Shock and disbelief

What would you do if you were expecting a 1-2hr surgery but ended up being operated upon for 5hours?

Shock and disbelief?

I had 3 endometriotic cyst in my ovary. They were growing inside each other, one big one has a medium one inside it while the medium one has a small one inside it. All these were INSIDE the ovary. My surgeon had to slowly peel out each layer and reconstruct back the ovary after draining out the endometriotic blood inside through a key hole surgery.

He also discovered the reason why I'm feeling so much abdominal pain during my mentration on my right abdomen. It was because the fallopian tube was also filled with endometriotic blood and it was adhering to the underlying skin of the abdomen, instead of being a free floating tube. Each time there are strong abdominal movements for mentral contractions, instead of being able to have free-flowing muscular contractions, the tube tags hard at my abdominal walls making it extremely painful.

Even my uterus had problems, there were polyps filling it up which he had to clean out, the menstral blood was also eating INTO the uterus walls swelling it into unnatural size. My surgeon removed part of the swollen uterus and reconstructed it back into an appropriate size and shape.

All these done through key-hole surgery aka laproscopy.

Besides great admiration for his skills, I'm very grateful towards him for saving me. Giving me the ability to even dream of one day having our own children.

But I was truly shocked at the extend of damages inside my own body which i've failed to protect and keep in good condition.

I was wondering if the recent mood swings were a result of the immense amount of menstral blood inside me? Or was it because i was grieving so much about my dad that caused so much damages to my system?

I would never know.

The night before the op....

I've been told to sleep early.....

Because in a few hours time, I'll be checking into a 5* hospital to do my 5th surgery in 9years.

When I knew about the recurring condition 5yrs ago, I asked myself if there was anything to fear about the operation and the answer in my head was NO. So when I readily told my gynea that I'll do the op again for the 4th time in 2001, I really thought that it was no big deal.

How wrong I was.......

The coldness of the operating theatre was fought off by piling 4 layers of blanket on myself. But the desire to sleep forever from the operation was hardest to struggle through. I recall pulling away from waking up. Maybe it was because my body knew that the recovery process was going to be really really really painful........

oh yes, painful.......

imagine a hard file across your abdomen, walk with it, sleep with it. you are practically immobilized.

yep, you can bet that i kinda scolded myself for undermining the PAIN from the surgery.

So well, now that I've to face it for the 5th time. What do I do?? 

There are quite a lot of pitfalls leh....

My counter-action. Dun think about it.

Not at all.

Just Do It.

Why do you think i'm still up at 5am.

My strategy is to starve my body of so much sleep that I'll just knock out anyway on the bed tomorrow ha ha ha.... go into it with a zombie state of mind, it'll numb all anxieties and sense for fear and pain!


Feeling the tag...

A week before my gynea's diagnosis of endometriosis, I had a wave of mood swing.

I had only a few moments of negative thoughts and it was enough to blind me to say nasty things to my husband. Thankfully, he is made a stronger man than anyone else I know. He assured me and threw my negative thoughts out of the window in a flash.

What shocked me was how quickly my mood was changed from happy to sad to disbelieving.

I could acknowledge and attribute them to hormonal changes in my body. But how many others can?

So women folk out there, if you have a sudden change of mind, thoughts, mood, take a deep breath, take a look at pictures of the loved ones whom you have doubts of to remind yourself that its just the hormonal changes that swings you.

Do not take any action which you may regret later on.

After the surgery, I felt completely lifted! I was in good mood and kept to good resting routine to recover. But when I had to take anti-hormonal injections after the op to further surppress the endometriosis condition, the mood tags came back....

"Women got to suffer"

Middle of this year was a really sad time of the year for me and my family as we lost my dad during a trip which he took with mum and sis. It happened so suddenly that it took our family by storm. As he passed away overseas, we had to fly over to process the legal works to bring his body back home and delayed his wake and funeral. It was a prolong period of being deprived of good quality sleep, coupled with the stress of managing the various aspects of a funeral including close monitoring of mum's healthy and mood. After resting for almost a week after dad's funeral, we were faced with legal matters of settling dad's will and estate taxation. Problems of resolving difference and opinions amongst the siblings, making arrangements for mum's permanent lodging and financing all the cost of the funeral and estate tax weighed heavily on my mind. I have sleepless nights or nights when I cry myself to sleep. I have poor appetite and often cry endlessly over nothing. My mind was in a turmoil at the sudden change of events. I was challenged to grieve for a loved one for the first time in my life.

It was tough.

I felt as if I'm in a depression. Thankfully, I have a fantastic support network of friends who would call me and just talk to me to distract me from my negative mindset. They took me out and gave me light to the other aspect of my life which I was not thinking as much of.

I quickly slipped out of depressive thoughts, however, I was still grieving deeply for the loss.

In late august, when I have picked up most of my broken pieces, I was due for another checkup and my gynea deduced that the cyst around my ovary is not of "friendly" nature. Its endometriosis!

OMG!

I never expected him to say that E word! All along I had the impression that each time the cyst was like a potential egg trying to burst out of my ovary and yes... It always seems to be in the bursting stage, perhaps the ovary walls are abit thicker and the eggs have a harder time to leave the ovary. I never imagined that I have to undergo the knife.

I knew that it was inevitable to undergo surgery to eradicate these blood clots in the ovary, but it felt like I've been hit again by a storm, the cost of surgery and time away from work would weigh me down even further now.

Just as my emotions were sliding down the deep dark hole.... One of the nurses commented that "women got to suffer".

The sense of sadness and self-pity was overwhelming. Is it not terrible enough for me to lose my dad? Now, I'm entering another black hole of the E condition. The pain of the surgery, the discomforts, the slow recovery process, it felt like another 100pounds of weight have been strapped across my shoulders, making me drag my feet harder across the path that I'm taking.

Yes, I burst out crying on the spot.

9 yrs on

After 3 operations on endometriosis and one on adhesion arising from the first reckless operation in garman hospital, I feel as if I'm back to square one again when I was diagnosed with endometriosis again after 9yrs of semi-freedom.

With continuous monitoring with my gynea, I thought that I'll be in great shape to start a family, now that we're more matured, married and settled with our lives.... but the truth evades me....

In those 9 years, I was not warned of the side effects of the post-operation treatment to endometriosis by anti-hormonal injections to totally eradicate the condition. In the months following the injections, I felt a strange sense of warm on my back, heating my whole back even in a cold cold shopping mall when I felt cold a few seconds ago. I have really bad moods when I would just flare up at the slightest remark or unhappy thought. I thought that I was a freak.... Over the months of treatment, with the constant mood swing, many of my friends cannot understand my frequent irrational behaviour, neither can I. The worst victim to my frequent mood swings was my boyfriend then. He took blame for why all thing did not happen the way they were "suppose" to. He became my bean bag for my anger and frustrations which I cannot seems to explain. It took him a few months before he realised that he's unable to be with me anymore and he left.

I was devasted and headed downwards into a depression. I would not leave home and just kept to myself. By then, I had too few friends to even notice that I was in such a fix.

Thankfully, one friend did not give up on me. He heard about my condition, sympathsized with my situation and became my listening ear. Through God's grace, he was constantly listening and kept calling me to keep me in check. Soon, my anti-hormonal injections stopped and the side effects were gone and I was able to be myself again.

It took me quite a few years to recover from the irrational behavior that I displayed, often I wonder if that was the real me? Or was there some other force influcencing my thoughts, my actions and my response to the daily lives around me.

Now I understand that that was not me, my normal rational behaviour, instead, my body was adjusting to the hormonal changes and somehow somewhere inside, it got wired into a furious, angry, unreasonable me.

With this new found knowledge, I can better manage my mood swings and give those around me some form of "warning" if it occurs again.

Even then, there will be occasions when I lose control of my emotions and allow my thoughts to spiral downwards.

Once, my husband, a friend and I were to pick up something from a hotel, one men went towards the reception to do the pick up, while the other went to the washroom. It was peak hour outside the hotel drive through, I had to put up a strong front to keep our vehicle at the front yard, waiting for the two men. At the same time, I was also in need to visit the restroom, while waiting, I decided that my husband would come back soon for me to run to the restroom, hopefully the guards would not kick us out of the lot... But the two guys took a really long time to return to the car, in those 10mins or so, my mind went from calmly waiting, to wondering what is taking my husband so long, to thinking that my husband would rather spend time with his friend in the hotel lobby then with me in the car waiting, to seriously thinking that my husband WANTS to spend time with his friend OVER me and giving myself reasons to be angry with him.

Yes, in those few short mins, I was furious when the two men returned, I refused to talk to them and even thought of leaving my husband. My mind was mentally blocked from reason or rationality.

After 30mins or so, I was distracted by dinner preparations and I was able to let go of the negative thoughts again and feel bad about thinking that way about my husband. Thankfully, my husband is a very understanding person and he was warned way in advance that I have bad mood swings, he was able to convince me that the negative thoughts in my mind was false.

What scares me is that my mood and mind can play such deadly tricks to me in such short time frame. Its scary how a few short moments can change our lives forever if the wrong decision or words or actions were applied.

Never did I suspect that this was the begining of another episode of endometriosis that is growing inside me, messing up my system....