It’s not beyond me to contemplate how wickedly funny it would be to stop telling this story right here. Right about now I long to go on one of my walkabouts in which I write nothing for the next several months and feel no guilt about it whatsoever. But alas, I do feel a sense of duty to finish what I’ve started. Though I confess, I’ve been trying to squeeze out this post for days now and just not feeling it. But I can’t put it off any longer, it will just have to be what it is.

There was no denying it anymore. I had to go to a doctor. It wasn’t just a little swelling or a little early-thirties weight gain. There was definitely something in there.

But now, on that August morning, as pain ripped through my middle, it was different. I knew something was very very wrong. Pain is our very clever warning system. It gets our attention. But as this pain announced itself, the roundness of my stomach had changed with it. It had shifted slightly, teetered off to one side, like a muscle contraction was moving something over, almost like a round water balloon being squished into… eggplantness. Almost like something alive trying to adjust and get comfortable in tight quarters. This is when I looked down and saw, where the pain was coming from, in my lower right side, what looked and felt like it may be appendicitis.

By the time I got to the Emergency room, the pain had subsided and my stomach had returned to “normal”. At first, no one took me seriously. They all just thought I was constipated.

So while they quizzed me for the first thirty minutes on my diet and bowel movements, chuckling condescendingly, believing this was all nothing a laxative couldn’t fix, I was growing a bit impatient, but hiding really well.

Finally they said they were going to examine my stomach.

I had been waiting patiently to show them my physical proof. Ha! See? I told you! I laid back on the table and pulled my shirt up. You could see it. The outline of what appeared to be a rounded uterus in my otherwise lean frame.

There was no denying it. It looked like I was in the early stages of a pregnancy. They began to show the first signs of true perplexity.

Huh… Okay… Well…

Something was clearly in there. The question now was just… what? 

Now they thought I was pregnant and didn’t know it. They asked questions about my menstruation and they did a pregnancy test, which of course came back negative (though part of me still hoped they were right and I was horribly wrong).

Then they decided to perform an ultrasound to get a look at whatever it was that was deciding to become so rowdy in there.

During the ultrasound, all we could see was a very large fluid filled shape in my lower abdomen. It simply looked like a very full bladder. Only my bladder was empty.

Now they were really listening. Brisk movements began to punctuate things now said in the room. A whiff of duty began to replace the scent of condescension. They were really curious now. And a little concerned. I was both pleased by this and made uncomfortable. Because next came the giant IV in my hand for the purpose of injecting a shitload of dye into my entire bloodstream, that God only knew the toxicity of, as I was inserted into a giant spinning tube (CT I think?). They warned me that the feeling of this dye flooding my system was strange and uncomfortable to most, and that it would make me feel like I was peeing my pants. It did. A hot rush flooded me everywhere and pooled in my lower-midsection.

The results of the scan showed us what was going on in there, a bit more clearly. It was an ovary. A very naughty ovary. Causing a whole bunch of trouble, assumedly due to a cyst contained within it. An ovary so large, and now so out of place, as it tried to find room for itself, that they could not even tell me which one it was.

It had been pressing on my bladder, blocking my urethra at times, pressing on my kidneys, and when I was feeling the pain, it was possibly because it had laid down on something in there like a big fat cat.

It was possible that it could be dealt with non-surgically, they said, but more than likely the thing would need to come out.

Oh yay.

They wanted to keep me overnight to “monitor” me since it was clearly pinching off certain vital organs. But I am not one to get all dramatic.

I’ll come back if I need you, I said over my shoulder. I live six blocks away. I mean, this thing had been in there for months, probably even brewing for years. I was not about to pay thousands of dollars to have a horrendously uncomfortable night a few blocks away from home for no good reason.

Here is the shot my husband got of me fleeing against medical advice.

Anyhoo. I was put in touch with a Gynecological Oncologist. Even she couldn’t tell me which ovary it was. It was simply… Everywhere. Just taking over. After seeing a naturopath as well, and doing online research, it was decided. It would have to be surgically removed. It was just beyond the point of other methods. It measured fourteen cm in diameter, or around five and a half inches. The size of a large grapefruit.

Lovely picture, I know.

And apparently the removal of women’s mutinous reproductive systems was a booming business. I would have to wait six weeks for surgery. I used essential oils and heated castor oil soaked cloths on my stomach at night to help keep inflammation down during that time to keep my organs safe from smothering and so that I was in the best possible state for the surgery. I ate no dairy and took magnesium and other minerals to keep things as chill as possible. And I waited.

I had never broken a bone in my life. Never needed stitches. Never been to the ER. Growing up, I had never had any illness so severe that it required a trip to the doctor let alone the hospital. I was strictly opposed to any medical care that wasn’t necessary. This definitely fell under the category of Necessity. But as a thirty-three year old woman, I had never experienced anything even remotely close the horror of a surgical procedure in my life. I am not the type to become afraid of many things. But this frightened me. I do not believe in entertaining worry though. Worry, to me, is fearing something too soon, before the time has come to actually fear it. I believe this prolongs fear, and gives it a voice outside of the moment in which it is supposed to be experienced. I believe in addressing these things only in their appointed time. So I simply did not think about it. If it came into my mind (which of course it did often) I pushed it aside and meditated on peace and the present moment in which I was safe and sound. I would deal with the fear when it was time to deal with it. Until then, my heart would remain as light as possible to give me the best chance of healing and being ready to face it.

I would face the fear only once I was walking into that hospital.

On the morning of October 28, 2015.

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