20 Weeks

Yes – it’s been a while again. Occupying myself with PLENTY of work and senseless FB quizzes has kept my mind preoccupied but it’s time to get back to documenting my journey.

I finally focused hard for two months and went diligently to the GYN and Radiology labs for extensive exams and probes and have emerged on the other side with some definitive answers and a course of action. Sparing the general public of gory details, my tests have shown that, as my doctor so eloquently put it, my uterus has “a lot going on”. 4 four large fibroids on the top, side back and front of my uterus (the only time I’ve hated the number 4 in my life), 3 polyps inside and 3 cysts on my right ovary. Luckily, none of this is cancerous or life-threatening – just life altering and quite inconvenient on a multitude of levels. She referred to the size of my fibroid uterus as 20 weeks — as in, it’s the size of the belly of someone 5 months pregnant. That particular description has been taking a while for me to digest… Who would have thought that my first reference of that would be to something unproductive and bereft of joy? To give you an idea, without exposing myself… this is about what my belly looks like when I stand in the mirror and convince myself that I could be MUCH worse. (difference is, the woman in this picture is actually pregnant:)

No… that isn’t me.

There is, at this time in science and technology, only one solution for me if I would like to retain the ability to give birth at some point. That solution is a process called a Myomectomy. For laymen, it’s essentially (for my case) the C-Section and “delivery” of all this…. garbage taking up space and causing discomfort in my womb. It is a major surgery for which I’ll be in the hospital for 3 – 5 days ensuing and will need 6 weeks of serious, no movement, help-me-get-out-of-bed recovery time. For the next 2 months, I’ll be on medication called Depo-Lupron. Lupron in it’s original administration was a medicine administered to prostate cancer patients to help shink the size of the tumor. DP will shrink my fibroids by limiting the blood supply to the tissue (which is what they “feed” on) thus shrinking them and potentially making the surgery a bit easier. Plus side of DP? No more periods while I’m on it — WOO-HOO!!! Downside? Symptoms of menopause complete with hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings :(. But even the silver lining there is that it’s only temporary. Until they perform the surgery.

Next week, I’m going for a second opinion at a place called The Kofinas Institute, a fertility institution here in Brooklyn that a number of women I know swear by. Ones who had been told it’d be impossible to give birth that are now expecting their 2nd baby. But I’m pretty sure given the circumstances and possible course of action for my case, there’s only one way to go.

So to those of you who thought you may have seen something in my silhouette and were afraid to ask… or even those of you who went so far as to put your hand on my belly and ask, “So when are you due?”

In about 3 months.

And then I can start living again.

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