The Future.

I didn't take enough tissue. As usual. The leaking of my Doctor Who water bottle was not helpful to my tissue situation. I knew I would cry. I typically do at those kind of  appointments, those gynaecologist chats, those highly emotional discussions with my consultant about my life and potential problems and treatments.

I have tried every kind of treatment offered and explained and favoured.
I have felt terrible with various side effects.
I have been at a total loss as to what to do, in a quicksand of panic to stop the pain.

Since before my teen years began, all of that has not been right. There has always been something wrong. For at least five years, and at most of those tearful hospital appointments, I have complained about the incessantly dull but intense aches and shocking sharps that occur in my lower right abdomen. After both previous laparoscopies, in which my messy and cystic right ovary was "cleaned up", those pains (unsurprisingly) eased enough for me not to be halted mid-speech or mid-breath. They returned, as I expected, but the temporary relief was a kind of magic.

This last appointment had its own mention of the problematic egg sack. So, although somewhat reluctantly, it seems my consultant has agreed that it JUST MIGHT be causing those aforementioned pains and, as such, that right ovary is due to be removed in what will be my third laparoscopy.

My endometrium will be treated to a zapping, courtesy of Nova Sure, and my left tube will be clipped.

I shall undergo a laparoscopic oophorectomy, laparoscopic sterilisation, and endometrial ablation. I shall have one ovary remaining. I shall be infertile. I shall be sterile. No baby shall emerge from my nether parts. I shall have no more periods.

Let me repeat that bit, chaps: no more periods. NO MORE PERIODS. NO MORE PERIODS. Using words, I simply can not convey my joy to you.

I don't want to have this surgery. I don't want to have these kinds of procedures done. The truth, though, is that I, like so very many more girls and woman, don't have the luxury of a thing like choice. Of course I've thought this through; I have thought of little else for the past few years of my life. How to stop the pain? How to stop the periods? How to prevent the shaking and sweating, the incoherence and immobility, the disabling and sickening burning inside, the nausea, insomnia, migraines, anger, helpless tears, and countless unfulfilled dreams - all because of periods, because of endometriosis.

As I type, that right bloody ovary is causing those aches. The ovulationesque pains. The pains not supposed to happen while the ovaries are "asleep" during the menopause-causing injections. I've been having other premenstual pains and symptoms, too. Which has been jolly spiffing. Jolly.

What if I have another mental breakdown about what I'll have done? What if I regret it all? What if what if what if etc. and so on. It's all so fucking hard to live and it never seems to get any fucking easier. WHEN will an all-round, actual, definite cure be discovered? WHEN? It must happen. It MUST.

In preparation for my forthcoming operation, I've already bought two pairs of comfortable trousers and big old lady knickers for my inevitable swellings - elasticated waistbands are a definite NO. I have many a suitably-sized cushion to put over my bloated belly and under the seatbelt for the journey home, slip on shoes, blanket, mints, a non-leaky bottle for water, puzzle books...

Now I know something useful is going to happen, albeit not yet when, I want it done. I just want it done, and over with, out, finished. I can't wait to see if I change my mind about treatment or children. I have to do what's right - or as right as it can be - for how I feel now. I can't keep waiting and hoping. I can't. I won't.

I expect pain to continue long after I've healed. I think it would be naïve of me to expect any kind of "cure". But how I live, how my days are spent, they have to be better than this. It all has to be. And when I have momentary doubts about it all, I remember the periods, the suicidal depression, the sallow-skinned shaking, the unspeakable terror of that internal pain. And then I feel sure, once again, I am doing the right thing.

The End.

Tomorrow, my consultant is probably going to say he'll refer me to his friend and apparently highly-regarded colleague in London. I shall insist I am against it.

I'm as certain as I can be after Sunday's devastating sobfest that I want no more "treatments", I want no more "to see how it goes" or, "to see if there's some improvement". All the years I asked for help, all the people who let me down, all that time I've lost waiting for a possible reduction in pain, suffering through days and nights of unspeakable agony from periods, waiting for appointments, waiting for the artificial hormones to leave... I have had enough.

And here's a thing: the dihydrocodeine doesn't work enough now so I've been prescribed morphine. And this is when I "shouldn't" be having any pain. "Shouldn't" as per The Law of Endometriosis, i.e. "sod the rules; let's go against logic". Previous posts, if you don't know about the menopause injections, explain all that.

To think of all the places I could have gone, the festivals, the museums, the galleries, the friends in those beautiful foreign lands and in counties so close.
To remember the times I said I'd be somewhere but wasn't, the tickets I bought and couldn't use, the calls and texts and emails to let people know I had to let them down, again.

Because of a period, whether waiting for or having one. Because of the "mid-month" fatigue and bleeding and pain. Because of not knowing how I would be and not being able to afford risking wasting the money.

Because of endometriosis. ALL because of that.

I have never wanted to be a mother. As a child, I used to play with dolls and pretend to be a Mummy and pretend the dolls were babies and such. And I assumed the longing for my own baby would arrive. It hasn't. Mostly, children irritate me. Friends' children are really incredibly cute and sweet. Polite. But others? No. I really don't have the urge to reproduce. I don't ever see it happening.

Cats? HOLYMOLY. I LOVE MY CATS. Kitten paws? Cat squeaks? Purring? WHISKERS?? Adorable. I do girly squee stuff and say, "Awww!!" a helluvalot at those gorgeous fluffy lovely gorgeous cheeky monkeys. Cheekychops. I love my Rosie more than words could ever say. Ever.
I love to feed the birds. Love to.  Woodpigeons, house sparrows, starlings, blue tits, great tits, fieldfares, blackbirds - GIMME. I clean their feeding apparatus, complete with many splats of their pungent guano (brilliantly poetic word for "bird shit") with a grimace but pride, because I know I'm helping them, helping the cheeky starlings and house sparrows survive. The comic antics of the stunningly-coloured woodpigeons are total entertainment, at which I do actual LOLZes. Truly.

Babies? Human babies? No. Not mine.

I can not risk my sanity any more than it has been risked already. My mind and body can not survive any longer in this permanent state of flux. On and off for the last 4 to 6 weeks I have wanted to end it all. Make it stop. Stop the hurt. Stop the tears. Stop the tortuous mire inside me, physical and emotional.

I am not unbreakable.

I am not stoic.

I am human and I bleed and I hurt more than is reasonable, and I can not stand it.

Endometriosis has beaten my medical team, and it will not let go of its grip on my emotions, my body, my entire fucking life. I have been ruled by my reproductive system since I was 12, at least since then.

I am adamant that I want at least both ovaries and fallopian tubes out. The quite exotic term for that surgery is "bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy", or BSO. Or BullShit Ovaries. Or Bye, Sod Off.
I have thought of little else for weeks, I know it's a drastic and HUGE decision, and I know it's not without risks but, as I've tried everything else that could be offered, what else is there?

Really, what else is there to be done?