Pregnant Arachnids... Or Something Like That...

I am so up and down at the minute, it's actually ridiculous. One minute I'm fine and I'm laughing and joking... the next I'm in tears. I don't know - maybe its just hormones, they're gona be all over the place right now.

I have this feeling of anxiousness, like I have a million things to do and no time to do them - which is crazy coz all I have right now is time, so much time. I pretty much have 24 hours a day coz I'm not really able to get much sleep. I think a lot of it is because I am used to working 12-14 hours a day and being kept busy for all of that time. Gosh, I can work 14 hour days and still feel like there aren't enough hours in the day...!!!... Now... now I have time, its all I have... and all I want to do is get back to work... can't stand up straight... but want to go back to work...!!! 

I don't do very well when I'm not being challenged or stimulated or kept busy and gosh, I've tried to keep busy. I love to sew but I'm not able to sit up at my sewing machine so I thought I'd keep myself busy by knitting. I've knit so many scarves in the past 2 weeks, but I'm kinda getting bored with that now. 

I logged into the Aculife website a few minutes ago. I check it every few days to see if there have been any updates. Gordon is doing this new video blogging thing which is kinda cool. On the bottom left of the webpage, there is a testimonial section... I see it every time I log in, at least 2-3 times a week and I've never had a reaction to it, it has never bothered me, but when I logged in a few minutes ago a testimonial popped up that read "Thank you for everything, and also for keeping me so calm during my pregnancy. We are so so HAPPY" and I was hit with his overwhelming feeling of 'This is never going to happen for me!' and 'Seriously, what if it never does happen?' I began to feel panicky, looked for a way out (its a webpage... just close the screen, right?), Nope... the next thing that I see is a post from December 23rd announcing that the Clinic was finishing up for Christmas on that date, but not before they were announcing 5 new pregnancies...!!!  
I was reminded of an experience I had 8 or 9 weeks ago, Patrick and I went to Amsterdam for 5 days. Bearing in mind that I am terrified of spiders - We spent our last day there at the Artis Zoo, an amazing zoo. I'm not entirely sure why, but I agreed to go into the Insectarium. Ok, I knew that there would probably be a spider or two in there, but I figured once I knew where they were I could avoid them and all would be ok. So we go inside, and I am being very very cautious and all of a sudden I hear Patrick gasp and say 'Oh God' I look up and I am face to face with this huge tarantula (he probably wasn't huge, but he seemed humongous to me!)... and I start to panic. Patrick said the blood just drained from my face. I have to get out of there, but it seems that everywhere I now look... there are more and more spiders and I can't find the way out. I'm sure it was very very funny to watch, but it was my worst nightmare come true. I know I wasn't in any danger at any point, the spiders were all behind glass cases. We eventually found the way out and I had to sit down for a bit. I was so mad with Patrick, I know it was probably misplaced anger but I felt that if I had just come across the spiders by myself, I probably would have been ok and it was probably the shock of reacting to his reaction and realising that I was face to face with the tarantula, that made it such a terrible experience for me, and then the panickiness because they are all around me and it's that feeling of being trapped or having no escape and I guess infertility is a bit like that. There is no escape, the whole world is like the insectarium and pregnant women are like the tarantulas. They are EVERYWHERE! And some days it is ok to be around that and surrounded by women who are pregnant... the days that I am prepared for it, the days that I spot to 'glass cases' and know that they are there... and then there are the days when I'm not prepared for it and I realise, usually when it is too late, that I am face to face with a pregnant woman.. and not only that... I am surrounded by them... they are everywhere and it's hard to get out of a situation like that.

It's funny coz I have quite a few friends who are pregnant right now and I can see them reading this and thinking 'Has she just called me a tarantula...???' I'm honestly not looking to insult or offend anybody, I'm making somewhat of an analogy... one that makes perfect sense to me at 6am in my completely sleep deprived state.

Maybe I'm my own worst enemy though... maybe I shouldn't go into the Insectarium when I know I suffer from a ridiculous fear of spiders.... and maybe, just maybe I shouldn't log on to the website of the most amazing Clinic that makes miracles happen and helps people to have children... when I know I'm not quite ready to hear that 5 more women have moved ahead of me on the ability-to-have-their-own-children spectrum. Gordon lives to help people get pregnant and have their own children... of course he is going to announce on his website when his patients finally get those two pink lines. I often ask him why can't it just be easy? and his answer is always that it isn't easy for anyone who attends his Clinic. Everybody has a story, a past, a journey, everybody who Gordon works with has maybe failed to become pregnant after years of trying, or perhaps has a history of recurrent miscarriage or ectopic pregnancies, or perhaps has been through cycle after cycle of failed IVF cycles... of course he is going to announce when these women become pregnant, these are true miracles and I know if it was me, I'd be shouting it from the rooftops.

It's funny though... I know all of this, I know how amazing it is and I know that feeling only too well... the feeling when you finally see those two pink lines and your whole world changes in that split second... I know this, I know how those women feel... but I can't help feeling that I'm somehow being left behind... and I know that there is nothing that Gordon could do that he hasn't done for me, he has gone over and above the duty of 'acupuncturist' many many times... so why do I feel like I want to scream at him, that I want to tell him that it is my turn now, it has to be, I've been here the longest and I don't want to wait anymore. When do I get the two pink lines?, when do I get to hear my baby's heartbeat?, when do I get to crave pickles and marshmallows?, when do I get to go through 17 hours of labour?, when do I get to hold my baby in my arms??? So many questions, so many unanswered questions... 

Perhaps I should substitute 'When do I' for 'Will I' and maybe those are the questions I should be asking...

Only Human...

Turns out that not getting any sleep the night before the operation was actually a really good thing, coz when I was brought to my room to wait to be called... I actually fell asleep, so I was sleeping instead of laying there panicking and freaking out. The panicking and freaking out only started when they came to bring me down to theatre, and as soon as I was laying on the operating table with the needle in my hand - they gave me a relaxant and I suddenly became one of the many defiant toddlers who have just discovered the power of the word 'NO' that I see at work every day. I had started to panic and was feeling like I couldn't really breathe so the nurse told me that they were going to start putting the anesthetic into my arm and I would go off for a nice sleep..... my response... "I will not". She then followed with "You're gona go off for a lovely rest now" my response "No, I'm not!" Even as I could feel my arm burning from the liquid and my face was beginning to burn and I could feel myself losing control of my eyelids... I was adamant that I was not going to go to sleep and I'd really much rather just go home...... and then I woke up... almost 4 hours later.

Yep, I spent 4 hours in theatre and the pain was bad when I woke up, but the worst part was the tube in my throat had gotten stuck and I had locked my teeth around it so they had to wake me up completely so that I would open my mouth wide enough for them to remove the tube, that was the most awful sensation and my throat was in bits after it.
They gave me the maximum doses of morphine and once I had stabilised, they brought me back to my room where I sent a few text messages in between dozing in and out of sleep.

Patrick was back to see me before I knew it and he reiterated my own surprise at how good I was feeling in comparison to previous surgeries. I didn't know it at the time but it was due to the amount of pain medication that they had given me and the fact that I was breathing 100% pure oxygen through the tube in my nose.

Dr. Hayes came around to see me later that evening and he said that it couldn't have gone better, he was very happy with how it had all gone. He showed me pictures of both of my tubes. The right one was tiny and perfectly formed, the left one was swollen and mangled and looked more like brains to me than a fallopian tube - it really was no wonder I had been in so much pain with it. he then informed me that even though I wasn't feeling too bad right then, that I could expect to have an awful amount of pain in a few days time and to really not expect much ease from it for 6 to 8 weeks, and realistically I can expect to not be pain free for about 6 months. I kept telling myself that once that passes it should make a huge difference to how I feel and how I am.

I spent a few days in hospital and I really wasn't too bad even when I got home. It was really only the following Thursday, 6 days after the surgery (which also happened to be my 30th birthday) that I really started to feel miserable. Gordon came to visit me in the morning, he took my pulses and said that my liver points were screaming at him. He warned me that the points he was about to put needles in would really hurt, but they would only hurt for a minute or so and then it would disperse... and he was right. He used points in the upper part of both of my feet and good grief did they hurt, but just like he said... they stopped hurting after a short amount of time.

It was actually quite nice to just sit there and chat with him, it was very relaxed and I felt that it really was an amazing session. Gordon finished up and left after about an hour and I instantly felt really sleepy, I was completely zonked. I don't really remember but I think I may have dozed off for a bit... and then... it happened - I started to cry, I don't know why I was crying, all I know is that I couldn't stop crying. I cried for the best part of four hours, inconsolably an emotional wreck, I just could not stop crying. I think it was a combination of being exhausted coz I hadn't really been sleeping and having the full extent of the pain finally hit me, and the fact that I was spending my 30th birthday laid up, unable to move, completely miserable. I finally started to come round and could feel myself finally be able to stop crying... and then there was a knock on the door... It was only a delivery man with the most beautiful bouquet of flowers from all of the people I work with, and cards that all of the children at work had made for me... and well... that started me off again and I was a sobbing, emotional mess for pretty much the rest of the evening.

A few days after I had gotten home from hospital, I had noticed that I was getting a funny kind of pain in my left leg. I kept brushing it off as just being a bit crampy from not being active, until the night before Christmas Eve (well really 3am on Christmas Eve), the pain in my leg got quite intense and my foot was feeling numb and swollen. I instantly got a feeling that I had a blood clot in my leg and needed to go and have it checked out immediately (At 3am on Christmas Eve). Really, it was just as well that I did, because it turned out that I had developed a rather small clot just below my knee on my left leg. They weren't too worried about it because of where it was located and the risk of it travelling was low, but not wanting to take any chances with a deep vein thrombosis, they put me on daily Innohep injections to keep my blood thin and to prevent the clot from growing. So, I am injecting myself daily into my already swollen and bruised stomach.

Its been just over 2 weeks since the surgery and I have really struggled with the pain this last week. I am acutely aware of the amount of cauterisation that had to be done internally, because the pain I feel is the pain of charring and searing and burning and it hurts, my gosh does it hurt. It stabs deep inside me every time that I move, and I realise that I had seriously underestimated the severity and intensity of this recovery. 
We went to my Mum's house for dinner on Christmas day, a short 2 mile trip and sitting up for about 3 hours meant that by the time I got home, I was unable to move, I was crippled with pain and I spent most of the following day just vomiting with some kind of stomach bug, it was just horrible. I was beginning to feel better by the next day and soon I was able to tolerate food again.

It's been a bit trial and error trying to find a pain killer that suits me and is strong enough to deal with the severity of pain that I am experiencing. I'm a bit odd about taking pain killers, especially opiates, I just don't like how they make me feel, but I think we have finally found a pain killer that seems to be suiting me, its just a matter of getting the dosage correct now. It is a two part drug. The first part is a prolonged release drug that is to be taken twice a day; in the morning and at night. The second part is a fast acting drug that can be taken every 4 hours to top up the prolonged release drug and keep on top of the pain. We are kind of playing with dosages to try and get it to where I need it to be, so that I am getting adequate pain relief without the horrible sensations and side effects.

I had a bit of a melt-down on Saturday night just gone. I think it was a combination of not sleeping, being completely exhausted, perhaps some cabin fever from inactivity, generally being a bit up and down and the painful irony that I am so swollen and bruised that I actually look about 8 months pregnant. I found myself beginning to write, it was angry, pain-filled writing, writing that I told myself I would not put on this blog because I was perhaps embarrassed or ashamed that I could have filled a swear jar with the first paragraph alone. But I think the right thing to do is for me to share it on here, because it is true to me and it is a true representation of what I am actually going through right now and that afterall, is what this blog is all about, so here goes... 

So here I am again, this mother f'n shithole of a place that I continually return to, guided only by my personal struggle to stay alive, to work through the pain - the physical pain. "It will get easier" of course it f'n will, meanwhile put your man parts through the f'n blender and then try to empathise, then tell me that it will be ok, then tell me that you understand, that you feel my pain. You can't f'n feel it, it's mine, it's always mine. 

Surgery after surgery, all leading to and accumulating to be this surgery. I've felt pain, I've felt pain in doses that most people will never experience, I've never felt pain like this. This is pain caused by cauterisation, by burning, by singeing and searing, the vacant space left by the removal of my mangled left tube, it's not vacant. It's filled with burning, the pain is of my charred insides and every time I move, it stabs me, it stabs deep inside me and that f'n hurts!

I was doing so well, it was too easy, I knew it was too good to be true. My mind tricked me into thinking that this was gona be easy, that I could do this with no great problems... Of course that couldn't be the case. My body strikes with a curve ball - a blood clot, of course I need a f'n deep vein thrombosis on top of everything else, of course I need to be injecting myself into my already painfully swollen and bruised stomach every day just so it doesn't travel to my heart or brain and kill me... Of course I do, why wouldn't I.... It's not like I have anything f'n better to be doing.

Am I angry? No, I'm not angry. Anger would be too easy. No part of this is easy. 'Oh just try to relax and take some more drugs'. A junkie's idea of heaven.

Wouldn't it be so easy to let those drugs take my mind to a place where it is easy, where I'm so off my f'n face that I don't feel any pain, instead my days can be filled with rainbows and f'n butterflies and I could live in a hole of blissful obliviousness  - oh how easy it would be.

Maybe I am angry, maybe I'm just losing my mind or maybe, just maybe...
This is all part of the plan. I have no idea who's plan it is, it certainly isn't mine. I never asked for this, I never wanted this and I have no f'n idea what I did to deserve it!

I'd quite like to sleep, real sleep. I'd quite like to not be told that I'm looking a bit better when I'm feeling like my abdomen has been through 12 rounds with Mike Tyson and I look about 8 months pregnant, the f'n irony...!!! It's almost laughable. I wish I could laugh, but it hurts too much. I wish I could have a break from the pain, just a break from it, just enough so that I can prepare myself for it, coz I really wasn't prepared for this. I thought I was, but I seriously underestimated this. I didn't realise that it would be so much, so intense, so inconceivably painful and it's messing with my head because I can't escape it.

I'd like it to just stop for a while....

While I so hard try to keep it together and remain strong through whatever I am going through, sometimes it all does get on top of me, especially at times like this when I am not able to keep myself busy or completely occupied and I really am struggling with the pain and soreness.

I guess it is really just a matter of taking it one day at a time. It is a harsh realisation that I am in fact, only human (well... for the time being... while my super-human powers are temporarily subdued). So... one day at a time and fingers crossed that this will all have been worth it and perhaps, just perhaps... this could possibly be the end of operations for a while. I think the two surgeries I have had within 9 months of each other this year, following all of the previous operations that I have been through... I'm probably set for a few surgery-free years. Gosh I'll hardly know what to do with myself if I am not being sliced open regularly :-)