Let’s talk about hair. Last year I broke up with the woman who cuts my hair, and I still feel guilty about it. She had been cutting my hair from the time I was 17 until I was 42 and that’s a quarter of a century. Sadly, her schedule and my schedule started to not work out (she lives in Nashville and would come into town every month or so) and suddenly I found another woman who cuts my hair perfectly and I LOVE HER. How did I break up with my original stylist who had seen me regularly from 1987 through 2012? I just stopped calling her. UGH! Terrible! TERRIBLE! (Honesty: I feel guilty about it at least once each week, because that’s how I am.)
(She gave me this haircut, which made me look like a snide bow dress wearing Echo & The Bunnymen fan girl. Bring on the dancing horses!)
Let’s talk about my insides. My gynecologist first saw my innards shortly after I started dating Jeff (at age 26) when I realized that Jeff looked a little bit like the gynecologist I HAD been seeing, and that seemed weird. She delivered both of my kids. She tied my tubes. She sang songs to me about IUDs and Lupron and Depo-Provera and I held up my finger and said, “No, no, and no.” I then sang a song about a hysterectomy, and she held up her finger and said, “No.” And then I talked about not being able to speak during ovulation and she said “Here’s an Aleve.” In the past five weeks, I’ve peed into five cups (successfully!) and bad things are happening that I don’t want to talk about, and she’s done with returning my calls and I think we’ve reached a urethral impasse.
(These are my tubes. Tied.)
Anyway, I called a new gynecologist yesterday because she received 31 5-star ratings on a doctor rating website (I know.), and her name is VERY similar to my name, which means we must have a lot in common. Anyway, I took a few minutes to explain my symptoms to her nurse, and BOOM! I’m going in for an ultrasound on Tuesday and will be spending additional time with the doctor on Friday. AND, a good friend of mine (who also shares my name) actually KNOWS the new gynecologist and has nothing but nice things to say about her.
Two things:
1. I’m hoping to be uterus free in 2014! If you can dream it you can achieve it!
2. I’ve never met a bad Angela. (Please know that I’ve never met Angela Lansbury.)
Tomorrow I’ll be telling you why you should never hit a bat in the head with a shovel. (37 bats are high-fiving each other right now, because they agree with me. Wholeheartedly.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
Good luck Angela! I’m glad you’re moving on – find someone who listens. Yay you! (that drawing was somewhat disturbing. This is why *I* opted for my husband to be fixed rather than me. :) )
And thanks for posting your high school pic again. I love it. It’s so NOT how you are (from my very extensive knowledge of you ha ha)
My ultrasound is tomorrow and if they don’t fix this pain I’m going to rip out my own uterus.
I’m trying to find a new lady parts doctor as well. The one who delivered my kids has moved to Colorado and the young dude she had come in and take her place is simply awful! I mean, it took three times to put in a speculum which made me scream to him to hurry and just shove that thing in there!!
I don’t ever seem to break up with anyone, I just move away. Like, a state or two. I’m still thinking about driving 5 hours every other month to see my awesome hair guy back in the old city, though. In some ways, finding a new hair person is even more stressful than finding a new gyno (which I also need to do, but have decided to delay for awhile). Cheers, and here’s to things moving along with the new doc as hoped!
Yay for new gyno that listens!!! I will keep my fingers crossed for a uterine free 2014 for you as well. Mary, Angie’s senior picture looks nothing like the person she was then. She was much happier than that pic lets on (at least out-wardly, IMHO).
Sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns and be your own advocate. (I just typed avocado initially)
All of which reminds me (for no particular reason, which is why I fully expect to live a fulfilled and amusing life in elder care someday) of the time I was driving a car full of 2nd graders on a field trip and, when the topic in the back seat turned to having babies because one of the kids had recently acquired a baby sibling, my ears perked up just in time to hear my son say “Well, I know I won’t ever have a baby brother or sister because my mom’s been spayed!”
(Darn near drove off the road, I was snorting so hard)
((Where the heck do they *get* stuff like that?))
I believe I have sung the praises of my hysterectomy to you a few times now. I am glad you are going for a new gyno because you should not have to fight for this if it is the right course of action and it sounds like it is. The word hysterectomy reminds me of the Victorian notion that the uterus was capable of wandering around the female body causing hysteria. Can you imagine? “Not tonight honey, my uterus is stuck in my ear”.
I am so excited to hear that you have a new GYN! Here’s hoping someone with a new perspective sees the pretty bold writing on the wall and sets you up for a lovely, and low pain, lap assisted vag hyst (LAVH)!
I do not regret my LAVH and after having had two C-sections can proudly state that I birthed my own uterus! Heh :-D
Every woman and every situation is different of course, but this is what I learned. I started menopause about 35. (I noticed then). I noticed because of the severe pain and pouring blood that had once been much less so.
My first appt. with my gyn resulted in a long talk about my age and the need to try to maintain my body’s functions as long as possible and an ultrasound where they found a polyp. Originally we were just going to remove it, do a D&C for a very thick lining, and do an unrelated procedure, in and out. Then I started having even more pain with ovulation and I can’t use birth control, Depo Provera, Lupron, etc. so we agreed to try the Mirena and she did an exploratory laparoscopy with the other procedures, with plans to remove my presumably very cystic right ovary. It turned out that my cysts were on my tubes so I kept the ovary.
I have severe bipolar and the Mirena was a nightmare for my moods. I was in and out of the hospital suicidal and still bleeding (albeit without pain) 18-20 days per month. Nobody knew of bipolar vs. Mirena issues but we decided there wasn’t a good body of research and pulled it. (Most people, don’t be afraid of that. It’s really rare, I just can’t handle having my hormones messed with. Menopause has totally disabled me.) Immediately after my psychiatrist was able to help someone else in the same situation because of me and several other cases have been found. (My contribution to medicine).
Without the Mirena my periods returned even worse, which was pretty well expected. I was offered ablation but I was tired of things that didn’t have a 100% chance of working. So we agreed that I’d been through enough and a hysterectomy was good even though I was young. My last 2 periods ever involved pain that kept me from sitting or standing upright for the entire 10 days and I almost have to have iron infusions before surgery because I was so anemic.
Surgery was nothing compared to what my body had been doing. When they got in there my tubes were covered in large cysts explaining part of the pain. My uterus was enlarged and hadn’t properly been shedding the lining. There were REASONS for everything that had been happening, reasons that weren’t obvious until they were in my pelvis saying “oh yeah, look at that”. Even though my gyn is fabulous and I knew that she believed me completely it helped so much to have reasons for the pain and bleeding.
Some drs. push hysterectomy (this person who started to cover my visit until I flipped b/c he was male was insistent that I should have had one initially). I don’t think that is right but it needs to be a choice. I would not have done Lupron or Depo even if those had been options. At my age the Mirena seemed to make sense as it might have gotten me through menopause. It just wasn’t right for me. If I’d not been 35 at the time I would have pushed for the hysterectomy sooner. My doctor was really great because she let me decide, provided pros and cons and let me know when everything had been tried besides the hysterectomy.
I am so glad that I did it now. Giving my sister the enormous bag of extra-heavy protection pads was the most liberating thing ever. And she’ll never need night protection again as that was my lightest level of many. Score for her.:) (She just had a baby, I’m sure she used them up).
Good luck!
This was not an easy read for me, but I loved the pic, it is so you as I remember. At least as I remembered after the pic jogged what’s left of the memories that are still up there.
I’m a hairstylist, and when clients stop calling me, I figure it was time for a change. Don’t beat yourself up so much, it’s a part of the job that all stylists should be able to handle, especially given the scheduling stuff! You have a life, and it needn’t revolve around your hairs.
I also recently broke up with my hairstylist because I got tired of driving to Festus for a haircut. It took 5 years for me to get up the courage to call someone new & he is awesome. I’m getting new hair on Saturday. YAY.
UTERUS FREE IN 2014! I think you should make bumper stickers for that.
“And then I talked about not being able to speak during ovulation and she said ‘Here’s an Aleve.'”
At which point I would have held up a DIFFERENT finger.
Having been uterus-free since 1993 (fibroids), I support your goal. Sad and completely off-the-wall side note: my ob/gyn, who was FABULOUS and whom I saw for 12-14 years until we moved and who was still practicing at 74 was murdered last weekend. True story.