Post-Op Post

A week ago at this time I was somewhere between naps. Currently I’m trying to find the right words to describe surgery, my short stay at the hospital and my on-going recovery.

What can I say really? I went into the hospital on May 29, 2017 with a uterus and came home on May 30, 2017 without one. I assume by now it's been incinerated and tiny particles of my uterus are now part of a cloud and will soon rain down on strangers in a distant land.

Or on friends and family here in Canada...sorry about that.

If you read my post about my diagnosis of adenomyosis you already know that previous to my hysterectomy I was the owner of an abnormally large uterus, a fact that my gynaecologist/surgeon reminded me of not once, not twice, but three times during my time at the hospital. 

When we were having our pre-op chat she asked me, much as she had at my appointment in February, if we had discussed Mirena, a type of IUD. I said yes we had but that she had said it wouldn’t work for me because my uterus was too large. After a quick scan at my chart she said, “Oh yes that’s right. It is very large and quite wide. The poor Mirena would be lost up there and wonder what it was doing in this monster.”

In our post-op, hey you can go home now chat, she said everything went well, but that they'd discovered I did indeed have fibroids as well as adenomyosis and that my uterus was (emphatic hand gesture) "quite large". (I didn't ask for details, or if they'd had to use a truck and cable to get it out. I just nodded and smiled.)

And now here I sit, or rather recline on my bed like a lady of leisure in my room, without my monster -sized uterus, contemplating my recovery. Aside from a bit of pain, mild discomfort, and times of fatigue I feel okay. I have a month off work and I really hope to make the most of it. Over the last year and a half my life has been interrupted more than once by my condition. I have said no to many things, events and people that enrich my life. I have turned down roles in plays, dinner dates and phone calls with friends, put off writing stories and playing music because I was in pain or tired or had simply run out creative energy. I truly hope to get my life back to where I want it to be.

I want to write more, act more, play more. 

I want to be more than I am right now.

That’s a lot of pressure isn’t it, Cindy? Yes, you are right. It really is. A few weeks ago, I asked my husband what happens if I don’t live up to the freedom of not having a uterus. He just shook his head and asked, “Who is putting this pressure on you?”

“Nobody but me.”  I said.

If I go back to work not having done anything except finish all of Silicon Valley or read two or three books or sat on my front deck and watch the clouds drift by will I have failed my new-found freedom? Or will I simply taken that freedom and used it to give myself a break from feeling like I always should be accomplishing something?

Or worse, what if I really don’t have anything to say, to write about, to learn on the ukulele that hasn’t already been done by 1000 other people and I no longer have an abnormally large uterus to hide behind and use as an excuse to not do anything? What if this is it? My creative drive has actually dried up and I may as well get used to my future accomplishments being things like catching up on Suits. (which is a great show! I mean no disrespect!)

However, I know I'm just being silly. That last paragraph was self-indulgent nonsense. While in the next month I may not write an epic saga or become an expert on the ukulele I know that my purpose here and now, no matter how big or small the project, is to be creative. It is the force that drives me. My new-found freedom and need to be creative is not new-found at all. 

It’s just been hiding for a while behind an abnormally large monster.

The best to you,

Cin: Now uterus free.