Cuts like a Knife

 

I met with the endometriosis doctor/surgeon today.  I’m not sure why but I still find it surprising when a doctor is my age.  Somehow I always think doctors should be older…than me at least.  My husband told me to just wait until the doctors are younger than me.  The doctor was a rather serious let’s get down to business sort of lady. A sugar coater she was not. I respected that quality.  She said she liked challenging cases, and as I have a challenging case she thought she could fix me up.  Of course since my case is so severe in the long run I’ll still most likely need a full hysterectomy at some point.  This upcoming surgery will hopefully delay that by three years and help to preserve my bones. 

    The plan is to be conservative…but not too conservative which is what they did during my last surgery. At that time they were too worried about damaging my reproductive organs and thought the best treatment was to get me pregnant. There still could be a chance they may just do a full hysterectomy, but the hope is that they can save at least one of my ovaries, most likely the one on the right.  There is a good chance that they will have to complete some sort of bowel resection since most of my issues are related to my intestine.  That will mean a much longer recovery period including a stay in the hospital.  It also means a respite from one of my favorite activities…eating. 

I’m waiting now to see when the surgery will be.  June seemed to be the best month because I’ll still be on the Lupron at that point.  It makes sense but if I could, I wish it could be next week because now I have several months to think about the surgery and to do less than helpful internet searches on everything that has to do with having a bowel resection.  The plus side to waiting until June is that I have plenty of time and a great excuse to eat it up at all of my favorite places before I am placed on a restricted bland diet.

The Adventure Begins!

I'm all READY!

   The good news of this week was that all of my liver tests came back completely normal!  Thank you to all of the people who had been praying about that.  It was a great relief.  The only odd thing that still remains are my low cell counts.  Basically I’m anemic even though my iron levels are good so I’m having more lab work done to see if there is any cause for it.  I’ve had trouble with my B12 in the past so that could be it or it may have just been a lingering illness or infection.  I’m praying that after this round of blood work they will be normal as well.

When I met with my infertility doctor last week he told me that moving forward with the fourth IVF would be pointless unless we wanted to use an egg donor which is at the very bottom of our list of options so…. we are officially going to begin the most excellent exciting journey of adoption!  I thought that a new destination called for a new blog look, hence the change.  We are very happy but suddenly it seems like so much stuff has to get done, especially if we want to get our application in before the end of the year.  The most important two things to do now are…

1)      I need to have my surgery to hopefully help my endometriosis.  I meet with the surgeon on Tuesday and hopefully I’ll have the surgery sometime within the next four months while I’m still on the Lupron.

2)      We need to start our major renovation.  We had already planned to tear apart our upstairs as it is currently a disaster (definitely not home study friendly) but we didn’t have any real timeline.  Now we feel like we really have to stop lollygagging and get a move on.  All of the supplies for

  “ the kid’s bathroom” arrived Thursday.  The contractor will be here sometime this week to assess the job and then hopefully we can get started in the next few weeks. 

Those are the two most important things for now and also lots of praying for the future member of our family and his or her birth family because we know the road that will lead our child to us will not be an easy road for all involved.

I really loved this video before but it seems to mean something very special now.

The Lady with the Owl

godess Athena

This afternoon I met with my reproductive endocrinologist.  I had my last planned shot of Lupron last week.  I’ve done very well on the Lupron Depot and have had minimal side effects from it.  I imagine that this is what normal people feel like.  It was decided that due to the lack of side effects it would be safe for me to continue for an additional three months giving me a total of six months of freedom from all of my horrid digestive issues.  That sounded great to me.

The doctor also told me that he met a doctor who works for a practice that has had success performing a very specific kind of surgery for people with endometriosis.  He said he thought of me and shared my case with this doctor.  She said she would be more than happy to see me and thought that they might be able to help me through this surgery.  When he finally told me the name of the practice I laughed.  It was Athena Women’s Center, where I had gone when I was diagnosed and treated for interstitial cystitis.  It certainly takes away the new doctor anxiety that I have developed over the years because although it has been quite a few years since I’ve been there I remember everyone being knowledgeable, friendly and kind. The head doctor always looked as though he should have been coaching an NFL team instead of fixing lady issues, but he was so warm and nice to all of his patients.  I plan on calling tomorrow to make an appointment and it looks like I may have a surgery sometime within the next four months before all the Lupron wears off.

So for now we are taking a little detour away from baby territory and are focusing only on me and my endometriosis. 

Big Girl Weekends

(Meant to be posted several weeks ago)

When I was a little girl my father built a playhouse for me.  It was a lovely house with a deck, window boxes, curtains and a counter and sink.  It was bigger than the playhouses that were available for purchase, and I adored it.  I spent many a weekend outside in my backyard playing homemaker.  I would “bake” cakes using water and the sand from my sandbox; decorating my creations with bits and pieces of nature discovered around the yard.  I loved sweeping the floor and wiping down the furniture (though I continued to be opposed to doing actual chores in our real house), imagining that I was Laura Ingles or Anne Shirley or any number of other characters from that time period that I had adopted into my identity.

 As a big girl I still enjoy “playing” homemaker though the house and tools are more grown-up.  I am especially fond of unscheduled, unhurried weekends when I can make home to my heart’s content.

Slow weekends call for slow foods like Kielbasa in the Crockpot

Coconut, Peanut Butter Oat Balls

                                                        Coconut Peanut Butter Oat Balls

Freshly folded clothes

I couldn't find a photo of my old playhouse but I found this sketch I made a long time ago one snowy day