I Dub Thee, Princess Peach

 While I wish I had much more news to give by way of medical dramas, what my doctor told me is pretty much less than what I already read on the scan results. I’m bleeding for the third time in a month, not heavy, but there can’t be anymore lining left to shed. It’s a grapefruit sized tumor, likely benign, pressing all up on everything and throwing me into the chaos of bad back pain and bloated stomach and decreased appetite.

As for the header, yes, I named the tumor. Princess Peach. I hope to evict her ‘to another castle’ ASAP. Hoping I hold up until my appointment March 7th to see what can be done. Hopefully before it gets bigger and does more damage. I’m absolutely lethargic as well. When I start to think too much about this body I don’t recognize, I have to find a distraction. I finished drafting the crochet fireplace pattern and published it at least. Took a few days of constant work to pull it off.

I feel like I’m in a wretched stasis at the moment. I’ve joined private support groups for women with fibroids to ask questions, answer questions and find some understanding when I’m desperate to connect about it. Despite the lows, I’m finding ways to balance my moods, let myself cry and operate somewhat.

Yet it surprises me that fibroid like this aren’t considered a higher priority. There are so many risks with every passing day with one this big and causing so much inner chaos but my doctor actually said ‘you’re not bleeding heavily so it’s fine. You can wait’. Except hospital and esteemed medical pages don’t say that at all. They say see a doctor immediately for symptoms like frequent periods (check), heavier or lighter periods (check and check), dizziness, nausea; hell, check them all aside from heavy bleeding. It doesn’t say ALL but IF ANY. I mean, I did disclose all of this but I think once my very Catholic doctor realized my near-future infertility conflicted with her beliefs about intervention, I could tell she was closing the window on this massive health bomb and pushing it to the doctor I have yet to even meet, the new gyno.

Which, sorry to say, a doctor with beliefs that isn’t flagged for those beliefs affecting quick and thorough patient care is a huge red flag in the healthcare system’s myriad shortcomings. No female should ever be referred to a doctor than can delay or deny crucial care. This delay could very well create complications like enlargement of the tumor, degradation or rupture, organ damage and, as physical symptoms become more unbearable, depression and suicidal thoughts. And my doctor literally waited 8 days to even look at it, called me up and very exasperatedly told me there’s a tumor, it’s this big, likely benign, I’ll send it to the other doctor. No ‘if it hurts, take this’ or ‘hormones or this might help or delay risky complications’ just a very clearly read dismissal of any of it. 

I’m irritated because it’s damn hard to find a doctor available, on my insurance, and that isn’t a whole day trip to get there and back. She irritated me a lot, lecturing me about how to eat healthy when I asked for what to do when nothing (including her bullshit portion chart) wasn’t working. I was able to get back on my ADHD meds and omeprazole for the GERD, but the minute what I thought was perimenopause kicked in and I made the mistake of asking for birth control instead of hormones to balance the PMP symptoms, things in the lady parts department have been a touch hostile.

I think this is why she insisted on a pap and then an ultrasound. It seemed like she was trying to show there was nothing and I was making that up too. But when the ultrasound showed a mass, she was already passing the baton as she ordered the CT and referred me to the OBGYN. Her plan to undermine that there was a real issue behind my suffering had not gone to plan and she knew I didn’t wish to have children so I wouldn’t hate losing my uterus instead of enduring many painful years of surgeries to save it before it was infertile anyway.

It feels sinister and dirty that I even confided in her about so much of my life so that she could better understand how to treat me when this whole time she was pocketing a pass to leave me hanging when I needed guidance the most. I was angry as hell and sad, but once I dealt with the betrayal, I did mobilize and find support and distractions and information to try to minimize any problems caused by the days I must wait for actionable help.

I don’t know what I would do if I was working and this always makes me think of the other women who are thrown into even more desperate headspaces. Will I lose my job? Who will watch my kids? Who will care for me while I’m healing? When can I get this nightmare over with? Who can I trust? Can I afford this? Will I die if I just can’t find the parameters to get better without making people mad at me? Is it better to die than to fight to get it done rather than sacrifice myself to not inconvenience people? Why are there not more visible support channels for the people that society marks as caregivers that often have no one to care for them when needed most? Why are there so many huge archaic loopholes for women to fall through in a country that pretends to be advanced and modern? Why are we told we have enough or too much when we have so little or nothing where we need it most?

And the amount of women I’ve seen that have their loved ones genuinely confused about why a hysterectomy is such a big deal, like it’s not removal of a whole internal organ near so many other internal organs. They have the internet and could take the time to search for answers if they actually gave a shit. Instead, they often treat it with the same ignorance as any women’s health difference; we’re using it as an excuse, doing it for attention, it’s not really that bad. Surgeries are ‘common’ for this so stop being dramatic!

Here’s the thing, boys; all of your sexual organs are on the outside of your body. They can literally be chopped clean off and you’d be fine as long as the bleeding is stopped and the pee shoot it kept open so you could still urinate. Castration, like vasectomies, is insignificant to anything but ego. In the same way, we can catch STIs instantly since the fluid exchange happens inside of our bodies and outside of yours. Guys can sometimes be exposed to these infections many times without actually contracting it from a female partner. 

Oh, but what is a grapefruit sized tumor when a woman’s body is meant to carry a whole baby? A growing child begins many chemical processes that help the body to adapt to the rate that a human being grows. Comparatively, a large tumor is not recognized as natural but is also outside of any way for the body to recognize it and combat it. Because the cells are your own body growing on misfired signals, they are not identified as foreign. babies that grow too big are also removed when the body cannot accommodate it. Cancer also works this way but can spread and encourage other organs to waste energy growing more useless cancer until we die from our organs to do the job they’re actually made for.

Which brings me more firmly into cancer. Is cancer scary enough for you? Here’s the thing; statistically, half of men and a third of women will get cancer in their lifetime. No big deal, right? Obviously, cancer caught early can be sent into remission; it may come back but if it doesn’t in five years, you’re considered ‘cured’. Your risk is exactly the same as everyone else’s again. But when you start looking at where the fatality risk stats increase and factor in the ‘silent killers’ that are only treatable if found or not found until they kill you, cancer is pretty damn scary. 

Now ask the right questions about risk for a hysterectomy. How big is the tumor? What is it pressing on? Which organs are being damaged? How big are the complications and risks and fatality risks for a woman her age, her size? How long did they go unnoticed? What happens if they rupture before they can get into surgery? What does a woman’s reproductive system do that she will need to compensate for, depending on what is being removed? Will her choice come with more future complications no matter which one she chooses?

And why the fuck do doctors repeatedly brush off a woman’s intuition when she says something is very wrong? Why are woman gaslighted for how much pain they’re in, diet, exercise, whether he has value if she doesn’t look good, if she’s a woman if she’s not making babies? Why are doctors allowed to be  complicit in this widespread ignorance and distrust of their female patients?

When does life start again if we can manage to navigate these no-big-deal fibroids and live to tell? 

Why the fuck is JK Rowling vilified for reminding people that these are some of the many reasons womanhood can’t be a social construct or an identity you can wear, that we have a word and an identity and a set of problems that our trans-women do not? (That we wholly accept trans-women on every level that doesn’t negate our struggles and it’s not fear or hate for them, but desperation not to lose more ground.)

I mean, I can definitely whip up a lot of related rabbit holes, but let’s work on all struggles in a way that doesn’t get to silence anything on a really frightening level. My big hill is Princess Peach. I will celebrate when you run off with my uterus to that big incinerator in the basement. Or wherever it is they banish biohazardous materials. Your castle awaits. My fight continues to my dying breath.