Raw Vegan Foodie, here I come

After the doctors visit where I said yes to surgery, I had a few days immediately following that where I was depressed. I was also sorta free and liberated, and I was also a tiny bit scared. Once I make my mind up, there is no turning back. I am a typical Taurus in that way. Also, I watched a documentary on Netflix, “More about the Business of Being Born” VBAC edition. One of my gals on Instagram put me onto looking into my post surgery life… having children and the like.

I want to have children. I am 34 and have never had children. My boyfriend and I talk about children and marriage with frequency and that is a part of our future. I had my own birth plan of being at home, in my tub or a borrowed tub. Doula and Midwife, candles and India Arie in the background. That was and is my dream. VBAC means vaginal birth after cesarean. While an open myomectomy is not a cesarean, some of my understanding of the surgery remain similar. Risks, depth, time, healing, preparation and so forth. Lots of folks, and by folks I mean doctors, say that once a person having this surgery, then its continued c- sections from that point forward. I certainly don’t want to undergo that experience for the two to three children I dream of having.

So… mysel;f along with my partner are deciding to look at things from the desired end result first. How do we find a team, how do we exhaust all of our options and make the most informed decisions with the end goal of having 2-3 children and maintaining my womanly parts? Back to the drawing board it is, in a way. Find new doctors meeting the criteria I mentioned a few blogs back and start from there. If at all I need to make the surgery decision again, I will do it – gladly. Right now, I want to go forward with some other options first.

I started off 2015 with a full on vegan mindset. I am now delving into raw vegan territory and doing it around the clock. I have a lot to say about that, but for the sake of time and the length of this post, I will continue on in the next post.

My Digital Uterine Fibroid Sisterhood – follow dem

I have been blessed to enjoy and use social media with regularity. I have been an early adopter and this is not my first day at the rodeo via blogging. I have been luck enough to form relationships with (thru the inter webs) a cadre of women who simply ROCK!

Here are a few of these awesome women and their accounts:

IG: @fibroidfree, @wecanwearwhite @shrinkingfibroiddiet @thatgirlandherwomb @kitawilliams @uterinefibroid_health

Follow them if you would like to! I can guarantee, whatever your choices are, you will learn something, or have a good laugh at our shared experiences. Tell them Kat the Fibroid Shrinker sent you! (That’s me on Instagram!)

A holistic, minimally invasive approach

I do things big. I am not a fan of doing things small or halfway. I like to give things my all, and I also like to be as ‘close to the ground as possible’. What that means for me is green, green, green! I had been making changes to my diet and all that since January/ February 2014. I also felt like although I was still a meat eater, I cut out many kinds of meat and I also amped up my ‘all things green intake’.

As time went on, I also started heading more and more in the vegetarian direction. By October 2014, I was 75% vegetarian. The occasional buffalo wing craving would hit me and I would have to answer to it. The more I learned, the more I found women on social media platforms like Instagram, and the more I found community. This community was around going after uterine fibroids in a more holistic approach, taking lifestyle and diet changes into account. I was of the same mindset, not wanting to take surgery into account at all, and only if it was a last option.

I had also been using the womens womb wellness kit by local and master mixtress Queen Afua. It was hard for me to just say yes to surgery, and I was shocked I agreed so fast. NOW, please understand this… I am not saying one approach is better than the other. Each woman must do what works for them. No one choice is better than the other. I am now open to charting, and chronicling my diet, my exercise, my journaling, my meditation, etc. Alongside getting a team of doctors that are culturally sensitive and not looking to operate a low key eugenics program. Not on my watch, not on my body.

Anyways, there’s more to say, but I do want to save that for the next post. More on the other side… soon.

Thanks for reading me!

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.

A new week = doctors appointments

A new week is upon us, and I am here preparing for another set of doctors appointments. Today, I have appointments with a few specialists and am ‘looking forward’ to the barrage of tests and inner body invasions, (I kid, I kid)…but really – all the well wishes you can think of will be appreciated. As you know, I have gone from eating meat a few times a week, to being vegetarian, to being vegan now. I have also continued to modify my diet by eating raw foods about 40% of the week. My goal is to ramp this up to %70 by summer of 2015. I am also taking herbs and teas, systems from Queen Afua (http://www.queenafua.com). I am working on keeping my stress levels down and I am also working to be more fit, and get more rest. I do hope that my fibroids have shrunken a bit.

I am trying out a new doctor and recently have gotten new recommendations to some others in the New York Metro area. I’ll fill you all in when I know something.

 

After my diagnosis…

After my diagnosis, I left the hospital and went back to school like nothing happened. I informed a few teachers, awkwardly in an email that I had been diagnosed with a chronic illness and that I had missed a slew of classes because I could not get out of bed. I also disclosed to a few exactly what the reason was. Some people looked at me like I was crossed eyed seven ways, some people looked at me with understanding and care.

Most people just said, ‘Oh, my mom had that… It’s no big deal. She just had the surgery and she was okay.’ – (If I had a dollar for every time I heard this one.) Well, the common factor was  – she was already their mom at that point. She was already a mother. I have not had children and I want them, and I want my womb left intact. I just took the words and kept moving. What I didn’t know though, was that I should not be drinking coffee the way I was. Multiple trips to Starbucks a week and many cups of coffee brewed at home daily. I still was eating eggs, and not knowing that months upon months later, I would stop eating them entirely. I was still sleeping for a few hours a night, (let’s say 4 or less). I was even pulling all nighters several times a week. I know, that all is crazy, but I had no real idea of the connections between my very busy, stressful, and less than ideal life. But, I sure was productive – but I sure was awarded. But I sure was a highly producing, very effective student. And I graduated with very high marks, but an illness I was feeding.

Hindsight is twenty twenty. But, damn… I continued this high pace life well into grad school. Womp, Womp. More on that later.

Wow, I feel safe here

I was scared to write anything about what this journey has been like for me. I really have wanted to share, but have been to scared to do so. But the more time that goes on, I realize how much of my story needs to be told. Until that fateful October 2013 day in the hospital, I did not know what a fight I had  ahead of me.

This whole experience of sharing on the internet is not new to me, but sharing about this health issue is. Thank you all out there for being so kind and sharing your own personal experiences. As I write this, I am scared, afraid even. I do not know what to do about this Uterine Fibroid situation. I spent Monday in the emergency room and it was after days and days of pain and frustration. So, please do not think I am an expert on fibroids. I am simply a woman learning a lot and wanting to share what I learn, and chronicle my own path so that I can hold myself accountable. I am feeling a little defeated at the moment, I thought I was doing so well and to be in the hospital even for a day and find out it was all related to the fibroids was a real drag.

So here I am, I will do my best. I have an emergency doctors appointment with a new gynecologist this morning. I am slightly terrified, but I have faith that things will all work out. They have to. I was born to be a mother.

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.