The Eternal Guest Room

Before I go any further, a disclaimer:

If you are reading this, and you are a guy, and you know me in real life, please stop. Don’t read any further. Just skip onto the next post, or come back tomorrow, or whatever. I know I talk about a lot of personal stuff here, but this one just icks me out, so please just skip it. I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks!

So. When I went in for my pre-op appointment, I was less-than-thrilled to hear there was a 40% chance I’d come out of surgery with a balloon in my uterus. That would have to be in there for 5 days. That I would have to remove myself.

I remember looking at the doctor with a horrified “WTF?” look on my face. I was a little less scandalized when he told me that there would be an easy-to-find string/tube that would just have to be cut and then pulled. Over and done. Easy peasy.

Except that it wasn’t. I couldn’t find the damn thing. And I wasn’t going to go on a mining expedition.

The office was apparently closed yesterday for the not-real “holiday” president’s day (seriously, who closes for that except for the banks and post offices???). So I finally got through this morning…and left a message. Two and a half hours later, I got a call – from the doctor himself. Who sounded shocked that I hadn’t found the balloon string/tube. And he said:

“I’m worried that the nurse got confused and removed the balloon.”

The balloon, if you remember, was placed in there to prevent my uterine walls from growing together after surgery. If that happened, there would be no way to fix it. And I would be barren/sterile/infertile. FOREVER.

So I freaked out.

I was at my part-time job, which doesn’t afford much privacy. So I cried in the bathroom for awhile, panicking that it was “over:” that this was the end, that I would never be pregnant, that my uterus was closed for business, FOREVER. And then I pulled it together and worked for a few hours and drove myself to the doctor’s office.

We waited 30 minutes in the Waiting Room of Silence. Nervous. Worried. Anxious. And then the doctor brought us back to a room. And said “Oh, it’s fine, even if they did take the balloon out, there’s a really low chance of your uterus growing together” at which point I internally sighed and thought “oh thank god, there’s like a 2% chance” and then he continued, “It’s only like 10%.”

TEN PERCENT?? That’s not nothing!

But I laid down on that all-too-familiar table with my feet in those so-well-known stirrups and he poked around and said:

“OH! There it is!”

It was “waybackinthere” and it was “beingornery” and took several instruments and the nurse leaving the room to get something else and at least 5 longhorriblepaindful minutes and a crapload of discomfort.

And then the doctor accidentally pinched me somehow, at which point I jumped, and, according to D,even the nurse flinched, and the doctor said “oh I am SO SORRY!!!” And then there was a WHOOSH, and a lot of ickiness came out, and he was cleaning me up, and asking the nurse for more stuff to help the process, and I was dying inside, because it was so gross, and uncomfortable, and icky, and embarrassing, and I acutely felt the whole horrible thing, and it felt awful, and I wanted to be anywhere else, even the dentist’s office, which I hate, but there I was, putting my hands over my face and willing it to be over…

But being SO HAPPY that the balloon was there! Because it meant that my uterus wasn’t going to grow into one useless mass. Because it meant that there’s still a chance. Because it meant that *maybe* I can still have babies one day.

And then we went out to celebrate. At 2pm on a Tuesday.

Because you celebrate when and what you can. And sometimes life is good.