I Give Up

If you grew up female in the 1960's, there came a day, inevitably, when your mother handed you a pleasant looking little box of goodies labled "Today You are a Woman." Inside were all the "feminine hygiene" products that introduced you to the secrets of the club of menstruating females: pads of various sizes, and the elastic belt with the little metal or plastic clips that rubbed the hide off of you (front and back). If you had a mother who was more interactive and more emotionally supportive than mine, you might have been talked through all the cryptic "stuff" inside the BOX. In my case, I was given a stack of single sheet newspaper to keep in the bathroom, and told they were for wrapping the pads in so that my Dad and brothers wouldn't see them.

So, was I initiated into the secret of womanly bleeding...

From that moment forward, I've warred with my wayward uterus.

Irregular periods throughout most of my young womanhood made me the girl you didn't want to be dating. I was nothing if not exciting on that score...

Still, it cradled and nurtured two healthy pregnancies with barely a murmur. And likely would have welcomed a host of others had I been so inclined. Birthing babies was the strong suit of the uterus from hell...

There were the days of my stint in the halls of the "good old boy" world of Oil and Gas Corporate ladder climbing, when the uterus seemed to understand that I was pretending to be a guy. Through those years, I seldom had more than 3 or 4 periods a year, and at least one medical practitioner opined that I might be menopausal -- at 26 years of age. Once I escaped from the dog eat dog world of really big swinging dicks, trading in my balls for something more civilized, my periods, interestingly, resumed with a regularity that I'd never experienced in the years prior to that lengthy stint...

28 days. 28 days. 28 days. 28 days.

Then, a few years back, things started to shift. Still 28 days, but the tide began to rise. Slowly at first, barely perceptible, but heavier and heavier -- with each passing month, my menses became more and more extreme. The culprits, it seems, as I move closer and closer to menopause, are uterine fibroids.

I've tried everything to try and cope with their silent depredations. I do not want to lose the old uterus. We've been together a long time.

Then, Thursday, for the second time in two years, I had a hemorrhagic bleed -- in my classroom, with children present. I believe I managed to get out before any children were traumatized, but not before I was. Bleeding in public is something we are conditioned against from the beginning...

I had to leave school in the middle of the day, shaken and scared, a mess of blood to my knees -- leaving my classes in the hands of a hastily summoned substitute...
I give up. There will be a hysterectomy. Probably December 29 if it can be scheduled. All will be gone. Done. Taken. No more blood. No more mess. No more cradle for the children, now long grown. No girlie parts.

I am devastated. I am furious. I am bereft. I am in mourning.

I am trying to tote up the positives. Dollars saved on hygiene products no longer needed. Perhaps the cessation of migraines driven by hormonal storms each month. Lower backache ended forever. No more monthly sore boobs.

Last night though, I dreamed that someone came and stole all the living room furniture leaving only empty space... Empty space...

It feels like having a well-loved and faithful old dog put to sleep. I'm really sorry, uterus, but it's time. I hope it isn't too awful for you....

Maybe there should be a bon voyage party... some brandy in the douche bag perhaps? Probably not a good idea, but WTF?

I am just so terribly, horribly, sad...

swan