#fibroids

[bratsochiist]

don't mind me - just here to vent like a crazy person :)

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i dont think people talk enough about how mentally exhausting it is to advocate for yourself in the medical world . like yes, i will absolutely transform into a small feral creature clutching my symptom journal like a holy scripture, but that doesnt mean its not draining as hell .

trying to get answers for something youve been dealing with on and off for almost five years is its own special kind of psychological torture . it doesn’t feel empowering — it feels like repeatedly head-butting a brick wall and then apologizing to the wall for inconveniencing it . at some point, it starts to feel like a sick & twisted scam .

you finally drag yourself back to a doctor, full of anxiety and misplaced optimism, and they hit you with : “everything looks fine” cooooooool ! love that for me . wonderful news - that means absolutely nothing, because if everything is so fine, then why do i feel like a medieval curse in human form ? it should be reassuring, but instead it leaves you with that horrible, hollow uncertainty — like youre stuck in limbo waiting for your body to pick a mood .

every day becomes a gamble : will it be a good day ?? or will i wake up and my body chooses violence ?! spin the wheel - win a prize !! (the prize is usually suffering)

& THEN, once everyone agrees they dont actually know whats going on, the Big Suggestions™ start rolling in . “we could try surgery?” amazing! PERFECT ! nothing says ‘comfort’ like the medical equivalent of, “we can absolutely cut you open about it, but no promises that anything we do in there will fix your issues .” like yeah , go ahead and rearrange my guts (not in the fun way) . its a real “pick your poison” situation :

Option A : keep living like this, vibes rancid, answers nonexistent

Option B : surgery roulette, where i might come out fixed … or just, you know, extra sliced .

its just a lot slowly losing your sanity while shouting into the void . im tired . im defeated . & im one more “everything looks good” away from gnawing on drywall like a stressed raccoon .

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if youve made it this far - i commend you friend . thanks for coming to my ted talk !

[jhenne-bean]

Guess whos fibroid grew significantly and is now the size of a small apple!

[onwacollective]

via Anna Gaia on Pinterest

[bideogaymes]

hopefully i can get this surgery approved. i should get my results back in two days.

i saw this Black doctor on IG in Atlanta that specializes in uterine fibroids remove a 15-20 pound fibroids from a pregnant Black woman all while allowing her to keep her pregnancy and no hysterectomy. shit like that should be the norm but doctors push Black women to get hysterectomies as their first and only option and that’s fucked up to me in a world invested in seeing Black women infertile and our children nonexistent. i think that’s a part of pro-choice that gets obscured in the larger white feminist conversation about abortion rights, bc they continually fail to acknowledge the fatality/mortality of Black mothers and their kids in these legal conversations and purposefully obscure that the locus of the criminalization of terminating pregnancies has largely been placed on pregnant Black women’s bodies, from literal imprisonment to post-death incubators.

[digimontism]

I'm gonna be getting a hysterectomy

I think about how at 19 I knew I didn't want kids and knew that my period every month was horrible hell. I didn't know about pmdd yet, or my own autism, I was in a "be normal or else" household.

But I knew doctors wouldn't take my pain, or me for that matter, seriously.

It took way too long to get diagnosed with any of the things that I have. I have had fibroids the whole time, one as big as a 2 month pregnancy.

I'm now old enough (33) to be taken serious about surgical help without it being all about how I should actually have kids instead.

But I can't help but look at the me 10 years ago, who needed and deserved help. Who already knew they didn't want kids and was told it'd all be worth it one day years from now when I change my mind and want kids.

Well, that's never happening. End result is still no kids from me.

Can I have my 10 years back, then? Can I maybe have amassed more wealth or accomplished more because I won't have had periods that make me anemic? What's worth it? What about making me wait was worth it?

[yournewfriendshouse]

tmi health update under the cut

soooooo, guess who is pretty much going to have a hysterectomy?

I didn’t know that was going to be an option, so when he brought it up I had to school myself not to be like:

anyway I need to try a medication for three months but that also cuts oestrogen and progesterone so still a win (if not for my bones, rip) and then I can sign on. I really wanted to say ‘please give me a hysterectomy’ straight off, but then was like wow that’s a really emotional response you just had to something you didn’t know was possible for you, chief. I think you do need to process that a bit so you don’t then freak out on the eve of your surgery or something.

sorry for overshare, I just have feelings and need to let it out a bit. I don’t talk about gender stuff with my family so I couldn’t be like ‘this will probably help with the dysphoria we never talk about’ but yeah. it could? maybe?

but also on the other hand I saw the mri images and there are so many growths in my body, which is awful and I have a lot of feelings about how fucking long some of them must have been growing there. it sucks. that’s where all my energy has been going, and why my brain fog has gotten so bad, like…my body is putting so many of its already limited and overburdened resources into growing bullshit in my uterus. that fucking blows!

anyway so that’s fun. gotta go do the pre-menopausal bone density scan a decade early let’s goooo

[pumpkinsae]

Also I do think I might take a break from (some) aspects of social media. Because if it's not book communities, I'm also getting a bit peeved off in just health communities. I don't know. I saw someone sharing a couple days ago their boyfriend might've cracked the "code" for why people get bloated from fibroid. (unfortunately it's not what you think.) And OP shared her boyfriend's theory is because the uterus is meant for babies so obviously the body must be processing the fibroid like a baby, so its attempting to protect it and is "going into pregnancy like symptoms because the uterus is programmed for that". (It doesn't make sense. And it bothered me a lot. probably because I lost a part of my uterus to my fibroid/apart of removal, because it was growing into my muscle tissue. But it bothers me because people can also grow fibroids on the outside of their uterus, or like me into the tissues itself. ) I wouldn't have said anything, but it was posted in a fibroid space, with the question of "what do you think? Do you think he cracked the code?" So I replied saying it doesn't make a sense, explained why, my experience, my fibroid size, location etc. I pointed out fibroid DO make/supply their own estrogen (Which is what leads to rapid growth), and depending on location, size etc. They could also press on organs & do cause inflammation/fibroid belly... And then got a "well it's just meant to comfort people" - and its like.... *Sighs* I don't... understand. maybe I'm the dumb one? I also don't understand how it's meant to comfort people, cause some people do lose that ability to have kids too. But not only that but I had another person be like "actually my body did treat my fibroid like a baby so like speak for yourself pls. god your awful." and I'm like - I wasn't rude? I said "That isn't correct, yes it's correct you have an increased hormones. But that's because fibroids makes their own estrogen supply. But saying your body is going to process it like a baby isn't correct. Some people get fibroids on the outside of there uterus or deep into there tissues. Mine was subserosal, growing on the outside of my uterus, pressing on my bowels and spine. It ended up being 11.2cm x 11.2cms x 4.2 cms by the time it was removed. I think if you keep in mind too other diagnoses like cancers, pcos and endo can also have co-occurring issues like bloating, it makes more sense to look at those communities and see they use terms like 'endo belly' 'pcos belly'. but saying your body is obviously prepping for a baby isn't correct ." <- That isn't rude. It's matter of fact. but... It's not rude. and responses like "your awful" makes me confused. & then it's the book stuff. I join book communities because I enjoy reading, I join health communities for different illnesses I struggle with because I do like to see current dialogues happening/current research being shared. But at the same time, I feel like I just keep interacting with things, or seeing things, or having people interact with me who take what i'm saying and flip it in some other direction. So yeah I might stay away from fb for a bit.

[pro-birth]

I really wish infertility were treated as a symptom of an underlying issue, rather than a condition of itself. It is often one of MANY health problem that accompanies reproductive disorders, and not all women with those disorders will experience infertility.