'Might' Is All We Have........

In the past 9 days, I have congratulated 17 people on the birth of their new baby. 17 new babies that have entered this world in just over a week. The first few were easy, its an amazing thing to welcome a new baby in to the world and I genuinely am happy for each and every one of them. As the days went on... I began to dread opening the social networking sites for fear of seeing yet another 'New Baby' post.

It's funny, because sometimes they don't bother me at all, but gosh - when there are so many in such a short space of time, you kinda do start to feel that the universe is trying to play games with you, trying to see how far it can push you before you actually crack. 

I'm so conscious of writing a post like this because I know that most of those new mothers read this blog and I don't want to in any way take from their experience and joy.
I spoke to Gordon about this when he visited yesterday. It was in a different context and not at all relating to all of these new babies, but a different situation in which I had felt bad because I felt that one of my posts had perhaps taken part of an experience from someone else. He responded by telling me that it is in my nature to feel bad for others and while it is ok to feel bad for this other lady, I really shouldn't feel bad for writing about my true feelings. He told me that I need to realise that my feelings are just as important as the feelings of others and that it is important for me to write about what is true to me, even if it is not what others want to read. (He is oh so wise :-) )

Towards the end of last week, the new baby announcements were really starting to get to me, they were starting to bother me. Each one was a knife in my chest and as the days went by - those knives began to twist. So, what did I do? Well, I did what I always do... I tried to escape my own mind. I tried to keep myself so busy that I just would not be able to even think about it. Lulu, my beautiful bichon became the subject of my distraction, the sewing machine, my weapon of choice. I sat at that machine and I sewed and sewed and sewed. Let me put this into perspective... with the nature of the operation that I had and the location of the pain and soreness... sitting up is quite difficult for me... sitting hunched forward over a sewing machine is next to impossible. I had, earlier in that day, had a conversation with a friend about sewing and told her that I realistically could only manage 15-20 minutes of sewing at a time without really hurting myself.
After four and a half hours of sewing, Patrick arrives home from work to find me, a pathetic sight... hunched over the sewing machine with my foot on the pedal, tears running down my face and wincing in an attempt to ignore the absolute agony that my body was in. My body needed to stop, but my mind couldn't, because if it did... it would return to thoughts of all those beautiful new babies. It really was a case of mind over matter for me, and funnily enough - it was easier for me to ignore the physical pain in my body, than the mental and emotional pain that I was fighting so hard to escape from my mind and my heart. You can't escape it though, no matter how hard you try... because it will always materialise... one way or another.

That four and a half hour stint at my sewing machine resulted in me being in so much pain the following day that I was unable to get out of bed without help. My whole left side felt bruised and extremely painful, and this resulted in further frustration for me because I knew I had done it to myself. 
On the up side though... Lulu now has the biggest selection of doggy coats ever...!!!!!!!

This is a dangerous time for me right now. I am not in as much pain as I had been so am a lot more mobile and am finding myself wanting to do more. Unfortunately - this causes me to do more than I really should and I end up hurting myself. I know that this is setting my recovery back and I need to rest as much as I possibly can until everything settles down properly inside of me - but gosh, I just cannot do nothing. I need to be doing things all the time and even more so at the minute because I am constantly fighting to distract myself from the inevitable thoughts of all of those beautiful new babies. One of my closest friends from the UK made the very logical point to me that pushing myself to the point of hurting myself because somebody else is where I want to be... does not actually help me to get where I want to be... in fact, it hinders my recovery and therefore hinders my progress, which in turn hinders my ability to achieve my ultimate goal. (Gotta love all of these straight-talking friends that I have!) That's the kind of logic that I just cannot argue with, but instead really made me think about the physically destructive cycle that I seem to follow when I'm struggling to deal with what is going on in my head or how external factors are really affecting me.

I got upset when I was talking to Gordon yesterday. I did something that I said I wouldn't do. I started to look at the big picture, I began to describe the process that I was facing and all of the steps that I will have to go through. Up until that point, I had promised myself that I was going to take this one step at a time and only focus on the current step and the next step at any one time. Yesterday we went through it step by step and I was hit by the realisation that the best case scenario that I can hope for is what most people would describe as a living nightmare. I began to look back at what I have been through to date on this journey, and even though that was a rougher journey than most people could ever imagine... it was actually simple, it was all so easy and straight-forward compared to the path that lies ahead of us.

I don't know where I am going to find the strength to go through all of what I have to go through. I am not even going to lay it out in detail in this post, but I most likely will in the near future. All I know is that I have to find the strength from somewhere, because I cannot look back in ten years and know that there was one more chance (however minute) and I didn't take it. I think the 'what ifs' would kill me. 

It also only struck me yesterday that I had actually lost one of my tubes. I mean... I knew it had been removed... but the realisation that it was actually gone was quite stark. I know its for the best and will hopefully improve our chances whenever we do decide to go to the Czech Republic for treatment, but it is very much a feeling of being incomplete - or perhaps 'more incomplete'. I don't think any woman who has lost a baby (never mind 10) can ever truly feel 'complete', because there is always a part of her that is missing.... but unlike the pain of the tube removal which will hopefully subside in the foreseeable future.... the pain of losing your baby never will... you don't get used to it... it doesn't get easier... you just get better at hiding it and sometimes (like now) you find yourself so surrounded by what you so badly want, by what you should have, by what you have given your life to achieve but just can't... that you find yourself struggling to breathe... breathing hurts... everything hurts... and when you see picture after picture of ecstatic new mothers and proud new fathers with their beautiful new baby... a little part of your heart breaks further and you truly wonder if it will ever be your turn... but worse than that... you start to realise that it might never be your turn and you don't know how you will cope with that.

I think about the times that I lay in hospital, recovering from surgery after surgery or violently sick after Chemotherapy, with my family pleading with me to just stop this because it is going to kill me and all I can think is that it will be worth it when I finally hold my own baby. I've pictured it so many times... in the delivery suite... handing our baby to Patrick and knowing that finally, finally we are complete and knowing that every thing we had been through just served to make us love this little person even more.... and once we've had some time together, just the three of us.... we will call our families... and I will call Gordon and tell him and I'll want him to come in and hold this precious little being because I know in my heart that he/she would never have been here if it wasn't for Gordon... and Patrick will take a picture... the very first picture that will go on this blog... it will simply be a picture of my baby's hand curled around my finger and that picture alone will say more than every word in this entire blog has said... and everyone will just 'know'. We will probably have names picked but will change our minds as soon as we see him/her. I think we will share a lot of moments of silence just holding hands and looking at our beautiful baby... because there just will not be any words worthy of that moment... and then we will be..... we will just 'be'.

This is the picture that I need to keep in my head. I'm suddenly having flashbacks of my Undergrad Psychology Class as we studied Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - I am being reminded to 'Begin with the end in mind'  (not to mention surprised that I've remembered that after all of these years...!!!) I know that I need to do everything that I possibly can to make that picture a reality. Even though I know there will be countless times when I am so afraid that something is going to go wrong and I know that at some point we will be sitting across the table from one of the Dr.s in the Clinic in the Czech Republic... about to be told whether or not any of our embryos are genetically viable... and while we need to be prepared for the fact that the answer may well be 'No'..... it also might be 'Yes'.

I know 'might' is not an awful lot to be hanging my hopes on..... but for the foreseeable future.... 'might' is all we have.

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 :-)