Oh, come on.

After talking with some hystersisters about how I'm feeling five weeks post-op, I realized that I am apparently dealing with my ovary going into shock.

Night sweats, insomnia, headaches, wild emotions and so on - super fun.

Hanging in there.

Another milestone

Four weeks and five days after my hysterectomy, the stitch on my left incision has finally fallen out. Yeah, I know, you're probably thinking, Big deal, so what?

The incision on my left side was taking much longer to heal. When I was moving from the gurney to the comfy chair in the recovery area, I managed to rip the stitch on that side - so instead of having a little 5 cm incision, I have a 20 cm gash. The stitch was hanging on on my left side because there was so much more healing to do there. It was also snagging on everything I wore and was very tender - so I am incredibly relieved to see it go.

I also took a big step forward today, quite literally - I walked my daughter to school for the first time in almost two months. It's only about four or five blocks, all told, but it was absolutely too much for me until today.

So hooray for progress!

Sickness + recovery = very little fun

I got pretty sick this week. Unfortunately, when your body is putting all its energy towards healing you are more vulnerable to all the lovely bugs that are floating around at this time of year. It was pretty much not a lot of fun.

Feeling better, and will catch up on more posting in the days to come.

New research article on endometriosis

An article is being published in the New Journal of Medicine which has contains some pretty interesting findings -

A U.S. researcher links endometriosis to abnormalities resulting from defects in the early embryo. click here to read the press release.

I'm looking forward to obtaining a copy of the full article. The researcher, Dr. Serdar Bulun, has been studying endometriosis for the past fifteen years and is an adviser to the Endometriosis Research Center.

Well, duh.

I'm an idiot - I finally realized why I'm feeling so punk. It's sitting, people. You never realize how much you take sitting for granted until it hurts to do so. I've been doing an awful lot of it lately, and thus my exhaustion and pain.

So, this week, I'm resolving to lie down on the couch rather than sit. Hopefully that'll help!

Three and a half weeks out

By the time Saturday rolled around, I was exhausted and in a lot of pain. It is frustrating to me that the most simple, basic routine of the weekdays prior took so much out of me. It is what it is - but it is frustrating.

Things that are good for the soul when recuperating - friends. A good friend came up to visit and we just spent the afternoon and evening talking, and hanging out, and it was exactly what I needed.

So if you're wondering how to support a friend in the wake of something like this, know this - that no gesture, however small, goes unnoticed or unappreciated. Just a phone call or a note can brighten an afternoon when you are struggling - just knowing that you are in someone thoughts helps a great deal. Recovery is a long and arduous process, and it's when you are weeks out and still feeling like crap that you need those little things the most.

The worst thing you can do is to do nothing. A blogger I respect tremendously recently wrote,

Now, first of all, let me reiterate that when someone is going through Something Bad, the one thing worse than saying the wrong thing is to say nothing. Nature abhors a vacuum and so do friends ... if you say nothing, don't call, don't write, you create a vacuum. Chances are good that your friend will fill in the vacuum with their own thoughts, and they often (the DRE-BFF tells me) have no basis in reality. Thoughts like, "Oh, I guess I thought we were closer than we are," or "I guess I'm really self-involved and they don't want to have to listen to me," or "They think I need to just deal with it and get over it, don't they?"

LizardEater is the mother of a toddler who has been battling a rare type of cancer called Wilms' Tumor. She's well worth reading. Before my surgery, I was donating platelets in Little Warrior's name.

Friends are an vital part of any recovery process. Never doubt the worth of a few kind words.

Three weeks out

I've been struggling to put together a post after my post-op appointment yesterday. Everything went fine, and I was cleared in that I don't have to go back again. Stitches look good, everything's healing nicely. I'm to use my own good judgment about exercise and activity in general. I can swim or take a bath now.

I didn't get the pathology report or pictures that I was hoping for, so that was disappointing.

I'm also wrestling with the whole endometriosis issue.

They did find endometriosis on my right side, which explains all the pain in the months prior to my hysterectomy - particularly the ER and doctor visits which had everyone convinced I had appendicitis. They took care of it.

But I've kept an ovary. I'm only 37, and if we can hold off menopause for as long as possible then it's for the best. But it does leave me at risk for developing endometriosis again.

My surgeon put the odds at 50-50.

I'm choosing to be optimistic, but living with this disease, you get used to unfair twists and turns, and there will always be that little fear - will it come back? Have I gone through all of this, only to have to have more surgery in the future?

Endometriosis is such a rotten bastard, isn't it?