31 days later

Some felted monster hats that I made in my required down time over the past month.

Hard to believe but today is one month since my surgery! An update is in order.

In short: Surgery was successful and I am daily feeling better and better.
In long: It wasn't quite the walk in the park the doctor and his team led me to (skeptically) believe I was in for. But, the surgery was successful and every day I feel a whole lot better.

I had a laproscopic hysterectomy and a mid-urethral sling implanted 4 weeks ago. It was out-patient surgery, and I was told that I would be up on my feet within hours, discharged by dinnertime, no "bed time" in the days afterward, back to normal in a week or so. The nurse even went so far as to say one of their patients took a five mile hike the day after surgery! Wow, it's no problem! And I quote (my surgeon): "Laproscopic surgery is difficult for me, not for you."

Yeah, right.

Recovery was just a more challenging and bumpier road than I'd been led to believe. First of all, I knew that I was a cheap date. In other words, a real lightweight when it comes to any substance such as narcotics or alcohol or...anesthesia. I had the HARDEST time really waking up from the surgery. It was at 11:30 am and they had expected me to leave the hospital by evening. Well, at some point it was clear that wasn't happening. I was feeling pretty awful and just was so groggy that I couldn't imagine going to the hotel near the hospital (we live about 2 hours away so I wasn't planning to go all the way home), but Dr. B let me decide.

Luckily, the hospital had room so an empty one with an extra bed was found, allowing Mark to spend the night in the bed right next to me. In the morning I was doing ok, but not GREAT, not ready to take a five mile hike, let alone a five minute hike, and was so glad I'd spent the night there. I spent the rest of the day trying to get my bladder to wake up, to no avail. Otherwise, I felt ok, so they discharged me WITH a catheter, we went to the hotel for the night. (Really nice hotel, but I felt too awful to appreciate it!)

The next morning we went back to the doctor's office, the catheter was removed and I was given orders to take a walk, have some lunch, drink a lot of water, walk some more, and when I had the urge come back to the office and pee. Wellllll...I walked over a mile that day. My wonderful husband just padded along beside me holding my hand. =) We went out to lunch (I wish I'd had nicer sweatpants ), to a book store, walked some more, to coffee, walked some more. Long story...it took hours, but eventually my bladder woke up. Sheesh!

I went home that night.

Since then I have steadily improved. I used mostly Advil and arnica montana for pain. Oh, and ice packs! The ice pack is your friend! Only used the Big Guns the first and second day. Makes me waaay too loopy. My pain rarely got beyond a 3 or 4 and that was only in the hospital. Since coming home I get sore on the incisions (still a bit these days, though less all the time). And as things moved around and adjusted inside, that caused some discomfort, but not much.

I found that healing from the mid-urethral sling was more uncomfortable than the hysterectomy. That felt like a splinter in my crotch for a while and YIKES! that was bad. But, now I can sneeze without the post-3-vaginal-deliveries piddle problem and THAT my friends, was worth every uncomfortable second.

Luckily I had the input of (virtual and actual) acquaintances (experienced in hysterectomies) and friends in the nursing profession. I was diligent about resting every day (naps the first week, laying down the second) and found that my exhaustion was greatest when people would come over to visit. I had no energy to talk or socialize the first week. Got a lot of knitting and crafting done, though! And watched a bunch more TV than I ever do. Friends brought over meals and that helped a bunch.

I was able to drive by a week post-op. (By able, I mean I felt comfortable enough to do so.)

The worst pain I had were leg cramps about a week after surgery. Not sure what they were about, but they were HORRIBLE! And lasted about 48 hours intermittently.

I am still finding that I am really tired in the afternoons after just one outing in the morning, so I'm watching that and trying not to schedule too much.

Otherwise I feel GREAT and look good too. I'm in great spirits as well, much MUCH better than I had anticipated. So overall, I feel like this was the right thing.

At my 2 week post op appointment my doctor said that my experience was UNUSUAL. They view me as a "sensitive" soul. Well, whatever. I yam what I yam. I think that to be feeling as good as I do today, one month post-op, is just fine and I'm glad I took good care of myself these past four weeks!

The Thread

Years ago, when I was a junior in college I became fascinated with the pregnant female shape. My sketchbook became swollen with images of round pregnant bellies with wings and murky fetus shapes. I obsessively created a series of etchings from these sketches and my professor, as I recall, was concerned. Was I pregnant? No, I think it was just my love affair with all things womb-full beginning.

I had completely forgotten about those prints until last week when they suddenly popped into my mind. I was driving home, thinking about my upcoming surgery, and so, as soon as I parked the van, I rushed into the house, unearthed my college portfolio and dug through the papers until I found them. There were more than I remembered and they were perfect.

 

Perfect because those images fit with a concept I’d been brewing for the past couple months.

On Monday I am having a hysterectomy. I was diagnosed with a large uterine fibroid and adenomyosis (fibrous growth within the uterine wall). After years of debilitating, heavy menstrual bleeding I am borderline anemic and nothing I’ve done non-invasively has been able to change that. After a lot of soul searching, a lot of interviewing of women who’d gone through the operation, and a lot of research I decided I needed to proceed. But I did so with a very heavy heart. Losing my womb felt very big. Very, very big.

I started to think about my uterus, the wonderful work it’s done (as evidenced by my three strapping young men), and my pregnancies. Those musings uncovered a thread that’s run through my adult life and those long forgotten etchings were like a link completing the circuit. When I found them I could feel the electricity sing.

The summer before my second year of college I was blessed to attend a birth, my very first one. My boyfriend’s sister-in-law was having a baby and the room was filled with friends and family (really, it was filled!). The only other birth I’d ever witnessed was my cat having kittens, which was wonderful in its own right, but this, this was different. I practically swooned (hospitals do that to me) and I had to leave the room. But I righted myself in time to see that little baby emerge from his mama and that experience changed my life.

The miracle of birth…a baby grows inside the mother…the baby emerges from the mother…this had never occurred to me before. Not like that. Not really. And that vision of it, that realization, was mind-blowing to this young woman.

I always knew I wanted to have kids and I looked forward to my first pregnancy. What surprised me was how ferociously I loved being pregnant. My pregnancy with Harry was perhaps the best physical time of my life. I got big and round immediately because I tend towards that pregnant shape naturally, and being able to let it all hang out was like taking a warm bath in my body all the time. I was meant to be this pregnant shape.

I took prenatal aerobics classes two or three times a week. I loved being in that room dancing around with other pregnant women. My limbs thinned out and my belly grew larger. I was HUGE by the end.

Throughout that pregnancy I was loving life so much that I considered the possibility of being a surrogate mother for infertile couples as a possible career! I did not want to live un-pregnant. As my due date approached I mourned the end of my pregnancy.

Having my baby, of course, changed that. Who has time to mourn the end of pregnancy when the outcome is as delicious as my adorable baby? (A baby who, by the way, just turned 18 last week!) I don’t remember thinking much about being a surrogate mother once he arrived. And my subsequent pregnancies with Ben and Toby were if not miserable, certainly never as easy and comfortable and enjoyable as that first time.

I started to help my friends during their labors. I quickly realized that I came into my essential self when I was guiding a friend through the relaxing, visualizing, breathing and pushing that happens at a birth. That feeling culminated when I coached my sister Mara through her labor 11 years ago. She was such a goddess and we got into the most incredible groove, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, breathing together, groaning together, holding each other till my beautiful niece was born. It was another life changing event. I was more present for her than the midwife in some ways. It was just us in that room (at least it felt that way) and I was her guide and protector.

Over the years I have begun to craft an idea that one day, I will do this. I mean, I will do this. Be a doula, be there to carry a mother through her labor and beyond. Last year, when Chanel asked me to be present at her second child’s birth (via C-section), to hold her hand and be her support, I leapt at the chance. It’s a long story, which you can read here, here, here, here and here, but suffice it to say that while helping her, my memory was recharged: I want to do this. I want to guide women in mothering, in birthing, in breastfeeding. This is my calling.

The experience with Chanel confirmed that when I grow up I want to be a doula (birth coach) or lactation consultant. I plan to wait until the boys are old enough to be self-sufficient for a period of time (the days I could potentially be away with long labors and new moms). Being a doula is bigger than just the birth experience, they often work with families before, during and after the birth, with preparing, with laboring, with nursing, and caring for the child and the mama. Just thinking of this makes me excited to move forward with it. But I need a bit more patience. Toby is only 10 and not ready for me to take on this other responsibility.

Hearing from the gynecologist that I needed a hysterectomy was a shock. Talking to many women who had had the surgery was a shock. “You don’t need it any more.” “Uteruses are for growing babies and then cancer.” At my pre-op appointment the surgeon actually used the word “amputate” (I know, surgeons, right?). I feel like my connection to that part of me is so different, so filled with appreciation and gratitude. It is that thread that runs through my adult life and goes to the deepest places of who I am.

I took a walk with my friend Madeleine the other day. We walked along the beach talking about transitions from one period to another in life, about moving through and beyond periods that define you in order to find new definitions. We talked about the sorrows and the joys that come with each new chapter. I drew my earth-woman-fertile-mother figure in the sand and let the waves caress her. I blessed myself, my core woman mother self. I have come to this realization: The earth mother in me is not going away, the core of woman- and motherhood that rests energetically in my womb will remain in me.

Tomorrow morning I will stem the out-flow of my own vitality. Though I will enter the hospital womb-full and leave womb-less, I will not be losing my self. I will be entering my next stage and it is a beautiful stage, that of wise crone woman, guide and caregiver, and the thread will remain. Think of me when you can and send me your healing blessings. Thanks.