Recovery and healing.

I've showed you all some strange things... But I had to share this picture I instagram'd of my 3 tiny incisions just 5 weeks after my total hysterectomy. I'm utterly amazed at how much they could do from those three slits smaller than bad paper cuts!

5 weeks post-op. One on each side of my lower abdomen and one in my belly button! 

You know what's really weird? Weirder than showing you my flabby, stretch mark covered tummy... I keep thinking about the dish of my innards... As they pulled organ after organ out of me what did they do with it all? Set it in some metal dish or straight into some blood soaked trash of sorts... That's disgusting. I know. But I always think if I share some of my messed up thoughts I might rid myself of a few.

I kind of would have liked to be a fly on the wall of that OR... Watching my doctor make such tiny incisions, send different tools and scopes into them, then deliver each piece of me the same way a baby would come out...

But then again I'm sure I'd get swatted because who wants a fly in an operating room...

Speaking of operating rooms... That's my most favorite part of having surgery. From the moment they unlock the wheels of my gurney in pre-op and I’m pushed towards the big sterile room until the moment I'm knocked out.

The OR nurse comes and gets me. They're usually very friendly and upbeat about the whole thing. They remind my mom they're taking good care of me. They smile patiently as we say our "see ya soon". Then off we go through the rubber "do not enter" doors. Then it's just me and a dozen medical personnel. They're all there for me! I'm the star of the show!

One time the nurse sang "Dancing Queen" as we entered the big white and silver room, it was quite the dramatic entrance!

I can't see most of their faces because they're covered with masks but I can see smiling, reassuring eyes and I can hear care in their muffled voices.

While one nurse gets me on the table perfect positioned, another sticks cold monitors all over me and straps a blood pressure cuff to my arm. The anesthesiologist, my best friend while I'm there, sits up by my head; he talks gently and reassuringly while he gives me the feel good cocktail through my IV.

I'm sure it's a policy or maybe just out of respect but while each nurse does their specific job they me what they're doing to me. "I'm going to put a pillow under your hips", "I'm putting this monitor on your back", "I'm putting your arm with the IV over here"...

At first I try to help them but pretty soon that "cocktail" hits and I don't care what they're putting where. I'm a rag doll.

Since I'm the star, everything I say is heard and granted, every joke I make is laughed at. I like to have a good rapport with my surgery staff. I compliment them on cute scrubs or pretty eyelashes. But somehow I think the drugs make everything exaggerated and silly because I can hear the smiles in their voices.

In no time the meds start kicking in for real and I start slurring my words, a nurse or doctor usually tells me to sleep well and then it's all dark.

That's it. Next thing I know I wake up in the recovery room covered in pain.

That part's not fun.

So here I am 5 weeks since surgery and so far that was still the best part of the whole thing.

I've been dependent on dilaudid for my IC pain so when I got home from the hospital with that as my only pain medication it barely touched the sheer agony. Since my body is used to it I had to take 1, every 4 hours, around the clock for weeks just to keep my glazed eyes clear of tears from the pain.

BUT! Finally I'm starting to do much better and I'm back to taking just 1 most days. I still have some stiffness, it can hurt to bend and every so often I still have pain inside where they pulled everything out then sewed me up. But overall I'd say I'm 90% recovered!

Believe it or not, all that physical pain wasn't the worst part of my recovery... Another aspect of having a full hysterectomy at 26 is that I'm now and will forever be taking daily estrogen pills so I don't accidentally turn into a man or something...

That might not be why.

Anyway. Since I have had endometriosis since I was 12 and estrogen is the enemy of said curse, I've always been on meds to stop my body from producing estrogen. Other than the two times I was attempting to get pregnant and while I was pregnant with Titus, I have never had estrogen in my body.

Due to that, about a week after surgery I started having all these crazy symptoms exactly like when I first got pregnant... My boobs hurt so badly. So bad! I would just lie in bed with a heating pad on my abdomen and ice packs on my chest. Not only were they so tender and sore but they were leaking sticky colostrum just like when I was pregnant. Sometimes when they were especially itchy and achy I'd look and there was a drip of colostrums. Sometimes there wasn't any and I'd try to manually express some desperate to get the pain to stop. I pulled and squeeze my once overly productive breasts but that did nothing but inflict pain...

Turns out milk coming in feels very similar to milk drying up.

It was so cruel and frustrating... I literally almost took a pregnancy test because I was convinced they forgot some fleck of my reproductive system and somehow there was a tiny baby trying to survive on it... Zach convinced me Dr. Brown would have noticed that and my heart was shattered once again.

After two weeks I finally called and they reduced my estrogen from 1 mg to .5 mg a day and now I finally feel like it's under control! I really don't want menopausal symptoms again (been there, done that twice) but too much estrogen was much worse.

I know the question everyone wants to ask... So?! Did it help your IC?! How's life without endometriosis?!

Sorry to disappoint but I think it's still too soon to know for sure.

The other day I was having a breakdown because I woke up with pain that I'd always thought was endo... But it was a day after doing more than I have in months... So I'm trying to tell myself that was still surgery pain.

As far as my IC... I really don't know! I've been in a bad flare the last few days with full blown symptoms. Urgency, some frequency, incontinence, bladder pain, pain during and after urination, ect, ect!

I have an appointment with my urologist in 2 weeks to make a plan of attack now that I'm recovered from the hysterectomy. I want to remove my interstims first but I think she wants me to start cyclosporine first… So we shall see.

As for now. I'm going to do what I can. Push myself to do a little more every day and try to get outside of my mindset of recovery!

Anyway. Just wanted to give my readers a little update on my recovery... It's been a mournful, painful time but I'm happy to be on this side of it so I can start enjoying the life I have with my little family of 3… my strong, hardworking husband who loves us aggressively, my shockingly adorable, quirky, little booty-shaking 2 year old son, and me. The broken and imperfect mom and wife who is trying to do the best I can for these two boys that fill my heart!

My little family on Halloween! We didn't go big this year but Zach was a gun shot victim, Titus was a Seahawks player, and I was a baseball player of sorts!