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.