Dark Hearts Love Too: Late April Thoughts

Dark Hearts Love Too: Late April Thoughts:   Image source: NASA https://unsplash.com/photos/B7Q0Rv9jTkU It’s around the time of my son’s birthday My soul, restless The first rain ...

A brief poem about the way that I'm feeling.

Fortunately, the cyst that was causing my son a fair bit of rather debilitating pain seems to have ruptured on its own, so he may not have to have any surgery for it.

Realizations about My Surgery

Trigger warning for mention of sexual assault, eating disorders, and medical procedures.

I am realizing that part of my issue with this surgery has to do with PTSD rather than the fact of having surgery itself. I must say that berating, belittling, and terrorizing a person in a vulnerable situation can have lifelong consequences.

I had my first surgery when I was eight years old. I had multiple ear infections as a child to the point where hearing loss was a real possibility if something wasn't done. They removed my tonsils and adenoids and put drainage tubes in my ears.

The protocol in those days was to send the family home, so I was this dumb 8-year-old kid left alone in a hospital with strangers. I wandered down to the playroom and was approached by a nurse. He told me to come back to my room so I followed him. He proceeded to bring out what looked to me like the biggest needle in the world and tried to draw my blood.

I had quite a needle phobia and I screamed and pulled my arm away and tried to hide. He called another nurse in and he held me down while she drew my blood. He said "Look at what you did. Now we have to do this again. Shame on you!"

I had this dreadful roommate who delighted in telling me how much the surgery was going to hurt. To this day, I think shared hospital rooms are an awful idea.

When I had to have a c-section, I knew that I was going to be poked with needles and have invasive exams so I was steeled for it, but this (rhymes with hunt) of a nurse added insult to injury by treating me with disdain, trying to force a catheter on me, and throwing the emesis basin at me in disgust when I felt nauseous after being given magnesium sulfate because I had toxemia. This bitch should not have been dealing with people in any capacity, let alone a medical setting.

I have a history of sexual trauma, and I did not even get one of "those" exams for close to 30 years. After my son was born, I said: "to hell with this, nobody is digging around down there anymore." 

The only reason that changed is that I finally found a doctor that I could trust not to shame me for my body type and who I felt comfortable talking about the plumbing with. I have quarterly visits with her because of my endocrine problems. During my April visit, I mentioned to her that I had my "annual period" and lamented that I thought I was done with this crap but every year for the past couple of years I had one very heavy period. She said that wasn't normal and referred me to a gynecologist.

Thus began the year of my life revolving around my plumbing.

I don't want my life revolving around my plumbing anymore. I no longer have a need for my plumbing. In truth, most of my life has revolved around my plumbing. I always had miserable, heavy periods. I started having issues with overactive bladder and urge incontinence (not the more common stress incontinence) when I was in my late thirties. Not the dainty "light bladder leaks when you sneeze or exercise" that the advertisements like to talk about in a sweet and discreet way. Full-on flooding. NOT FUCKING FUN! Highly embarrassing. But I figured it was something I'd just have to live with because I had no intention of letting anybody root around down there.

So, this past year I went through feeling like I was being raped by a robot for a half hour (that damn vaginal ultrasound) and feeling like someone had gone up in my business with a cheese grater (that damn D&C). I do not EVER want to feel either of those things again as long as I live.

While the risk of endometrial hyperplasia becoming cancer is low in my case because the cells are normal, there is a degree of increased risk. I also have fibroids and polyps. I have cystic ovaries, so there's no reason those shouldn't come out too. The tubes serve no function if both the ovaries and the uterus are gone, so there's no reason not to take them as well. The only thing I am going to ask about reconsidering leaving is the cervix because it presents as normal and, apparently, it provides the stuff that allows the plumbing access to be a self-cleaning environment and not become the great Southern desert of the anatomy. Then again, I don't want to have to risk having to have it taken out later, so...I don't know.

I had a person say to me that all women over 40 have fibroids and polyps, implying that I was being foolish for agreeing that this surgery is the correct option in my case. Maybe that is so, but not all of them have endometrial hyperplasia. That is actually the issue of concern, not the fibroids, although they have been causing me trouble for years.

I have honestly never known anyone who had a hysterectomy who regretted it. Everyone I know who has had one has either been neutral about it or said they felt a lot better after it was done. I'm hoping to be in one of these categories. I don't feel sad about losing my reproductive organs. I can't use them anymore and they are causing me trouble.

I'm sure my business really doesn't look that much different from anyone else's business. I don't know. I don't much make it my business to look at people's business. The people who will be doing the surgery see such business repeatedly. It's just business. But, as I said, I do have PTSD and I do have a lot of dislike for my own body because of being shamed for my physical appearance for as long as I can remember. I am also having to fight the disordered eating tendency which is telling me I should maintain my pre-surgery fast even after the surgery is done.

I am having a difficult time with this, and there are no resources.

~Cie~

The Cheese Grates It: Poverty Kills

Believe it or not, people with psychiatric dysfunctions get angry and frustrated about situational stuff too. There is an actual person here behind the broken brain. I'm not just symptoms of my synapses. I may not be a genius, but I know when shit ain't right, and it hasn't been right for a long time.

People love to tell folks "Just" do this or "just" do that, and then it's on to blame the victim if the person can't "just" do what they suggested.

I've had bipolar disorder since I hit puberty, which was when I was nine years old. I can remember my feelings becoming really intense. I thought it happened to everybody. I remember hating what my body was becoming because unlike everyone said, I wasn't stupid. I knew the way guys were going to treat me just because I had visible breasts now, and I hated it so much.

I get angry with having to take medicine all the time, and I don't even have to take that much on the scale of things, but I have so much shit wrong with me. Most of it is chronic shit. Diabetes is serious, but mine is well-controlled. My family has cardiovascular problems out the wazoo. If I have a major stroke, I hope it kills me outright. I don't want to live for years with declining physical health and decreasing cognition the way my father did.

I feel like I'm being punished for my health problems, and it makes me furious. Nobody should be forced to live in poverty because they've lost their strength. I used to be very strong physically. I didn't know just how strong I was. I could carry cases of beer up three flights of stairs and only be minorly winded, rest for a moment, and go back for more. I was a beast!

I could work 16 hours caring for immobile and combative patients. 

Now I become fatigued and sometimes confused with minimal exertion.

It frustrates and upsets me greatly.

I was never able to work day jobs because of my screwed-up brain. I don't sleep well at night. I actually do like my delivery driver job well enough, but it isn't a stable income. Some nights its busy, other nights I'm making five bucks an hour. 

If it weren't for my son, I would quit taking all my medications including my insulin and be dead in a month. I'm not saying this to be extreme or to look for attention. I'm simply past the point where I can convince myself that "there's a better tomorrow around the corner." I don't think there is for me. I pretty much think the rest of my life is going to be more of the same. I'd like to enjoy life, but it's way too stressful. Some of us are not the "favorite children." I'm physically unattractive and not particularly charismatic. Nobody's going to come to my rescue.

I don't want people adulating me or fawning over me. Most of the time I kind of want to be left alone. I want to be treated with basic respect. I want a modest, comfortable place to live. I want to know I have enough food available. I want to be able to have a little enjoyment. I just want a chance.

Mental illness killed off a lot of my chances when I was younger. But it isn't mental illness that makes me consider suicide these days. It's circumstances. And if anyone thinks its okay for people to be wondering where their next meal is coming from or if they'll have a place to live or thinks that people who can no longer physically work hard jobs with long hours deserve to live in poverty, you need to check your shit.

I'm not an atheist. I believe there is a higher power. However, I'm a deist rather than a theist. I believe that higher power is a creator energy. I don't believe it (or they) are involved in the lives of us lowly hairless apes. We're kind of on our own. So, telling me to "trust in god" doesn't work. I tried that, and I was treated like crap by his followers because I had some questions and some ideas, and I liked hard rock and metal. Kind of put me off the whole "trust in god" bit when people were spreading rumors that I was a "devil worshiper", oddly enough.

If there is a deity who monitors our behavior, I believe I will be judged on my actions. I try to treat others with basic consideration. I'd like to do more, but right now there's nothing I really can do.

I don't believe that suicide is "a sin" and I wouldn't want anything to do with a deity who was so cruel that they condemned someone hurting enough to commit suicide to eternal torture. I don't think that suicide is "selfish" or "weak" or "cowardly." Suicide happens when a person is at the end of their rope and has no hope. Perhaps if people extended compassion instead of derision to their fellow human, including those fellow humans who aren't pretty or popular, some lives might be saved along the way.

That's my rant for today. I have a grain of salt for you to take it with.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~