Surgery has been scheduled

So, I shared with y’all – my #fibroidsisters that I have been struggling recently. My partner and I have been at the hospital over and over and over. In a moment of defiance, fear, fatigue and ‘over-it-ness’, I said yes to Surgery. I said yes to an Open Myomectomy. I scheduled it for April 30th. Two days before my 35th birthday. Three weeks before I go back to school. Five weeks before I am supposed to attend a regional professional conference.

I went in for a follow up and was expecting a rather traditional, non eventful visit. Sure, we were going to discuss all of the testing and their results, but I was ready for that. I did not expect to walk out with an actual appointment to have major surgery. But, I did. My docs said that my particular fibroid did not shrink in a meaningful way and that it is unlikely to go anywhere else soon. Now, I did use part of the Queen Afua system and had remarkable results. I also did lose TWO centimeters off of my Fibroid in total over a few short months. Imagine if I used all of it?

So… in the hurry of it all, and the doctor and his calendar… I chose the earlier date. April 30. I mean, I can’t choose a later date and not have school affected. I did not get into Columbia University grad school to have it be derailed. Not my education, not again. So… April 30 it is. ..I  would have like to do it later, but that was all he had and I must say, I did not really have much time to think or confer with my partner. I do believe that surgery will be in my future at some point, I just want to explore all of my other options first.

Now that a few weeks have passed, I have reconsidered. More details to come soon.

Allow me to introduce myself

October 2013. I will never forget that day, the hours, the minutes I lay in the hospital scared shitless. I had no real idea what was actually happening. I literally just could not stop bleeding. The months and weeks of intense and a non-stop cycle. I attributed it to age. I attributed it to normalcy. Ain’t that normal? What do you mean it’s not? Having my period for close to 16 days was not the way to live?

Well, I had been living that way. I do not know anything else but that moment in the hospital. I lay down and the doctor came into my room and told me that I indeed had uterine fibroids. And with that declaration, the room faded to black. Suddenly he was throwing around careless words like hysterectomy and childless. how can you tell a 33 year old woman in the prime of her life such a thing?

I fainted at school, on campus. I was unable to make it to class more often than I cared to count and I thought my graduation was in real danger. I could not move from my dorm room bed, I could not keep a damn sanitary napkin or tampon. I burned through them all. What I did for the next twelve months was in between sort of babysitting it and straight up ignoring it. Five months after that, I had fallen really ill and the fibroids were taking over my entire life. More on that in another post. Now I am paying full attention. Now I am fighting it the natural and holistic way. I am daring to keep my womb and keep my ovaries and keep my uterus. I will be a mother and I will carry and birth my own children.

These fibroids can’t have my life. They can’t have my dreams either. I’m going to shrink them. Black motherhood is too fragile and argued about in America. I will not let my future children have no choice because of a callous and uncaring medical system that wants to bill you, pillage you and slice you. Not me. Not now. Not without me trying my damnedest first.

This is my story. I am not a doctor. I am doing what works for me. But share and chronicle, I must.