Imagination, Endometrial Ablation, Rhythm Nation

Before we get started with anything, please know that Fluid Pudding Dot Com is a safe place. I will NOT be talking about Miley Cyrus here. (I WILL be talking about my gynecological issues in a few minutes, and that’s SORT of related, but I see no purpose in trying to link my stuff to the stuff of a twenty year old girl. We all do weird things. Once, when I was twenty, my best friend and I took a midnight stroll from a friend’s house back to my dormitory. It was a super hot night, so we used the heat as an opportunity to be FEMINISTS and why can BOYS walk around without shirts but WE CAN’T?! Suddenly (SUDDENLY!), we each took off our shirts and walked down that back road wearing nothing but our bras and shorts (and shoes, as feet freak me out and feet on streets? stop it.). Because crazy things always happened to us, even though it was the middle of the night, a car pulled up beside us, and the car held two or three of our friends, and they sat there and talked to us for a few minutes as if nothing was out of the ordinary—as if they didn’t even notice that our shirts were wadded up and tucked into our shorts. Anyway, we didn’t have cameras on our phones back then. And thank God for that.

I’ve been wanting to talk to you about endometrial ablation for over a week now. Every time I sit at the computer, I think, “I really want to draw a picture of my uterus being ablated.” And then I grab some paper and draw a tube (my uterus) with something that looks like a curling iron stuck inside of it (the ABLATOR) and something’s not quite right, so I sit back down on the rocking chair and think about life and dinner and how this cardigan is absolutely perfect.

It occurred to me that I’ve ALREADY drawn pictures of my insides, and despite what I’ve been reading from The Bloggers Who Know How to Blog (I hate the word Blog. HATE it.), not every idea needs an accompanying image. I like to think that you are all smart and creative and can see things in your heads with absolutely no Sharpie prompts from me! Anyway. No drawings. Just a lot of words.

(The following few paragraphs are related to the monthly adventures of my insides in regard to the tossing of eggs and the stripping of linings. Proceed gently.)

When I was 18 (here I go again with the stories!), I was in the university marching band. I loved it more than I loved just about anything—not because of the actual MARCHING (I was pretty terrible at marching) but because of my fellow marchers. (I’m in touch with very few people from my university days. All of those people were in the band with me.) Anyway! My uterus! One afternoon I was in a friend’s dorm room after rehearsal, and I was complaining about how miserable I was feeling.

Friend, who was a male, so let’s call him Jason, because that’s his name: What on earth is wrong with you?!

Me: I can’t find it in me to march. I can’t run. Can you please turn down that music?!

Jason: Talk about your troubles.

Me: I don’t want to talk about it. Let me just say that it’s the hottest week of the year and I’m on Day 12 of my monthly lady thing and I’m cramping and…

Jason: YOU’RE ON DAY 12?! Isn’t that supposed to last for just a day or two?

Me: Mine sometimes lasts for more than two weeks. I want ice cream for dinner.

Jason then jumped up, ran to the bathroom, and came back with a lovely toilet paper pageant sash on which he had written Queen of Day 12. And I wore it to dinner, but never told anyone what it meant.

Let’s jump forward 15 years. I’m now 33 and I’m pregnant with Meredith and as much as I didn’t love that pregnancy (I had to have my appendix out at the end of my first trimester, and that really sucked.), I DID love not having my extended monthly adventures. When Meredith was born, I nursed her (which made my periods much lighter because of SCIENCE), and when I stopped nursing her we decided to have a Harper and then Harper was born and she nursed FOREVER, and suddenly I had experienced five years with little to no cramps/migraines/et cetera. I’m now at 773 words. Are you still with me?

Anyway, now that I’m 43 and it’s time to put on some yoga pants and Chaka Khan my way through the rest of my days, I really don’t feel the need to be “forced” into staying at home two days out of the month because of heaviness and cramping and CRAMPING and HEAVINESS. Also, if I still had the banner, I could have worn it earlier this week if you know what I’m saying. And you do. Because you’re smart!

Last week I visited my gynecologist and she said the following words: “I’ve been wanting to do an ablation on you for a long time.” Who am I to stomp on her dreams?! (Although I wasn’t really expecting it, she also asked me to remove my pants. After examining my color, streak, hardness, cleavage, specific gravity, and crystal form like a thorough geologist would, she said, “Your endometriosis is back. I can feel it up in your cul-de-sac. We can take care of that during the ablation.”)

The ablation will take place during the holiday season. And that’s pretty great because although I know it’s a quick and easy outpatient procedure, I’m now picturing myself like Deborah Kerr on Christmas Eve in An Affair to Remember. I’m in a red robe (I already have one!) on the couch (I have one of those, too!) and Cary Grant lets himself in and I do not move from the couch and suddenly Mr. Grant realizes that I’ve been ablated and THAT’S what has prevented me from meeting him on the top of a building somewhere and we embrace and I say something like, “If you can paint, I can walk; anything can happen, don’t you think?”

And I Will Not Move From The Couch. (Christmas is less than four months away. In other words, less than four Queen of Day 12 banners to go!) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

29 thoughts on “Imagination, Endometrial Ablation, Rhythm Nation”

  1. We might be getting ablated at the same time! For real! That’s so weird! We should have a club with t-shirts and secret handshakes and stuff! (This is all predicated on the results of the VERY EXTENSIVE endometrial biopsy I had done last week, because if we’re talking C word then I’ll be getting DaVincied while you’re getting ablated. But my doc doesn’t think the C word need be involved, because last week she also did a VERY THOROUGH AND LENGTHY ultrasound in which my babypocket was filled with saline solution so she could see all my bits from every possible angle, or whatever. So.)(Let’s not put all that on the t-shirt.)

  2. So glad your doctor decided on a course of action. I hope it helps things. :) I miss Marching Mizzou too!

  3. Good for you! Also, in the continuing saga of things we have in common, I required surgery in my first trimester while pregnant with my second kid to repair a torsed ovary. OUCH.
    Anway, yes, no pics needed and yay for having a good friend like Jason.

  4. from time to time, I have to chime in to offer a high five (proverbially) for your consistently high-quality writing. This is one of those times.

    While sincere praise offers little relief compared to the promise of ablation, here it is nonetheless.

  5. I hope you will be as lucky as me to be 46, in full blown menopause complete with night sweats, hot flashes and occasional moodiness.. with ZERO monthly visitors..

  6. Hi! I just wanted you to know that this post reminded me of a post from a long time ago by a friend, Susie (what was I thinking) called “Booty-Flies” and I inadvertantly started to laugh about her post–not at your situation.
    I hope the ablation helps! We could make you a toilet paper sash that reads “Ablated and Elated” if you like?! :)

  7. I had my tonsils out over the holiday break when I was 7 or 8. On one hand it was nice to lay around and not have to help out with anything. On the other hand, I was lied to about the endless supply of ice cream. In fact there was ZERO ice cream. I’m still mad about that.

  8. Who would have thought that I could be so entertained by talk of your uterus? Yet, I am. I believe that’s a sign of good writing. Good luck to you and your uterus.

  9. You won’t regret it. It took me five years of badgering my GYN because I was supposed to go into menopause (and never did) and I was 52 when I had it done. So worth it.

  10. I was offered the option of an ablation when I had my hysterectomy (this was over 7 years ago now), but was told the ablation may not stop my periods altogether…so I went for the hysterectomy (my cervix was at moderate to severe dysplasia at this point as well), and kept my ovaries. Hysterectomy = BEST THING EVER!!!!!! With you having endometriosis, I’m wondering why an ablation over a hysterectomy? I must confess my medical knowledge in the reproductive system has decreased a ton since my hysterectomy, because since it was completely gone, I haven’t kept up on the medical technology surrounding uterus’.

  11. You are clearly crazy, which is why I love you. I just turned 40, and my 6 y/o daughter yearns for a sister, but my stage 4 endo has trumped our efforts. It’s very sad. We had an IVF miscarriage and a completely unsuccessful IVF. The endo doesn’t stop. Boo. I’m sad for our daughter who doesn’t want to be an only child – much more than for me who suffers cramps and whatnot.

  12. And I mean crazy in a fun, irreverent, unexpected way. And though I also hate the ‘blog’ word, you’re still my favorite blogger.

  13. I love your Jason! I had Scott. He made me a bloody Santa Christmas card and bought me flowers for my birthday. Bless’em.

  14. I loved the slow then the fast M which turned into a star, the twirling pennants, the prancing cheerleaders and , just when I was thinking snarkily “What, no jet flyover?” a Stealth Bomber appeared! God help me, I watched all 5 1/2 minutes.

  15. You make me laugh! I almost spit coffee on my computer screen when I read “up in my cul-de-sac,” hilarious!!! I have some friends who have had albations, and they are happy they did it. Hope to see pics of you in your red robe on the couch!

  16. My uterus is also apparently not in possession of a calendar because I could often wear that same Queen of Day 12 sash with you. Although obviously I would bow to your ultimate authority as Queen.

    Last Christmas Eve I had my wisdom teeth removed. Two years ago on Christmas Eve I had a d&c. Three years ago on Christmas Eve I saw the very first pictures of my sons and accepted their adoption referral. I’m HOPING that this Christmas Eve will bring a miracle like three years ago instead of the medical “miracles” of the past two years.

  17. If you want stories about ablations (knowing that there is a probably bias toward the bad but both sides are presented) http://www.hystersisters.com forums have lots. I think there is an alternatives category or something like that.

    As Jen said it may be worthwhile to be sure that this is the ideal procedure for you. I had a hysterectomy a year ago and part of the reason was that the ablatation was not a promise that I would be done hemorrhaging (truly and monthly). The hysterectomy was. The recovery from a hysterectomy is decidedly worse but some percentage of women who have ablations for excess bleeding go on to have hysterectomies because ablations don’t always solve the problem. They do however have the benefit of less (much less) recovery time and when they work I hear it is wonderful. I do know that in my case it would have been done by someone who invented some of the techniques and she’d been inside my uterus before and wasn’t promising anything. I also know that I’m not in a good place to be an example because I had horrible psychiatric and cognitive reactions to the mirena IUD, aka the “this is barely anything” device.

    You won’t believe how great life is without losing half of it to blood loss.

  18. And if the cardigan isn’t cute enough already, the word ‘ruminate’ is used in the description.

    I went to my first college football game last night – opening game at the Universit of Minnesota – and the team did great I’m guessing. There were a lot of points between them and the other guys in the white uniforms (I’m not really a football fan, see). Long story not much shorter, I saw my first marching band and they were my favorite part of the night. By far.

  19. I got an ablation in 2006 is it was the BESTEST best thing ever! I later got a hysterectomy, though, because I am a medical freak and had a rare complication that happens when they slice into your uterus for two c sections.

    However, you will enjoy the absolute freedom from your sashes. You may not even have a day 1, depending on the results. And considering that you’ve been wearing that many banners, you have earned the right to have none. :)

    Good luck!

  20. My ablation is the nicest give I’ve ever given myself. If I’d known about it, I’d have given to myself ten years sooner. Oh and Go Mizzou!

  21. You crack me up! Having the ablation will probably be on of the best things you’ve done for yourself and you’ll wish you’d done it earlier. I was offered the procedure by mom doc but passed it up and suffered for about a dozen more years….go for it girl! I’ll bring you something yummy while you’re in your red robe :)

  22. Team Ablation! The worst part was my pre-op biopsy. I may have said NSFW words a la the waxing scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin.

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