what a difference four and a half years makes.

today is day four of my four day weekend.

four day weekend, you ask?

yes. i had the typical saturday/sunday weekend, monday for memorial day, and awesome husband @_antgas and i took off today for a very good reason.

i graduate today!

that's right, the strange journey that started back in august of 2010 with a mini nervous breakdown and a fateful trip to a psychiatrist is ending. i originally started my undergrad to get an associates just so i could put it on my resume. now i'm graduating with a bachelors in community health and human services.... and planning to go onto graduate school.

a lot of ridiculous, awesome, and horrifying things have happened since i decided to return to school. my mother was suddenly taken ill and died peacefully.

we rescued another hysterical kitten (who has turned into a maniac). we moved back to new york. i became a body piercer for a while. i decided to continue my education and realized a lot about life in the process.

taylor crossed the rainbow bridge. i fought with my gallbladder and lost and later willingly barbecued my uterus. we moved even further out in the 'burbs.

i was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and failed every medication i tried. i landed an internship. piglet was diagnosed with kidney failure and then had to have her canines removed. i also was hired as a paid counselor at my internship. and soon thereafter, i sat for my CASAC exam and was hired on as a full time counselor. i stopped taking any medications for RA and am surviving as best i can.

my little brother got married. and then we got a puppy and i started a new medication for my mental health issues.

and today, i graduate. and i've been accepted to three graduate programs and have pretty much decided on one. i will be going for my MSW and hope to complete in about three, three and a half years. it's been a ridiculous journey; sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes i can't remember what it was like before i was a counselor.

thankfully, my therapist is working today since the office was closed yesterday. i am a jumbled mass of conflicting emotions and ideas. but i am really excited to be graduating and opening a new chapter in my life. well, at the end of august when grad school starts.

a vengeful uterus

...that's how i once described my uterus: vengeful.  full of hate.  angry.  pissed off.  wanting to fight its way out of my body.

well, this friday, my uterus will undergo a transformation.  but first, a little back story.  boys, if you've a weak stomach, you may want to skip these next bits.

my period started normally enough at 13.  by 16, i was having horrible cramps the first day - bad enough that every month my mother would have to pick me up from school.  i'd sleep on her boss' couch, crumpled into the fetal position, and wait to go home.  i'd get my period like clockwork - every 30 days was normal for me.  i went on the pill once i started having sex, and my period happened every 28 days.  even though the birth control pill was supposed to help alleviate the cramps, it didn't.  not at all.  day 1 would be hellish, day 2 would be bad but bearable, and days 3-5 were just annoying and achy.  i remember many days curled up in bed with popcorn and heating pads watching dirty dancing, alice in wonderland, and rocky horror picture show on the VCR connected to my little 13" color tv.

after graduating high school, i went through a bunch of crap - living in cars, being on welfare, going crazy, spending time in a mental institution... you know, the usual - and gained some weight.  after gaining 50 pounds, i stopped taking the pill, hoping it would help me lose it.  at 19, my period took a sabbatical.  an eleven month sabbatical.  the first month was a bit stressful, thinking i might be pregnant.  awesome husband @_antgas and i used protection 95% of the time.  the second month was a bit more stressful because i knew one could have a full period and still be pregnant (side story: my mother had a full period after finding out she was pregnant with me.  the doctors told her it was nature's way of taking care of a problem.  good job, nature - i'm still here!) so i started buying pregnancy tests in 3-packs.  when i was towards the end of month 3 with no period, a bucket full of negative pregnancy tests, and no other signs of pregnancy, i went to my gyno for answers.

he poked around at me and declared nothing was wrong that he could see.  he then ordered the first of many of what i call 'magic wand ultrasounds'.  the ones where they look at your lady organs from the inside.  so at 19 i had a strange woman shove what amounts to a dildo with a camera on the end up my cooter.  funtimes.  anyway, they declared my uterus and ovaries were in normal working order and sent me to my general practitioner.

my gp poked and prodded my abdomen, reviewed the insidey and outsidey pelvic ultrasounds that the gyno had ordered, and ordered a fuckton of blood tests.  after finding nothing wrong, he ordered abdominal ultrasounds.

at this point, i think we were around month 8 with no periods.  i've been trekking back and forth to doctors and ultrasound places and labs and whateverthefuck for months.  the abdominal ultrasounds come back fine, and my gp sends me back to my gyno.

i go back to my gyno, who has reviewed all of the blood work and ultrasounds.  he decides to do a full hormone panel thingy on me and orders more blood work.  when that comes up squeaky clean and functioning normally, he refers me back to my damn gp.

at this point, i'm starting to get pissed off and making appointments like 7 or 8 weeks apart.  no one knows what's going on with me, i had just had my 20th birthday, and my uterus just hates the everliving fuck out of me.

month eleven - 11 - my period decides to stroll in and make an appearance.  both my gp and gyno say 'good, there's nothing wrong with you' and wash their hands of me.  i continued to have horrible cramps days 1 and 2 of my periods.  oh, and my periods began coming with increasing irregularity.  35 days, 40 days, 60 days.  whatever.

so after a good 7 years of ridiculously irregular periods, save a two year time when i was taking the pill again, my uterus has another, more diabolical trick up its sleeve: to make me have my period forever.

yes, forever.

every day, for thirteen months, blood fell out of my lady parts.  it was usually not enough to warrant a tampon, but the days that it was heavy it was HEAVY.  like woah.  so i spent well over a year wearing a pad at all times and a night every few weeks sleeping on a towel because overnight pads were no match for my leaking, vengeful uterus.  after finally getting a new gyno while living in florida, i went in and told her my backstory.

she ordered another insidey ultrasound and full blood workup.  guess what was wrong.  go on, guess.

NOTHING.

that was early 2008, five years ago.  since then, i've had some kind of bleeding more often than not.  days that i don't put on a pad or liner are like days i've won the lottery.  i have probably had fewer days without wearing a pad than the mets have won ball games since 2008 (so really, not a lot.).

i got used to it.  i bought always liners in bulk.  i bought the super sized bags of stayfree overnight pads.  i stockpiled percocets for those heavy cramp days.  and i survived.  but barely.  it began affecting everything.  the cramps became worse; there were days that i wouldn't be able to keep myself from crying from the pain.  the heavy bleeding... more than once i considered going to the hospital because no one should bleed that much and be able to live.  and it gets way grosser than that, but i'll spare you.  suffice it to say i was not happy with the situation of my uterus.

and what made it worse is that i was afraid of so many things.  if i had bled a little that morning, i'd cancel nighttime plans out of fear of a full-fledged period raging out.  i was afraid to have sex because it might trigger more bleeding.  i slept with towels - yes, plural - under me at night because i was terrified of bleeding through everything.  and there have been times when i have bled through everything.  and it's not like i'd sleep through the night - when i actually have my 'period', i wake up every two hours during the night to change an overnight pad.

last summer i decided i was done with this shit.  no doctor has ever taken it seriously - they put me on the pill.  oh, your cramps are bad?  you bleed like a stuck pig?  your period is irregular?  take birth control.  and the last time i took seasonique, it was horrible.  HORRIBLE.  the worst 5 days of my menstrual life ever.  and once i stopped taking the seasonique, my period slowed down and my cramps went away.

vengeful uterus.

so last summer i called an obgyn office that specializes in high risk pregnancy, abnormal menses, and uterine issues.  the first doctor i spoke to, i didn't like, so i saw another doctor in the practice at a friend's recommendation.

our first visit, i explained my history.  i told her i was done with the pill, with chemical 'cures' that never work for me, and that i was not against having my uterus ripped from my body.  and she believed me.  she didn't tell me i was too young at 32 to make a decision like that about my uterus.  she didn't just order more tests and tell me to try a new pill.  she ordered some blood work, gave me some options, and said let's try one of these before we talk hysterectomy.  but first, she wanted to make sure my uterus was okay - that my abnormal bleeding was not from cancer or something like that.

we scheduled a hysteroscopy and biopsy.  by the way, it sucked really bad and i had it done in the doctor's office without any kind of anesthesia.  which is less expensive, but i think i may have a touch of PTSD about it.  seriously.  my biopsy was fine, but my endometrial lining is excessively thick.  like really bad.  my doctor said an IUD like mirena might help the issue, but since birth control never helps, the mirena may be a temporary fix.  she recommended endometrial ablation.

go ahead, google it.  please don't be eating when you do so.

we're going with novasure.  a thin wand is shoved up my vajayjay and through my cervix.  some kind of net comes out of this wand and expands like a balloon to fill up my uterus and come into contact with it.  then it's electrified and basically burns the entire inside of my uterus.  the lining of my uterus then scars, meaning no endometrial lining can grow there.  most women never have a period again, and those that do tend to have much lighter, shorter periods.

this happens on friday.  in the doctor's office.  i'll be in twilight (not forks twilight, twilight sleep) and i think i get a local anesthetic.  @_antgas took the day off so he can drive me to and from.  if my uterine lining has bulked up at all since my last real period (thanksgiving) i will need a d&c to remove as much as possible.  so we can get that burny goodness all up on my uterine wall.

we never wanted to have children, so i'm not worried about that.  i'm more worried about the potential complications.  and i'm also worried that this won't be permanent either.  most women i've spoken to who have had ablation end up having a hysterectomy anyway, some sooner than others.  i guess it would be nice to get a few more good years out of my uterus, but what purpose will it serve other than to fill a void that would otherwise be in my abdomen?

well, what purpose does it serve now?  it fills a potential void in my abdomen and pisses me the fuck off.  maybe after friday, it will stop pissing me off.

at least i made it in before the end of the year...

well, hello there.  seriously, if you're actually reading this, you probably deserve some kind of award for actually clicking on my blog in your feed.  because, you know, i've all but abandoned you.

sad, really.

and i'd love to have a good explanation..

oh, i do.  so, there's that.

so i had been offered that job which i started.  and i had that gallstone attack that required surgery.  but we've missed HUGE CHUNKS of my life (which i'm sure you barely care about).

now, october passed as octobers do.  i had held off on scheduling my surgery because i'm a fucking pansy and i didn't want to have it done.  we were preparing for the scatter-mom's-ashes cruise on october 29.  and i was working full time and taking 12 credits (which is, like, full time.  isn't it?  it sure feels like it).  so my days consisted of waking up, working, homeworking, sleeping.  wash, rinse, repeat.

i scheduled my surgery for the tuesday before thanksgiving so i could have a few (paid) days to recoup without actually missing a lot of work.  i ate carefully to avoid enraging my delicate gallbladder.  i hung out when i had time, attended school like a good girl, and spent a fuckton of time on homework and research.  the days passed quickly, one week bleeding into the next.  suddenly it was the end of october and time for croozin'.

my brother and sisterfromanothermister were going to the fest in gainesville before the cruise and we were spending a couple of days visiting friends in tampa.  we planned and checked weather and packed and checked weather...

...and suddenly, this storm named sandy was becoming a concern.

it was scheduled to hit florida and the bahamas before we were, and hit new york after we left.  i obsessively checked cruise websites and watched as the monarch (the same ship we were sailing on) sat in port canaveral for four days instead of sailing to the bahamas.  i read about ships missing ports and hitting really rough seas.  i worried about my brother and sisterfromanothermister's first cruise sucking.  we kept planning and kept an eye on the storm.  they weren't too worried about it.

that story changed once we were in florida.

suddenly, the jersey shore and south shore of long island are full of people freaking the fuck out - and we were 1200 miles from our home on the south shore.  our things, our cats, our cars (except for my brother's) - we couldn't do much.  i had a friend watching our cats and shit, but really - what could i expect her to do when she only lives four or five blocks north of us?

now, when i say 'south shore of long island', i mean lindenhurst. i don't know if i've ever been that specific before.  but when we were watching national weather broadcasts, we kept seeing them reporting a few blocks away from our house - places we pass every day, places we stopped and shopped.  our house is thankfully on a little hill (one of the only houses on the block that high up).  five blocks south of us is the bay.  one block to the east and one block to the west are both canals.  and two blocks north of us is another small canal.  so we are surrounded by water, with one tiny, old, barely two lane concrete bridge connecting us.

while we were on the ship october 29th, hurricane sandy bore down on long island.  between the astronomical high tide, the rains, and the storm surge, we had five feet of water in our area.  we watched reporters on montauk highway, a few blocks north and east of our home, reporting in water halfway up their thighs.  my friend sent us a video right after the first surge, and there was at least two feet of water running down her street like a river.  how is there current there?

the water rose enough to come over the bulkheads lining the canals.  there were bulkheads that broke loose and rested on people's front lawns.  there were boats that literally washed ashore in the high water and came to rest on lawns.  trees were uprooted, breaking up concrete sidewalks and streets, taking down fences and power lines.

we had an extra round of drinks that night and tried to relax.  there was nothing we could do.

we came home that friday, november 2nd, to a cold, dark house and two dead cars.  my beloved 2005 santa fe, the first car awesome husband @_antgas and i had bought, was ruined.  there was salt water filling the cupholders and soaking up the backs of the seats.  sisterfromanothermister's five month old chevy sonic was ruined; it must have been practically covered in water at one point.  our home was safe and dry;  @_antgas' car was barely spared - the salt water rose to within an inch of the opening to the car door.  the cats were fine, if not a little weirded out.  we came home with dirty laundry and nowhere to do it.  our only remaining car was on empty, and the gas stations were dry, out of power, or had hours-long lines.  we hunkered down in the dark for a few days, waiting.  we filled a cooler with some food and snacks.  we watched family guy on my ipad.  and then a second storm came - a snow storm.  the temperature dropped - our house temperature dropped to 48º at one point.  we tried boiling water to help, but all it really did was fog up the windows.  we snuggled under extra blanket and cuddled the cats.

my dad has an extra car and he said i could borrow it - once i could find gas for it.  once i did, we went back to work.  we tried to have some normalcy.  we showered at my dad's house, relishing the hot water, went to work, ate dinner out, and came home to a cold, dark house with nothing but candles and flashlights.  our area had no power for 13 days (we were only there for 8 of them).

schoolwork had piled up, laundry had piled up, and nary a plan for american traditional familial holiday (aka christmas) had been made.  but i still had my surgery to deal with.  which went well.  i spend a couple of days sleeping and eating percocet, hanging out and watching like every fucking episode of american dad, and then went back to work with minimal pain.  i feel much better now.  even though i missed thanksgiving for all intents and purposes.


things are roughly back to normal.  however, my stress levels are not.  everyone was chalking my stressy attitude up to work and finals, but finals are over and i'm still stressy.  i'm trying to be more cognizant of my demeanor and attitude and shit like that.  and trying not to take shit out on other people.

oh, and our cruise was excellent.  it was just hard to remember how great it was when we came home to all that crap.  which is really sad.  but we enjoyed ourselves, scattered mom's ashes, and saw some friends in the process.  expect a blog with some photos of the cruise at some point in time.  i mostly promise.

world's worst blogger

...it's probably me.

seriously, i have people who actually (used to) read my blog.  and i ignore them for over a month.  like, a long time.

but let me make some excuses so i feel better.

as my regular readers may remember, i was offered a job back in august.  they wanted me to start august 22.  i was excited and spent too much money on office appropriate clothes and had my newly-brown hair touched up.  my hair was always reddish brown, until i started dying it pink.  but it's been nice having 'normal' hair.

and, you know.  not bleeding pink from my hair all over the place.

things were coming together.  right?

riiiiiiight.

the weekend before i was to start my new job, we had a couple of days off.  i was temporarily done with school and was not going into the shop all weekend because of other responsibilities.  so saturday night and sunday night i went out.  saturday to my aunt's to visit with family (and drink a pitcher of margaritas while eating steak) and sunday to outback with awesome husband @_antgas and my girl... where i had a pitcher of mango skinny margaritas and more steak.

aside from my eating/drinking habits that weekend, i has this twinge in my chest, like under my right breast.  eh, i figured i tweaked something at the gym.

monday morning around 4am i woke up to pee.  my chest was hurting pretty badly.  i went to stand up and it was really hard. and i went to sit on the toilet and that was really hard to do too.  breathing was pretty hard.  basically, EVERYTHING was really hard.  i was wondering if i was having a heart attack, but my left arm didn't hurt.  then i was thinking maybe i like broke a rib or something and it punctured my lung.  but i could breath - it just hurt like FUCK.

i spent about an hour trying to lay down in bed.  i'd try to lay on my side... it hurt.  it hurt to sit up.  the actual act of rolling over was excruciating.  finally i woke @_antgas up and told him we needed to go to the hospital.

so he took me to the emergency room.  because the pain was in the vicinity of my chest, they rushed me right in and did an EKG.  then they rushed me right in to see a doctor.  i put my little robe thingy on and started getting poked and prodded.  they put an iv in my arm (ugh i hate that shit) and starting doing tests and X-rays.

everything was good.  and then they started talking about my gallbladder.

ergh, what?

one of my old friends had her gallbladder out, and she had SO MUCH pain like every time she ate, no matter what she ate.  i don't have that problem.

they ordered an ultrasound and a hitascan?  no idea how to spell that.  but it turns out my gallbladder is chock full of stones.  and they were like, well we can take it out now or you can go home and see if it happens again.

i was started a job in two days.  recovery time is a week.  i was like, um i'm going the fuck home.  so they sent me on my way with some percocet and that's it.  no advice on what to eat/not to eat or anything.

my gallbladder was achy for a few days, but no major pain. every once in a while it hurts again, but it's not been too bad.  i followed up with their recommended surgeon who wants to take my gallbladder from me and i'm terrified.  but then i was like, of COURSE as surgeon is going to recommend surgery! so i set up an appointment with my regular doctor and asked around to see who was recommended.  i didn't want some kid doing my surgery, you know?

the pain hadn't been too bad... until today.  last week my PCP said my gallbladder needs to come out and recommended a surgeon (whom i did some research on and is highly regarded).  i was like, whatever i'll call when i call.  i'm busy with work and school and an upcoming vacation and trying to get all of my vaccinations in order for school.  you know, life.

but today i had to leave work early and come home.  the pain wasn't too bad, but i had a fever and chills, and this strange nausea.  and just sleepy, so sleepy.  so i came home and ate light, napped for a while, and feel a bit better.  and called the surgeon.  i have an appointment with him next thursday and i will be scheduling surgery with him.  it's about a week recovery so i'm hoping to schedule it on like a wednesday or thursday so maybe i can be back at work monday or tuesday - that way i won't miss a lot a lot of work.  because i'm taking off the last week of october/first week of november for a family cruise.  more on that later.

for now, weep for my gallbladder.  i would prefer to keep my body intact, and i'm terrified of laparoscopic surgery because they'll go near my belly button.  and i'm not cool with that.  when we were little, my mom used to tell me and my brother that our arms, head, and legs were attached behind our belly button, like a puppet.  because we would play with our belly buttons (specifically my brother, he dug around in there like woah) (we were LITTLE KIDS.  gods, get a grip).

i mean, i know that's not true.  but you spend so many years avoiding your belly button and punching people who touch it, and it leaves an impression.  there will be an incision and, like, stitches there.  ergh.

have you had surgery?  what organs are you missing?  i've had two wisdom teeth out, but that's it.