where Steve was waiting for me. 

They roll me in and I ask Steve, “So how’d it go?”   And that’s when everything changed.

(Story continued in Part II: http://kingdomoflala.blogspot.com/2013/05/prelude-to-hysterectomy-part-ii.html)

Old World Gingerbread

My mom made these every Christmas and I LOVE these cookies.  They are traditional gingerbread- not quite as sweet as you might be used to.  But they are delicious and a Robinson family tradition. 

6 cups of all purpose flour

1 Tablespoon of Ginger

2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

1 ¼ Teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup molasses

2 eggs

2 teaspoons finely shredded orange peel

½ teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt; set aside.  In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 30 seconds.  Add brown sugar and beat until fluffy. 

In a small saucepan bring molasses to boiling.  Add hot molasses to butter/sugar mixture; beat on low speed until combined. 

Add eggs, orange peel, and lemon peel.  Beat on low speed until combined.

Add flour mixture in to wet mixture, stir with a spoon until mixed. 

Divide dough into two portions.  Wrap each portion in waxed paper or clear plastic wrap (sometimes I use gallon size baggies).  Chill about 1 hour in the fridge.  This will make it easier to handle.

Grease a cookie sheet, set aside.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

On a lightly floured surface roll dough, one portion at a time to ¼ inch thickness.  Using cookie cutters, cut dough into gingerbread people or shapes, rerolling trimmings as necessary. 

Arrange cutouts 1 inch apart on the prepared cookie sheet. 

Bake in 350 oven for about 7 minutes or until the edges are firm and light brown.  Cook on cookie sheet for 1 minute.  Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Top with your favorite icing.  I use a lemon glaze (basically a container of store bought frosting, heated on the stove with milk and lemon juice) and dunk the cookies in it.  Easy!

Review: The Probability of Miracles

The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Holy Cow. How do I love this book? Let me count the ways. 1. It made me laugh out loud. 2. It made me cry....okay, well sob is more like it. 3. It was thought provoking. 4.It was realistic without being gritty. 5. It was fluffy without losing substance.

Basically, this is one of the best books I have read in a very long time.

The premise, a 17 year old girl is dying of terminal cancer, could end up being a dark, depressing, heavy read. Instead this book is about hope, and the hope we give to others. Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful.

And don't just take my word for it. It got starred reviews from Kirkus, School Library journal, and on Amazon it's got 4.5 stars out of 5, which is a rarity. Seriously, you need to read this book.

View all my reviews

My review of Abandon by Meg Cabot

Abandon by Meg Cabot

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Pretty good. My experience with Meg Cabot is that she's either hit or miss, and this book is on the hit side of things. First the pros: I like Pierce as a protagonist. I like the location of the island. I like the concept of an underworld. I liked several of the characters including Alex, Mr.Smith, and Jade. I like the story enough that I finished it in two days.

Cons: Meg overplayed the forshadowing. Lots of "If I had known then what I know now, the night would have gone very differently. *end chapter*" And what the heck was up with the tassels? Pierce mentions tassles, and how she hates them, in almost every chapter. John was not a very likeable romantic interest. So he's all broody and cute. WHY does she like him? It seems like he's also got massive personality issues. Also I didn't like how she kept referring to "the incident" but didn't tell us what it was until halfway through the book. It wasn't forshadowing b/c it happened in the past...maybe pastshadowing? I dunno. It got annoying.

If Meg had just stuck to the story line, this could have be a 4 or 5 star book. As it is, it gets a 3 star review.


View all my reviews