But she wanted to tell me in person as opposed to doing it over the phone. That's never a good sign.
"What did the pathology show?" I asked.
"Well, I was quite surprised," the doctor said. "It showed you have complex endometrial hyperplasia with atypia."
"Uh....what is it and what do we do about THAT?" I asked.
She then proceeded to tell me that I had a large growth of aggressive pre-cancrous cells in my uterus and it needs to be removed--a hysterectomy. She also said it was growing rapidly, and that full-on uterine cancer develops in 3-5% of patients who present with my condition, a risk that, she said, was actually very high to chance and leave alone when it can be cured with a hysterectomy.
It certainly explains the highly abnormal bleeding and whatnot, which wasn't just early menopause, as she previously thought. Still, the doctor said that I don't present as the typical patient that has this condition--that it's normally seen in the obese (um, not me), or in women with other hormonal problems going on. Me, the medical mystery.
She wanted to do the hysterectomy right away, but I begged and pleaded with her to see if we could wait until the middle of May, when my Abnormal Psych class will be over. She said, "We can wait 4 months, if it means that much to you. We can't wait 6 months. We can't wait a year, or you will have uterine cancer. You won't make it."
That all scared the shit out of me more than whacking my head on the tub when I passed out the other night (now, as a result, I have a big, swollen black right eye with a scratch going across above my lid--how dainty!).
They're leaving my ovaries in, so that I'll go through menopause naturally, which is fine, as long as, they said, I was cool with not being able to have any more children (hell yes, I am). Are any of us not looking forward to never having a period again? Shit, what a ridiculous question. I honestly want a second opinion about the ovaries--ovarian cancer is such a tricky motherfucker and by the time they find it, it's usually too late. So I'm debating the leave-the-ovaries-in idea.
The idea is to go on laproscopically, much like my gallbladder surgery, and do crazy shit like take my uterus out through my belly button or something. (I don't understand how on Earth they do that, frankly, and don't want to know.) But my gyno is not optimistic that the easy route will be used, which would only require 2 weeks of recuperation, like a c-section in terms of activity level (no driving, no shopping, no school, no work, et al). Because of the massive overgrowth of scar tissue I have as a result of having Luke via c-section, my gyno thinks she'll have to reopen the c-section site and go in to remove the uterus, which requires 4-6 week of recuperation, much longer. Thank God I have a compassionate ex-husband who helps me take care of my son, a mother who is very helpful and capable, and a 12-year old kid who's more or less independent who will all cooperate to assist in my recovery and not upsetting the Miklasz apple cart. At least I don't have to worry about taking a medical leave of absence from work anymore, right?
The prayer chain at church is so wacky. They'd put in the online stream that I was having the hysteroscopy, which was done during the D&C, but that threw the general church crowd into a panic that I was having a hysterectomy at the time. I remarked on Facebook that there was no need to panic, that it was just a test. Well, now they can panic. Or convince me, somehow, not to panic. Because the operation's in May and I'm already panicking. I just really, really want to get the Abnormal Psych course taken care of. I'll try not to die in the meantime, God willing and the creek don't rise....
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