Pardon My Patients

FAIR WARNING: Post IS 4 fucking pages long in Word!

So okay if you have been around long enough you know that I am fairly inconsistent with my entries and that when something major is going on with me I return to blogging. The simple truth of the matter is when I come back it is because I am tired of inflicting my whoas on my loved ones but still require room to think and share. My personality type does not allow for bottling up my feelings. I saw what holding things inside did to my mother and I refuse to allow the truth to fester inside my soul like a malignant spore.

What I am about to talk about seems to be woman’s dirty little secret, there is not much in the way of personal example on the subject only very clinical factoids. I believe that my experiences in life (all aspects) when shared can help others. Even if the example is what not to do, if you learn something then my life purpose has been fulfilled.

In April I began to have a myriad of symptoms.

• After dinner I would sweat until my shirt was soaked.
• Getting tired at 2 in the afternoon and having trouble staying awake past 6 p.m.
• The ability to prioritize/organize my usual tasks at work disappeared entirely.
• Mood swings with no discernable pattern or reason.
• My insomnia got so bad at one point I had, had 5 hours of sleep in 10 days. (I know this symptom is the polar opposite of another but it happened.)
• Having to pee every half hour.
• My breasts actually feel like they are growing but are not changing size.
• Heartburn even when drinking water.
• Everything tasting like cardboard.
• Pain in the general region of kidneys and just above pubic bone.
• Pain during intercourse.

And the symptom after the 4th time that I simply could not ignore: Bleeding after intercourse (and I mean enough to soak a very plush very large bathing towel).

I imagine the first conclusion you are imagining is Pregnancy let me dispel that one right away – my tubal ligation(TL) (READ: Fixed – no more puppies for this bitch) was in September 2000.

About this time my mother had been hospitalized for EXTREMELY high blood sugar (204) that’s enough to damage her heart, plus an ear infection plus pneumonia. My family is a tad large and therefore all in the high risk category for diabetes. I had noticed that my low moods and fatigue would disappear after I ate so I assumed I was having precursory symptoms to diabetes and that the head/body aches and inability to concentrate were the onset of a sinus cold. Perhaps in hind sight I was grasping at whatever was closest for the moment.

Now for the bloody matters – well I honestly believed I was miscalculating my periods either thinking they were done when in fact they weren’t or that I was starting early (SEE: lack of concentration) . The pain of sex only happened once and was not followed by a blood bath so I thought we were simply in the wrong position and had irritated something. The next week we went to have a friend who happens to be an accountant look over our taxes. His wife is a Homeopathic Nurse and me; ever the worrier excused myself to her office while the boys perused the numbers. The first thing she said was perimenopause.

Quoted from Wikipedia if a little altered for flow (pardon the pun): “Perimenopause is the term describing the menopause transition years, in women who have a uterus, the years both before and after the final period.”

I was mildly alarmed because woman + menopause = dirty word. No one had ever talked to me about it nor had I bothered to ask. Okay here comes your second concern – I am not to young to be entering this stage of life (35) especially if genetics has anything to do with it because guess what? I first made an appointment with my Doctor and second called my mother. To which she nonchalantly went into a giggling fit about her extreme long periods and many fibroids that lead to her hysterectomy at the age of you guessed it thirty-fuckin’-five!!! I was 8 and have no recollection of my life before 11, sorry I just don’t remember anything before that. And here she’d just said another word I’d heard before FIBROIDS.

Fibroids are benign tumors which grow from the muscle layers of the uterus, they often do not require treatment but when they are problematic, they may be treated surgically (hysterectomy, hormonal therapy, a myomectomy, or uterine artery embolization) or with medication. About 2 years ago while working a night shift I damn near fainted, had extreme abdominal pain and soaked with sweat like I’d just gotten out of a very nasty shower. That ER experience is one of the reasons I stopped visiting the gynecologist.


You just made that hissing sound I heard you!


I know not going for your yearly visit is like tattooing cervical cancer on your death sentence dead girl walking slip but I HATE the “C” word. I’m not going to get into that just now. Don’t judge - just read!!!

I went to the family doc – standard blood work, listen to my breath look in my Ear Nose Throat (ENT). Wait one week for test results.

Go in for test results – it ain’t diabetes! WOW really? Surprised I be! I lay on the table, he feels my tummy and goes (I kid you not) “WHOA! If I didn’t know better I’d say,” as he runs his hand from pelvis to sternum,”That’s about 18 weeks.” This is a man of very few words and no emotion whatsoever. So I’m a little nervous as you can imagine.

I fucking snorted, rolled my eyes and laughed right in his face, “That’s not even remotely possible.” And proceed to tell the Doc about said TL. I couldn’t get that damn “P” word outta my head so I raced home and pissed on a stick just to be sure. (There is another ridiculously funny story there for another time.)

The following week he schedules an ultra-sound + transvaginal. Gggaaaahhhh!!!! SO I wait a week and have the test this sucks on so many levels - 5 bottles of water an hour before the appointment + pelvis pain and a stick jammed into your cookie jar = I hate being a girl! Wait another week for the results.

Results = buttkissangel. We think it’s a fibroid it looks like one but doesn’t act like one and we can’t see your ovaries but it’s a mass about 4 inches by 6 inches. We need to rule out…say it with me…Cancer, suggest MRI.

So the bad family doctor can’t order an MRI he has to refer me to a specialist (READ: Gyne-fuckin-cologist) please wait 2 weeks, no sex, and extra pain from the stress. Yes, the more stressed I am the more it hurts. Wrap your noodle around this I am a stomach sleeper!

Meet with the Gyno who first told me it was a fibroid (2 years earlier), get lecture, pap, blood work and wait for MRI appointment. You’ll love this. The first appointment they could schedule…

August fucking 7th.


By this time I can not get my man to hug me or kiss me because he might hurt me and I am sleeping in the living room because our bed is unforgiving to the now bloated stomach. My mood roller coaster is about to come off the rails because I feel like I am all alone and repulsive to boot. I can no longer work out it hurts to lift my leg, I don’t have the energy and I’ve started fucking up at work so badly I almost got fired! What’s worse is the insomnia is keeping me up so late I have to take the night shifts so I’m not getting to see Dash at all. Which is probably a good thing. I think the moodiness was getting to him even if he understood the hormones were in control and not me. Wee-haw aren’t we having some fun now!

That brings us to June 3rd - I was awakened bright and fantastically early given above problems to a call from the Hospital "We have a cancellation can you be here in an hour?" YEEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!! The MRI was fun especially with a head cold (another story, another time.) I know, I know but this story is hugely long. Sorry.

Doc Torture…err Gyno goes on fucking vacation whilst we await the supposedly 2 weeks it takes for the results to appear. On the 10th that little head cold is full blown sinus infection and I can’t stand because my equilibrium is shot. I actually booked an appointment with Dr. Family Fuck-up for the head case.

Low and behold I arrive to see the MRI written in Latin or some other dead fuckin’ language stapled to the front of my file and my head miraculously clears. I totally fucking forgot they asked if I wanted him copied on the results. I said,"Sure good to have all your eggs in one basket." (Teehee) He writes a scrip for antibiotics to clear up my sinus infection and precedes to read those damn results 5 fucking times before he will tell me anything muttering obscenities all the while at the page likes it’s a moron or something. The little bit I got out of him he didn’t want to divulge saying I had to talk to Dr. Torture.

So his version goes something like this: “Endometriosis (his description I swear) – when the uterine lining gets outside the uterine cavity for whatever reason. Yours has attached itself to your fallopian tube and it’s filling it with blood. My guess is she’ll (Dr. Torture) want to take it out.”

Take what out the fallopian tube, the uterus, all of it (Please god by all that is holy!!!)? This is where he decides the clam is dirty enough without his mucking about in it and I can pry nothing further from his educated non-bedside having manner.

So I managed to get Dash to book off so he can go to the appointment on the 17th to see Dr. Torture when she gives me all the big words and the judgment of the surgical court.


. . . W a i t f o r it . . .

On the 16th (can you guess I bet you can) the fucking twit receptionist with a manly mustache calls to move my appointment time on the 24th from the morning to the afternoon. WAIT A DAMN MINUTE! I have an appointment tomorrow. No she says its next week. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!! We don’t even have the results yet it’s too soon. Uhm, pardon me ma’am but Dr. Scrooge has them why the hell don’t you? I don’t know but your appointment is on the 24th.


AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!


And that folks believe it or not is the funny parts. It’s not even the whole damn story but its 4 damn pages long and this is a mother of an update. I want, no I need very much to tell you about the emotional side because it’s the part I can NOT, will NOT live with!