I thought I would put out a timely
blog post regarding the recent op-ed announcement Angelina Jolie wrote for the
New York Times regarding her surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes. You know that I of course have something to
say.
Ever since I was approximately 25
years old my sexual reproductive system had been actively plotting to kill
me. I am not sure if anyone knows what
it feels like to be basically “living with” a hit man that is trying to snuff
you, but it is awkward to say the least.
There is nothing more unsettling than knowing that lurking within your
groinial (YES, I know it is not a word…) cavity lays a beast awaiting you. I mean, I had, over the years grown fond of
my internal organs. There was a point in
which I pondered deeply what I had done that pissed off my uterus, cervix,
fallopian tubes and ovaries. How on
earth did I end up with these little sociopathic rogues stewing inside of
me? Was it me? What the hell?
Don’t get me wrong, I had an iffy
relationship with my lady parts anyway.
Love/hate kind of thing, you know what I mean. I was only 11 years old when I got my
period. Oh joy. At first I was tickled that the next year in
middle school I would be able to miss swimming class on occasion with a valid excuse. (I was terrified of water.) Little did I know that this beast of a period
would plague me with the kind of pain that only Satan himself enjoys inflicting? It was BRUTAL. There were days where I had to be home from
school that it was so bad. There were
many days during the menstruation years that I literally wished I could
ceremoniously rip out my organs, toss them upon the ground and do a ritualistic
dance upon them prior to throwing them in a fire. Yes, that is the truth. I was in pain for a good portion of my youth
and adulthood because of these organs.
On the plus side, I was somehow
blessed with an amazing son. This is
actually nothing short of a miracle for me, as I view it in hindsight. I had no clue how severe my issues really
were. I consider myself blessed for my
arch nemeses being so gracious as to allow my boy to incubate in their malevolent
domain for nine months, so for that alone I am thankful beyond belief.
Shortly after the birth of my son, I
found out that I had severe cervical dysplasia.
I was just months short of having cervical cancer. I was terrified. How on earth could it possibly be that I
could have such a tiny part of my body masterminding a ploy to bring about my
demise? I first had to have a procedure
done called a colposcopy and subsequently a biopsy. This process is not done under any sort of
anesthetic. I will reiterate this
several times whilst discussing this portion, so imagine if you will your OWN
tender nether regions so to put yourself in the shoes of someone having this
done. After the biopsy and the confirmation
of severity, I had to undergo what is called a LEEP procedure (loop
electrosurgical excision procedure), which uses electricity to remove abnormal
tissue. Basically, it cauterizes the
cervix or burns it. FYI, this procedure
also is not performed with anesthetic, local or otherwise. It was extremely painful. If you can imagine having your body cavity
invades by a giant electrical wand and having it zap your sensitive body parts
while making the sound of a thousand flies meeting their demise in a bug
zapper, you can pretty much sum up the uneasy state of panic I was in. It did not help matters any that my then husband
refused to come with me for said procedures and I was alone and nervous. I waited for the allotted period of time,
went back in for a repeat pap, and once again found that my dysplasia had not
gotten better even after the LEEP procedure.
It was now time for the crew to break out the big guns. (I hope you can read into that all of my
sarcastic excitement.) The next game
plan required me to have what is called Cryosurgery. By surgery I was assuming, much to my relief
that I would be ‘put under.’ I was
hoping that I would be, so that I would not have to feel the pain yet
again. Wrongo, bucko. This procedure Cryosurgery works by taking
advantage of the destructive force of freezing temperatures on cells.
When their temperature sinks beyond a certain level ice crystals
begin forming inside the cells and, because of their lower density,
eventually tear apart those cells. Further harm to malignant growth will result
once the blood vessels supplying the affected tissue
begin to freeze. How do they freeze it
you ask? Liquid nitrogen. Yep, liquid nitrogen ‘torch’ stuck up there
and they went to town…freezing all of those cancer cells. Now, if you have never had such a treat as
this, you don’t know that again; you are awake for the procedure, you cannot
deaden the cervix in preparation and the act of freezing the cervix causes the
uterus to cramp up at the level of childbirth strength. Again, I was alone for this…however I was
BLESSED to have a wonderful doctor and amazing nurses that held my hand as
tears rolled down my face. Anyone who
knows me knows it takes a LOT for me to express pain, but this one really got
to me. It was worse than childbirth for
me, to be honest. After this was over, I
had to wear pads for a week while my lady bits unthawed. I felt super sexy. That one seemed to do the trick for awhile,
and I was all clear for the time being.
My lady
parts were now armed with the knowledge that their plot to destroy me had been
thwarted by the physicians; thus, my body starting cooking up another plan to
kill me slowly. As the years went by, I
developed various oddities. I had a
bizarre twisted cyst that hung off of my fallopian tube, I had nearly constant
cysts on my ovaries, ruptured cysts on my ovaries, I developed Polycystic
Ovarian Syndrome and I developed Endometriosis.
I pretty
much had a frequent customer punch card for ultrasounds. (Good governor, the transvaginal ultrasound,
the enormous “magic wand.”) What a treat.
Also I think about how many times my abdomen has been cut into for
surgeries…my poor belly.
This
brings me to current times, just a year and a half ago, to be exact. I had another surgery because I was having
trouble sitting without pain, and knew that my endometriosis was back again. They did an ultrasound and found out that I
had a polyp inside my uterus also, so we elected to surgically treat both
issues. The doctor cleaned up my
endometriosis and removed the polyp.
Post surgery she told me she did not like the looks of my ovaries, and
she also sent the polyp to the lab to analyze it. When I came to my two week post-op she told
me that the growth in my uterus was pre-cancerous, that my entire uterine
lining was pre-cancerous and that the recommendation was to either have uterine
biopsies 4 times a year, again under no anesthetic, OR to get a complete
hysterectomy before things developed into cancer.
Immediately
I was PISSED!! Really, lady parts? CANCER AGAIN?
F-YOU. Honestly, you can’t get
any more creative than that? You fall
back on the easiest excuse to attempt to slay me yet again. Not only that, but now you have left me no
choice but to come to terms with a few things that I had not been letting go of
for reasons….the reasons were perhaps unreasonable, but they were reasons! I wanted to have more children…yeah, I KNOW…I
was 41…probably not a good idea anyway…but damn, it was my PLAN, and you took
it away. PLUS, I had these unreasonable
notions that if you took away my parts that made me female, that I would
suddenly lose my femininity. Would I
grow a beard? God forbid, a penis shoots
outta me suddenly. Damn. What the HELL, life? Thanks for continuing to NOT follow MY
blueprint on how things are SUPPOSED to go.
Anyway, I decided after much mourning and deliberation that I needed to
remove everything. Given the fact that
my ovaries were cloaked in a veil of suspicion, they had to vamoose as well…and
even my cervix…BE GONE, ALL OF YOU! Lori
spoke, and it was done. Second surgery
in 2 months scheduled.
The
surgery went smoothly, and I woke up without facial hair and male genitalia. Two weeks post op I returned to find out that
my ovaries had been sent to pathology lab and that they too were
pre-cancerous. I am thankful that all of
them are rotting away in a landfill somewhere…or I have visions of some diabolical
mad scientist having all of my disfigured parts floating in Mason jars of
liquid on shelves in his work space. I
hope that created a nice vision for you.
So, what
I am simply trying to convey in the form of a long-winded story, is that MANY women
face decisions that are life and death.
They do it on a daily basis. They
do it as quiet heroes. They do it
without the need to write an op-ed in the New York Times; without the media
jumping to grab a microphone and do an interview. Just because Angelina Jolie is a celebrity,
it does not make her special. It does
not make her struggles any different from that of the rest of the women that
battle with issues exclusive to females.
It simply means one thing; she has the financial means to take care of
her medical bills better than the rest of us.
Otherwise, we are all the same. We all are faced with thoughts that plague
us; are we making the right decision? We
are all faced with sadness that we cannot bear any children, or any more
children. We are all faced with the fact
that we have to mourn the loss of parts of our body that make us feminine. We all have to face the fear that cancer will
yet again rear its ugly head somewhere else in our bodies. We are the same. Just not all of us get to tell our
stories. I get to tell mine today, but
millions of readers won’t see it. None
the less, the freedom of telling a story is bliss. I am thankful that I am alive, and I pray
that my body stops trying to throw a coup.
Damn rebels trying to overthrow me, anyhow!!
As
always, hugs and such. Lori
