New experiences, books, doing stuff

Stephanie Pui Mun Law

I've had some interesting experiences as of late. My therapist told me to look her in eye and tell her that I hate her. I don't and the whole situation almost had me in tears. I couldn't do it. She told me if I couldn't tell her that, then I should't be saying it to myself. Yeah, I know that, but breaking all the negitive thoughts- the depression monster in my head- is going to be a long hard road. She also wants me to look in the mirror every morning and say "I want to love you". I tried it yesterday. I felt nothing. In fact, it felt kind of like a lie. This is going to be an uphill battle all the way.  I told Amanda I didn't know if I ever would completely love myself or my body. Not when I feel that my body has betrayed me so terribly. 

Speaking of my body. I think I am going to invest in a yoni egg. I'm really scared and worried about my pelvic floor. Apart from that I have had a hell of a time trying to sleep. Either my brain doesn't want to shut off or I've been in too much pain to get comfortable. Needless to say, I've not been either really sad or down right pissed. With that, I've also decided that I'm not going to wait any longer, it has been three months since surgery and if I am careful with exercise, I should be fine. I'm going to do some stuff sitting down and do some core strengthening on the sofa. It will have to be done slow and gently, but I have got to get control of things or I'm really going to fall apart. 

I've placed holds and borrowed several books from the library recently. From Japanese flower arrangement to how to make Kimono and some Japanese cooking, I've been diving right back into Japan! Part of it is SCA related, I've finally decided to do a Japanese persona from the Heian period, and part of it is just because I really like Japanese cooking and culture. 

Doing stuff. Last night I wrote out the things that I feel make me happy or that I need to do to make feel successful in a day. I addressed it with Amanda and said I don't need to do these things every day, they can be shifted and changed throughout the week, but they do need to happen. Some things do need to happen every day and those I will be guarding closely. So, today, I'm going to work on a weekly base schedule that I can start implementing this coming week. But first, I promised a certain little orange kitty (Thorin) cuddles.

The week before surgery- stuff I want to talk about.

Art by Kir-tat on Deviantart.com

I did not do so well last week or the first couple of days this week. At first I was angry and furious, which was vented and displayed in some of my previous blog posts. Amanda wasn't handling it well either and on top of that she'd been pretty miserable at work. It's not her co-workers, it's the customers, and she's really beginning to feel burnt out. When you add that I wasn't on top of things here at home to that, there were a lot of tears with us both at a loss as to what to do. 

I felt like the the dryad in the picture above, I saw doom coming and was desperately trying to cling to my home, my stability to the very last. Then something happened. I went into what my therapist called survival mode. I couldn't handle my own reality anymore and started reading. I read some of Monster Hunter International (I still need to finish it) and then read a novel length fanfiction I fell in love with years ago. I even saved the damned thing so I could print it out, put it in a binder, and keep it just in case the author ever decides to remove it. Reading her fanfic of course got me to thinking about my own, so I read several of the stories I'd written 11 years ago. That led to me wanting to rewrite one. 

Somehow in the course of reading and beginning to rewrite the fanfiction, I became manic. I stopped sleeping properly, in fact I didn't sleep much at all. I wasn't eating very much either because I simply wasn't hungry. I ended up losing about 20 pounds. I'm sure I will gain a little of that back during recovery, but I'm hoping not too much. I also wrote 97 pages in I think 5 days- the days kind of ran together on me. 

Also, the cardiology appointment wasn't really necessary, they didn't see anything wrong. But better to be safe than sorry. 

Yesterday morning, after my shower, getting dressed, and packing my hospital bag, I was still writing. When I got the hospital I mentioned that I was a little sad that I couldn't write during the day, but it is a little hard to write when a robot is removing your internal lady bits. Several of my friends were there to see me off, which made me want to cry. I've felt so alone living so far from my family and because of my depression. To see them there was wonderful. 

Amanda got to go back with me for a little bit. I had to get prepped, do an antiseptic wash down and get into my hospital gown. The hospital Chaplin came in to talk to me. While I am no longer Christian, he didn't know that, I appreciated that. The staff were really great too. There is this type of blanket that on one side it looks like a pool float mat, one of those you air up, and the other side it more a papery cloth that has tiny holes scattered throughout. They hook a tube up to it and in pumps warm air. On top of that they lay a blanket to keep you warm. It was amazing! 

However, my fears and some panic was starting to come back, a little of my numbness had faded. My anesthesiologist gave me some Valium. I certainly liked that, I got a bit giggly. Not tool long after that, I was taken to surgery. 

I think had I not had the Valium, I might have had a panic attack. The ceiling had large, round, movable lights, there were various monitors, a whole line of surgical equipment against the wall to my left, and to my right, was the robot. There were four or five arms and I couldn't decide if I was fascinated with it or afraid. I didn't have too much time to think about it, they surgical staff was introducing themselves, helping me move to the surgery bed, and before I knew it, I was going to sleep.

When I awoke, or was in the process of waking up, my left side hurt and I wanted to pee so bad. They did a bladder check but said there was nothing in my bladder. They also told me that the surgery team fills you up with gasp and fills the bladder up as well to see things better. So what I was feeling was the gas and my bladder trying to go back to its normal size. Because I was in pain, they gave me some medication. But I  was also having some difficulty breathing while laying down and it was also happening every time I started to doze off. That was apparently a side effect of anesthesia and some pain medication.  I was given water and apple sauce and moved into a chair to sit up. 

From then on it was observation time and Amanda got to come back. I got a bit cranky. There was someone who wouldn't stop talking next to me. My oxygen sats kept dropping according to the damned monitor. So they stopped using the finger one and hooked thing to my ear. But they kept messing with it that I wanted to tell them to leave it the fuck alone or just take the damned thing off. I peed 4 times while there and was up using a walker on the last two. I got a bit annoyed that I had to wait to be unhooked from the heart monitor and the nurse had to come and carry my saline and also be there in case I fell. But I never said anything to anyone, they were only doing their job.

At 1:30, I was unhooked from everything, helped into a wheel chair and taken out to the car. Because Spokane is lousy about road care, every pot hole hurt, but Amanda drove as carefully as she could and tried to avoid them as much as possible. 

We stopped at Rite Aid to drop off my prescription, grab some Sprite, and then it was home. Fiona had worked her ass off to clean up my house. She's been staying with our friend Tsuki and coming over during the day to cook or just be emotional support. It has been nice and I don't know what I'm going to do to thank her. Or everyone else really. Another friend organized a meal train and got some of our friends to sign up and they will be taking turns bringing over dinners for us so we don't have to cook or worry about cleaning. 

Emotionally, I am glad this is over. I am happy and excited to see what my life is going to be like. I am a little sad though. Even though I didn't trust my body to ever have children, now there is officially no possible way for me to have any. I always wanted kids. But even though I am a little sad, I don't have any regrets. I have my cats, am an honorary aunt to my friend's kids, and Amanda and I will adopt if we ever get to a place where we feel we can. I spoke to Amanda about it and she said she was doing some reading and there are going to be some physiological effects going along with this, but we'll deal with them as they come along.