There has been so much going on in my life in the past few months, with my grandmother's stroke, her time in the hospital, her passing, planning the funeral and emptying her apartment, attending her funeral and then being completely on my own for over 3 weeks when my parents went on their summer vacation, traveling north in their camper.
I have been really busy, and when I haven't been as busy, I've been needing, and am needing a lot of "me time" to recover and keep up with things.
I've had meetings and appointments lately. Last week I had an appointment at a larger hospital, seeing a gynecologist about my situation with my periods and current treatment for it. To put it simple, he was furious with the smaller hospital for not referring me much sooner, and it was quickly decided that in my case, a hysterectomy is the best option instead of experimenting more with hormone treatments or an ablation, he said 20-25% of women who's had an ablation continues to have issues in one way or another, and I just don't have the energy to experiment with that and in the end likely end up with a hysterectomy anyways.
At the moment I'm having the Mirena IUD, and also taking minipills and that's just to control my periods. I've had chronic cramps since I woke up from anesthesia the day the Mirena was fitted, and I get pain flares from it several times daily. The only reason I still keep that damn thing in is because I wanted to be able to swim during the summer, without the IUD I'd bleed most of the summer and not being able to enjoy the little summer we have.
I'll have the hysterectomy done in about 8 weeks or so. By the sound of it, the gynecologist wishes I could have it done sooner, but with it being vacation times still, there's a waiting time.
Before my surgery, I have roughly about a billion things I need to do to, things I won't be allowed to do while recovering, or need to do to make sure the recovery will be as smooth as possible. It's everything between small things like taking extra vitamins and not just rely on diet to boost my body's ability to heal. To larger things like getting my counter top dishwasher installed- I haven't had it installed yet due to summer time and so many being on vacation.
I'm also going to download some apps, audio books and other things that can keep me entertained in case I can't handle being on my laptop much just after the surgery. I need things to do to keep my mind off some of the pain, and I don't think chatting will be high on the list as I will want to focus on recovering.
I have been isolating myself quite a bit lately, and it's been my choice to do so. I need the peace and quiet in between all the things going on. I need this "time out" for health reasons.
My current situation with all the extra hormones and the pain from Mirena is making me feel like utter shit. I'm constantly tired, yet suffer with pretty severe insomnia, other days I just sleep, and can't stay awake. In the past few days I've been dozing off a lot from pure exhaustion and that's despite maybe sleeping 10 hours per night and sleeping better than usual thanks to having a new pillow in the foot end of my bed, meaning I sleep on my back and wake up less as I don't need to turn around completely during my sleep hours, and don't wake up from severe hip or shoulder pain. All the hormones is also making my skin look more teen like... I take very good care of my skin but still get outbreaks, and I know it's the hormones doing it.
At the moment I'm also facing the dilemma of having to file a formal complaint against the smaller hospital for leaving me like this for so long before referring me to the larger hospital, and for the Mirena and them claiming no one would do anything before it had been tried despite me saying clearly that I did not want any damn IUD and I felt forced to try it. I'm also going to file a formal complaint against my PCP clinic and switch clinics as there's been one too many issues with that clinic now. Their latest blunder being today when I finally had my MRI of my neck, a year(!) after my neck popped. It took 10 months or so of me begging my doctor for an MRI referral as my neck feels seriously wrong and it impacts my life a lot. And I also need an MRI of my lumbar spine and SI area which is just as important and the cervical spine as I have huge problems with my lower back as well. Well, the referral was only for cervical spine and my doctor claimed another doctor had added lumbar and SI to the referral afterwards. The hospital only had a referral for cervical spine and the MRI nurse was pretty peeved with the situation as well as I'm so young and have very obvious problems that needs to be properly checked. She even said I should file a complaint both for the time it took to even get a referral and the fact I only got cervical spine despite barely being able to stand on my legs. I can stand up for a few minutes before pain in my lower back and SI area gets so bad I lean forward and my legs start shaking, and keep in mind, I'm on very potent pain management to begin with.
My SI joints feel like someone is trying to wrench them apart with a crowbar and they often lock completely so I can't move my legs.
So yeah, on top of everything else, I need to find a new PCP that does his or her job right the first time, doesn't ignore serious problems for almost a year before even sending a referral and then sends an insufficient referral, and I need to file complaints against several doctors in different places.
I don't write here very often at the moment, and I don't chat with people much, and it has good reasons! It's nothing personal against anyone, it's in general. I need to deal with everything going on, and recover from everything that has happened in the past 3+ months.
Now I need to sleep. This post took a long time to write and I'm beyond exhausted but really wanted to finish it before turning in for the night...
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