Book Club

I Love my book club. I did not finish this months book, even though I had 2 months to read it, and it is a wonderful - cannot put down book. Excuses? Well.....I did not buy it until Christmas Morning, when Boarders had a ripping cool sale, and got it for like $14, but also...I am also tired. I don't want to read when I get home anymore. I want to eat dinner, and watch TV, and farm facebook, and go to bed. Period. I don't even really enjoy doing Laundry anymore, and I REALLY like laundry.

I think my lack of filter is fatigue related, as well. I am just too tired to be anything but blunt, and real. I want my subtlety back, my 'tell your truth, but tell the KIND truth.' I don't need to be a jerk and I think I am becoming one.

Fatigue and my search for relevance

I am quite tired...

I had 6 hours of Church meetings yesterday. Being in leadership, and still recovering from this is absolutely exhausting. I will be released within 6 months from one of my 2 Stake -(mid level administrative) callings, but Church runs 3 hours, and my evening meeting is 90 minutes. So the time commitment is about the same on Sunday. My 'day of rest' is hardly that.

It actually felt as if my eyelids were fighting gravity this morning. I am back on a timed, medicinal amount of caffeine, something controversial in LDS circles. Ironic, huh? The actual church rule is coffee and tea, and I am on a pill, so it is not exactly the same, but any substance that causes addiction is probably not the best thing for me to be doing...

And then there is the feeling. The creeping feeling of irrelevance every time I am in Church. I wondered if this would happen with the hysterectomy- a Church that not only values family and children, but has it as part of it's core belief is bound to stir some feelings.

Filter

My Filter is gone. My Jennie-shut-up-what-are-you-saying filter is gone! The things that come out of my mouth now are done without thought to the consequences. This is NOT GOOD!

Is it from the hormonal storm that is causing the zits? Is it that I was home for so long, and I forgot how to guard my conversation?

Or is it that I feel better?

The aftermath.....

After I came home, I was apartment bound for 4 weeks, and could not come back to work for 6. I read, played online, and did not do stairs. Church and work folk brought in food, and I slept alot.

It amazes me how clear my head is, almost from the moment I woke up on the table. This is clearly what has been wrong with me.

Dr. L said that there was an endometrioma the size of a softball perched on top of my Uterus, (I even saw the Laparascopic photos, amazing!) one of my ovaries was pinned to my pelvic wall with endometriosis, and I was, as the Doctor said, "a real mess." He told my family it was the hardest hysterectomy he had ever done. That is saying something, he began practicing in 1974!

I feel lucky to have come through, what has surprised me is the number of women my age who have this done, and have problems. I have heard from many classmates on facebook, and a former neighbor, who have had terrible experiences, cancer, and a host of things.

The Hysterectomy support group has even more. Ladies who are mourning the end of their fertility, mourning that they can't have more children (though I have noticed that none of the women who have never had a child express this.) The site kept warning me that I would have flashes, depression, and negative feelings.

I have not. If anything, my mood is stabilized, and without emotional detachment, I am feeling good for the first time in a long time. I have no real negative feelings about this, at all.

Story three

I was up and walking that night, and was kept in until that next Monday at noon. I had alot of visitors, which was great. Most of my nurses were great, with the exception of one. My friend J. warned me about her, as she had her during a recent stay there. She turned off the spinal block machine to change it and did not turn it back on (the Doctor finally noticed it after ), tried to give me a blood pressure drug I do not take, and kept trying to give me oral narcotics.

The Hospital, an Adventist one, had a hard time with a Diabetic/vegetarian diet, and I wound up with a white carb nightmare so gross that I photographed it.

The spinal came out Sunday around noon, with a peel, and a large rash in the shape of the adhesive. I had kicked everyone out to have this, and opened the door to let everyone back in to welcome a bunch of people from my Ward who had shown up while I was having this done.