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Honey, You’re Going Through The Change

This is totally me right now.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-Tpr62bY7thbbuJ/fried_green_tomatoes_1991_evelyns_going_through_the_change/

But let me back up a moment!

My surgery (total abdominal hysterectomy bilateral salpingo oophorectomy – aka they took out all my parts) was a week ago today. The surgery itself was more complicated than they had anticipated, as the endometriosis had progressed quite a bit since December and was attached to all sorts of stuff it shouldn’t have been attached to. And evidently I am a bleeder. So I required the surgeons to really work for their money that day but they did an awesome job and cleared it all out for me and everything turned out just fine.

The first 24 hours afterwards were a bit rough. Jenny arrived to visit shortly after I arrived in my room – before I received my pain medication… which, for some reason, was fairly difficult to acquire. She almost started a #giveEmilydrugs campaign on Twitter, but fortunately it didn’t come to that.

An unfortunate side effect to having surgery so close to one’s bladder is that said bladder becomes very sore and unable to expand to its usual capacity, so the first night I had to go to the bathroom pretty much every hour on the hour. And as those of you who have been in this situation can attest – getting out of bed to do so is no easy process! I had to have Andy unhook me from contraptions on my legs and manage my IV cart and magical ball of pain medicine each time I had to get up and then hook me up to everything when I got back in bed, only to do so again 45 minutes later. It was great fun! But I was so thankful to have him there with me, because calling for the nurses and having to wait on them every time would have been much worse. And he was a great sport about it.

The following day I was feeling better but unsure about whether or not I was ready to go home, which my doc had said was a possibility. Fortunately, she made that decision for me when she came to check on me – my hemoglobin was pretty low because of all the bleeding I did the day before, and she wanted me to stay an additional night. That was definitely the right thing to do and by Friday morning when I was released, I felt ready to go home.

Everything has continued to improve – I am getting up and around pretty well, my pain has been very well controlled (although I am beginning to run out of Percocet and it makes me nervous… I am rationing them out very carefully at this point!) and my friends and family have been taking great care of me.

Right now I’m sitting on my deck with an iPad, a book and a cup of coffee – hard to complain about that.

I am a bit, how should I phrase this, emotionally fragile at the moment, though, and have had a couple breakdowns over very minor things… hence the video above! I don’t know if it’s hormonal at this point or just a result of all the emotional and physical stress from the past couple of weeks, but I have been crying a bit more than usual! But probably still way less than Jenny does on a good day. So it’s all perspective, right?

Anyway, thank you all for the support, prayers and well wishes. It means a lot to me! And now I will knock off this mushy stuff before I start crying again.

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No Dudes Allowed

Ok so…Dad, Uncle Paul, Uncle Dan…move along. You don’t wanna read this.

Is it safe? Just us girls? Ok.

You GUYSIMEANGIRLS! I don’t know why I haven’t blogged about this before.

About two years ago, my hormones went CRAY CRAY. My two main symptoms were terrible cystic acne on my forehead (swelling the size of nickels and quarters, girls. I looked alternately like a unicorn or a many-horned monster) and periods where, let’s just say, I often couldn’t leave my house for a couple days.

I am happy to say I have now, for the most part, solved both of these problems. If I were a GOOD blogger, I would insert  graphic here with the words “How I solved my hormone problems” or “How to get rid of hormonal acne.”

But we all know I care JUST enough to keep the phone bill paid, so I’m just gonna be a lamb and TELL ya.

I solved the acne problem with a supplement called DIM. It’s all-natural. I think it’s basically like eating 12 heads of broccoli a day. There are lots of different brands, here are two I like: Estroblock PRO and Food Science of Vermont.

(These aren’t even affiliate links, because I am a TOTAL SLACKER!! So refreshing.)

I take  it religiously and it works. And I can REALLY TELL if I forget to take  it. Whoo-whee.

The way I solved my horrendously heavy periods…was a little more complicated.

I got my uterine lining burned off. It’s WAY MORE awesome than it sounds! Also, it’s a lot more expensive than supplements, but besides my van, it’s the best thing I’ve ever spent multiple thousands of dollars on. Plus, I had it in February, so way to meet that deductible early in the year! I’m not joking. It has improved my life SO much, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Now, you have to be done having babies if you’re going to go this route, but since I got my tubes tied literally SECONDS after Jonah was born, I was a PRIME CANDIDATE.

And seriously, it worked. I now barely notice my period. Some people never get theirs back. I did, but I’ve gone from keeping the feminine hygiene companies in business to pantyliners only. {Dudes, I REALLY hope you have stopped reading long before this…} It’s AMAZING! I would never be on a feminine hygiene commercial but I’d totally be on a commercial for his procedure, called and ablation. Ablations R Us. Sign me up.

Sadly, I still get hormone headaches and MAYBE A LITTLE  MOODY SOMETIMES (maybe), but since these two main problems are solved, I try not to complain too much.

So now you know more than you need to know about my lady business. How’s yours???

 

 

 

 

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Humility

So, I’ve been having a *few* problems with my hormones lately.

In the interest of not horrifying my male reader I won’t go into the unpleasant details.

But here’s a clue about one of my symptoms: This morning, as I was enjoying my morning cup of coffee, and the sun streaming through the blinds, and Jonah’s cute singing in his high chair, my sweet, darling, observant eldest son says to me:

Mom, why do you have red spots all over your face?

I wish it were because of some terrible infectious disease.

No such luck.

 

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