Absolute

It's official. Any lingering thoughts or fleeting ideas I may have had about having a baby are completely, finally and absolutely no longer an option.

The hysterectomy will be the end of January. Just waiting for a call from the woman in the GYN office who does procedure scheduling.

The past few months have been much worse than usual in terms of period pain. I've always bled like a sonofabitch, a box of tampons plus a dozen or more pads a month, so that wasn't new, but the pain that felt like my ovary was being twisted was a new sensation. So I went to the GYN. I was due for my annual anyway. She said my uterus was quite enlarged and wanted to to an SIS, or saline injected/introduced sonogram to see the details of my fibroids. I've known they were there for years, just basically ignored them.

The tech did the initial ultrasound and then the doc came in. I just about jumped off the table when she inserted the speculum. She apologized, saying it was larger than usual for the test. Larger than usual?! It felt like a fucking spatula! Then she got a smaller one and proceded to dig around to try and get a good angle of my cervix to insert the catheter. After a few tries, she said my uterus is so enlarged and my cervix so high as a result, that there's no need to continue to cause me pain (thank you). She wasn't going to get significantly more information from the SIS that she didn't already have from the ultrasound. So I cleaned up, got dressed and went upstairs to her office.

I have two very large fibroids, 8.7 and 9.8cm, roughly the size of oranges, that are causing most of my pain. They have also apparently nearly doubled in size in 2 years. Not good. Fibroids do shrink after menopause, but at 42, I have another 10 or so years to go. By that time and at this rate of growth, I'll have basketballs. Time to go.

We discussed surgery options: whether to leave my cervix or not, abdominal vs vaginal, etc. If my cervix is left, I will continue to need pap tests, but pretty infrequently. It also means that some supporting ligaments can be left - much better for supporting the pelvic floor. The downside is that it pretty much guarantees an abdominal procedure and a much longer recovery time. If it's done vaginally, the cervix almost certainly has to go, but the recovery time is much less. With the size of my fibroids she's pretty sure it will have to be abdominal surgery but she's willing to try LAVH, laparoscopically assisted vaginal hysterectomy. If it's done that way, the fibroids and uterus will have to be taken out in pieces, probably meaning a longer time under anesthesia. Yes, unless she sees something heinous, she plans on leaving my ovaries. I don't want instant menopause, thankyouverymuch.

I don't really have the belief that my womanhood is tied to my uterus, so that's not really an issue. There's also a relief of sorts that, despite knowing my motherhood journey was over 2 years ago, I still had fleeting fantasies of "what if". Now that will be absolutely not possible. I think my biggest issue right now is not really comprehending the scope and enormity of this surgery. I've had plenty of surgeries over the years, but none major enough to require a hospital stay since I was 11 and had my appendix out. I have to admit, there's a part of me almost looking forward to the dilaudid and percocet, but this is major shit, man! Scared? Yeah, I think I if I weren't I'd be dead or stupid. But I'm also looking forward to not having this monthly pain, not spending money on tampons and pads and the undeniable grossness of the bleeding.

With any luck, I can also find a way to fly to FL and visit my sister and some friends during the last week or so of recovery. After 3 or 4 weeks at home, I'll be desperate enough to do anything.