Tuesday before surgery, my mind is doing nothing but keeping itself busy~~all the "what if's, why'" and whatever else I would let it do.
I went to work, just like another normal day, although the countdown in my mind was telling me differently. I had been telling certain customers what would be going on. That I would be gone from work for four weeks. Some got the full blown explanation, some got just a short "family time".
So, I had been telling one of my co-workers that all I wanted to do was go home and put on jammies and do nothing all night long.
Later on in the day the mother of my oldest son's girlfriend comes in and we chat and at the end of the conversation she mentions that she guesses she will see me later for dinner at his house. HHMM, news to me. Now, if I hadn't mentioned it prior to now, I am not one for surprises, I have been told I need to be more flexible, that I like to have control over things. Now, in this instance I think having control is a good thing because it's the little things I can keep under control since my body and its genes are not something I can control.
I guess I got "loud" according to her and that ruined dinner plans. Huh? I am the one having surgery in less than a week, I want to go home and do nothing but be in my jammies...... you tell me I am having dinner at someone else's house? You know what, I do have a voice that carries, I speak my mind~~most of the time. I have lots of opinions~~stick around long enough you will hear them whether you want to or not.
So, I told her that I had fish already thawed that needed to be cooked. I guess I told her this more than once and was "loud". I found this out after I called my husband to find out what was going on for dinner. According to him, I had ruined dinner by being "loud" with the mom. Whatever.......I really didn't appreciate being told I was having dinner somewhere else when what I really wanted was to stay at my own home. All I could do was count down the days, hours, minutes, time at work, showers I had left when I would still be "whole".
Well, the shit really hit the fan when I got home. Not only did my husband and I have it out, but I had it out with my youngest son. Yes, even after all these months, I can tell you pretty much what I said to both of them.
I won't get into it here, but suffice it to say I was out of control. In tears, fixed the dinner I had planned, didn't eat anything, laid on the couch after it was all said and done and stayed there the whole night, in my clothes, didn't ever get up, don't think I ever moved.
I really don't think my husband really had any idea how much I would change with this surgery. I finally told him the following: "imagine the surgeon cutting off your testicles, the hormones they produce you will never ever have again and those same hormones are the ones that tell your body you are a man."
Well, it did't go over as I had hoped. All he told me was that even after my surgery people would still look at me and be able to tell I am a woman. That is NOT what I was trying to tell him. I was trying to get the point across that the hormones that tell my body to become wet when I am turned on won't be there, that the hormones that protect my heart won't be there, that the hormones that keep me from getting hot flashes won't be there.
What I finally did do is send him an email with links to various sites on line that explained what menopause is, how it has an effect on your body, what the hormones do, what estrogen tells your body to do. One even had a short video on what my surgery would be like. He is squeemash, so it didn't go over well with him. But, he did finally get the point~~that while on the outside I would be the same, the inside wouldn't be. That it's not a lube and oil change~~that it's a whole other way of living, it's a whole other way of taking care of yourself, that it's a whole new person. Well, maybe not to that extreme, but you get the point~~you just never feel the same again.
It's been 10 months and I can still tell you what I felt the week leading up to my surgery. That hardly a day goes by that I don't think about menopause, about what the choices I made then have an effect on my life now. That every six months I have a CA-125 blood test, that once a year I have a mammogram, that once a year I have a breast MRI, that every few days I have to use an artificial moisturizer in my vagina so I don't have an odor, that I need that artificial lube so that I can even walk without it being uncomfortable, that each and every time I get intimate with my husband we have to use lubricant, that my risk for heart attacks has increased, but, in the long run, my risk for both ovarian and breast cancer have decreased. These are things you read about, but never really think about it being "you".
Would I do it over again? Most likely. Am I 100% sure? I don't know. What I do know is that having cancer would have been worse than menopause. This I can live with, cancer can kill.
So, yes, it's all in how you say it and what you say~~be careful how you choose your words, how you say them, how "loud" you might say them, and to whom you say them.
I can't go back and change things, I would not want to do that. I learned from that experience. I probably created a distance between my son and I and for that I am profoundly sorry, I tried to explain to him why I was out of control. I don't think he understood or ever will. Am I sorry for being "loud" with the mom? No. Never was, never will be. If she and others cannot understand that I needed to be in control at that moment in time, then they don't need to be included in any explanations.
So, the rest of the week was pretty uneventful after that night. I am sure there was more that went on and if I had started this then, I would have had more to say about it. Maybe I just wasn't ready to accept what I was doing, what was going to be done to me. Hell, it's taken me, what, three, four months just to get this one night down in black and white.
