One of the larger fibroids, surrounded by some smaller ones. They were tested and diagnosed as benign. 

It’s been eight weeks since my myomectomy and I thought, in the interest of science and overshare, that I’d tell my story to you, my dear readers. If you are unaware of what a myomectomy is, do not be afraid. I am well prepared to enlighten, after months of research, endless inopportune harassment of my gynecologist and hours of online video viewing, not to mention my own personal experience of being sliced open in a frigid theatre.

A myomectomy is the surgical removal of fibroids that are too  big to be removed by the less intrusive and less sick leave inducing laparoscopy procedure. What is a laparoscopy you ask? So what? You intend to do NO work for yourself? Look it up.

The decision to have a myomectomy (so called because another name for fibroids is myomas) came after years of suffering with very painful, very heavy periods. I remember being at university and the attending university doctor, a woman it should be noted, telling me that my option regarding this problem was to delay completing my degree, have a child and then return. Sometimes (note the conditionality attached to the word chosen), childbirth resulted in a reduction of menstrual discomfort.

My thoughts during this conversation are fresh in my memory and number two in total. One: Discomfort my ass. My entire midsection feels like some animal trapped inside it was clawing and gnawing its way through me in a frenzied attempt to escape and two: how the hell was having a baby a plausible option? Did one buy them pre-cooked in the grocery and just added water? I left her office disappointed and a bit depressed if I am honest. Which I always am. Always. Honest that is, not disappointed and depressed.

What followed is years of doctors telling me similar, unimpressive versions of the same shiteous suggestion. Make a child and the cramps could get better. Could. If that was the sort of reason people were having children for then no wonder the country’s in such a state of hot messiness. My personal theory was, after the vagina blowing agony of natural childbirth, menstrual cramps would forever after feel like an afternoon spent eating scones and blowing bubbles.

Even during my time in the UK, doctors still could not discover what was the cause of my “menstrual discomfort”. There was no infection, no endometriosis. Everything was ruled out except for, what I subsequently learnt, the most obvious cause. It is estimated that 50% of women in this country have or will have fibroids. Oh, by the way, it’s called FIBROID and not fryball (gentle Jesus in heaven who came up with that one and also, is looking up a word in a dictionary so hard that the word fryball persists to this day in our local lexicon?). That statistic was told to me by my gynecologist so please, don’t leave comments questioning this because I will not answer.

This 50% by the way is not an accurate representation of the actual numbers since many fibroids go undetected due to, in part, the fact that many women still refuse to go see a gynecologist. Look, if someone has to stare at your crotch, doesn’t it make sense that it be someone that’s qualified to do so? Your boyfriend/girlfriend checking out that strange rash on your labia doesn’t count. Please ladies, go and smear your Paps. Anyway, back to the fibroids. Mine sat comfortably in my uterus living rent-free and without any contribution to taxes and property maintenance for years.

There was a six month stint where I tried various birth control pills that made my hormones unstable so I almost constantly wavered between “Mr. McGee don’t make me angry” Incredible Hulk anger and “I wonder if I kill this jackass how much lye I’ll need to get rid of the body,” wrath. Which was pleasant. This was in addition to the existing monthly cocktail of two week-long cramps BEFORE my period came, constipation, breakouts and bloating that looked like a 4/5 months pregnancy.

My periods had gotten so bad that I had to call in sick every first day of my period because the only way I could tolerate them was to ingest a combination of 3 different types of painkillers every four hours for the first 24 hours which rendered me comatose. When the pain started spreading over two days, I started to get desperate. Despite what doctors had been telling me for years, I told myself that this could NOT be normal. This could not be what every woman went through and if it was, how could it be that there were no viable and reasonable options for treating with it? I listened to friends and female coworkers say yes, they too had terrible cramps and yet watched as they went jogging/dancing/drank alcohol/went to work etc. like normal, things I was rendered physically incapable of doing each and every month with almost no empathy and very little sympathy.

Deliverance came in the form of a wonderful doctor whose name I won’t publish here because I’m too lazy to call and ask permission but I’ll be happy to give if requested privately. After years of being told I was exaggerating/making up/mismanaging what was a common, normal, insignificant physical inconvenience my doctor did a simple ultrasound and in less than ten minutes time confirmed what people had spent years downplaying and negating.

I had two large fibroids – abnormally large for my age in fact – that were pressed against my lower intestine and were the cause of my years of horrible periods and several colonic problems. They had caused the terrible bloat, digestive problems, constipation and horrible cramps that I had suffered with for almost half the month, every month and lead to heavy bleeding and my almost constant anemia. Apart from the two large ones, the ultrasound detected two smaller ones within the wall of the uterus itself (later, after cutting me open during surgery he would in fact discover over 20 smaller fibroids).

After discovering the fibroids via ultrasound, my doctor did something that no other doctor before him had done and which would forever ensure my respect and gratitude towards him. He talked. He spent the next 30 – 40 minutes having a conversation with me where he explained EXACTLY what was and had been going on with my body and what were my options with regard to treatment. He took out a piece of paper and drew where the fibroids were. He explained the ultrasound photos to me. And he acted as though he actually gave a damn. He was the first doctor to show that he believed and was sympathetic to my experiences. And he was the first to say that I didn’t have to live with it, without suggesting that I had a hysterectomy or had a child. By the way, having a hysterectomy was offered as an option since I was in my early 20s. In fact, when I asked him whether or not I should have a child before having the surgery he responded, “Were you planning in having one this year? If not, then why would you want to now? Don’t change your plans because of this.”

After that visit, things steadily became different for me emotionally. The cramps were still there and would be bad until the surgery was done but now I knew the source. I felt my plans change. I felt my purposes change. And I felt my life change.

Two months after my myomectomy, I feel – I AM – a new person. The most significant change has been hormonal. My doctor swears he’s done nothing that would affect this but I feel IMMENSELY different emotionally.

Pre-surgery, some months I felt like I was standing outside of myself, watching me say and do things that were driven by an uncontrollable anger that was scary in its lack of logic. I knew that my rage, depression and sense of despair were not what I wanted or truly who I was but I was unable to do anything about them. For two weeks of every month my body felt like someone else was controlling it remotely. This feeling has gone and it is marvelous. It is beyond marvelous; it is miraculous.

And the periods? So far, the periods are better. There’s still cramping but already so much better to manage and this will only improve as my body continues healing and returns to pre-surgery normalcy. The bleeding is much less, the bloating is completely gone and I’ve not had any constipation since the third day after the myomectomy. This post is getting long so I’ll have to end soon. But I plan on writing another post about the actual surgery for those of you that are interested. In the interim, feel free to message or email me for information. And if your doctor is dismissing what you’re experiencing? Pick up yourself up and go find one that will take you seriously and work with you until he/she finds what’s going on. And if your doctor has recommended that you get a myomectomy? Go for it. From the moment you open your eyes post surgery you’ll be grateful that you did.

Tags: my friends, surgery, you reading this shit?

12th January 2012 Dialect, The Basics 6 comments

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