Freakin' menopause, ha! Yeah, the chemo and radiation killed my ovaries. Like actually caused them to dry out and shrivel up, apparently, and put my body into menopause. I'd been having crazy side effects from that...
* Crazy mood swings (I cried SIX times in one day and poor Kris was just at a complete loss of what to do.)
* Hot flashes and night sweats. I've been having these for a couple years now, but nothing to this extent. I'm talking like get so hot that I can't breathe, and get so sweaty that my shirt is soaked and I have to change it at 2am.
* CRS syndrome (can't remember shit) and that makes sense considering I couldn't remember to tell y'all about the thing that makes me forget everything. Seriously, everyone who knows me knows that I have an amazing memory. I remember everything. I remember conversations from years ago in detail. (I've never been able to remember where I park at Walmart, though.) But now... now I seriously forget everything. Sometimes I'm not sure that I actually forgot the thing, or if I just never knew it in the first place.
* Insomnia, which this is partially related to the hot flashes. One minute I'm freezing. Full-on teeth-chattering freezing, and you can count to 10 and I'm burning up, sweating. Obviously, this constant back and forth keeps me awake a lot, having to cover up and then throw the covers back off again 4 minutes later. It's stupid.
I don't mind it though. I have been asking for menopause for years. Everyone older than me told me I wouldn't want it when I do get it, and now that it's here... you're wrong, I still want it, side effects and all, because this is better than what my body has been through up to this point. I haven't had a period since I was in radiation. I've skipped 3 periods so far. I should actually be on my period right now, according to the period tracker app I have on my phone. I haven't convinced myself to delete it yet. My doctor put me on hormone pills 3 weeks ago to help with the symptoms I've been experiencing, and while they helped my night sweats, hot flashes/chills, and mood swings a little, I did some research two days ago and saw that the Estradiol she gave me specifically says not to use if you've had cancer of the cervix and other things) and I realize that she knows what she's doing, but I also saw that it causes weight gain and more importantly, increases the risk of ovarian and uterine cancer. Needless to say, I stopped taking it. I'd rather deal with the crazy moods and body temp issues than increase my chances at more cancer. #nothankyou
:: WARNING - it's about to get pretty personal. ::
I also noticed that, about a week after starting the hormone pills, I got some watery discharge. And by some I mean a lot. A pantyliner wasn't cutting it anymore. I bumped up to a pad, an then progressed to having to change the pad a couple times a day. I was beginning to think I was peeing myself and not knowing it. I mean, it makes sense because remember for the brachytherapy, they were putting catheters in and out of me every visit, s I figured maybe that could cause some issues that could cause me to have urine leakage. Do you know what that's like?? I mean, I still have diarrhea DAILY thanks to radiation's effects on my bowels and intestines. So to add accidental peeing to the list is just like, come on now... It's confusing because it didn't smell like pee, and it wasn't the color of pee. It's just clear and watery. So anyway, I did a tampon test. I put a tampon in and decided that if I still experienced the leakage, then I'd know I was leaking pee. (Ew.) So I popped one in and went on about my day. A few hours later, I was still DRY so no pee, woohoo. Time to take the tampon out. Except, it won't come out... It hurt. Like, bad. Y'all have read the things I've been through recently. All the biopsies, the catheters, the rods going in my vag, all the very painful things that I got though... but this really hurt. I had to take a deep breath, grit my teeth, and pull it out. You'd think I'd never worn a tampon before! I don't know what the deal was, but I was glad it was out and that I'd confirmed that I wasn't peeing myself accidentally. 😀
Fast forward to two days ago (Wednesday.) I went in for my last immunotherapy treatment and as usual, had to see the doctor beforehand to discuss any issues I'd been having. Dr. Scalici was doing surgery on someone, so I saw one of her partners, Dr. Jones. He was super nice and super gentle when examining me. He said he saw some normal discharge in there, but not the watery stuff I was describing. Hmm. I told him about the tampon test, which he said was really smart thinking. He thinks I have a fissure, and I have to get tested to find out for sure. Basically, a fissure is a tear and he thinks that I have one at the bottom of my bladder that's causing small amounts of urine to leak into my vagina and come out that way - hence the watery discharge. So basically I was right AND wrong, because if this is the case, it means I am leaking pee, just not from my pee hole. So now I'm scheduled to go in at 7:30 Monday morning to have a CT scan where they inject dye into my bladder to see where it goes, if there is indeed a fissure, and identify the exact location of it. I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another. I asked him is I could just take some Azo and see that way, because Azo turns your pee bright orange and if it's leaking into my vag and coming out there, then it'll be on the tampon. I wish you could've seen his face when I asked that. He said it was genius.
I will say that yesterday, I did perform my Azo test, but results were inconclusive for reasons I won't get into, except to say that there was orange on the tampon, but not in the place you'd think it would be, so we were confused. We, as in me and Kris. He's the best. You know, when you meet an awesome man and fall in love, you plan your life and you make the "for better or worse" vows but you never really expect the worse part to happen. But he stayed though it all, right by my side, and yesterday, he stood right there and physically analyzed this used tampon with me. Then we took new/clean tampons and performed experiments with them to try to recreate the liquid flow that my body creates. We used Listerine since it's colored and it as right there. We didn't learn anything from our experiment, but I will say that was the freshest-smelling tampon ever. So now we just wait until Monday and find out what in the world is going on. Personally I am just hoping it's a side effect of the hormone pills since I didn't have this discharge until *after* I started taking them, and I'll know soon since I quit taking them. I'm really hoping it's NOT a fissure like the doctor thinks, because in his words - "it's not something that is easily corrected." Surgery would be required. I'm trying not to think much about that right now, since I really don't think that's the case.
Soooooo, that's where we are now.
No comments:
Post a Comment