Air (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lighterthanair) wrote2013-02-25 01:29 pm
lighterthanair) wrote2013-02-25 01:29 pm
Entry tags:
Apparently, I will be getting surgery.
(I promise I'm going to write about stuff other than my health today. Just... later in the entry.)
Not a hysterectomy, however. Dr. S still doesn't feel that's warranted, though I'm aware that's partly because I'm of child-bearing age and nobody believes me when I say that I don't want children. But given the circumstances, she still thinks that a day surgery to insert an IUD and to take a sample of the uterine lining would be a good idea.
I'm of two minds about this. One one hand, all the research I do says this ought to work to stop the heavy bleeding and actually return my life to rights. On the other hand, if it doesn't work, I'll be out $400 for the device, and will probably have to end up having my uterus removed anyway.
And even if it does work, it'll only work for 5 years. Which, yes, is a long time, but am I going to be in the same boat in 2018? Am I going to go back to heavy bleeding and massive pain and anemia?
She didn't give me too much info about this. The IUD's length of use I had to find out for myself. Now that I know a bit more, I have more questions. Is she going to keep looking for an underlying cause while the IUD's doing its thing? Would the IUD mask the problem, because I might not be showing symptoms to the 'correct' severity? I don't know these things, and I really wish I did.
But for the moment, there isn't much I can do. They'll call me to let me know the date of the surgery, and I can go from there.
She wants me to cut back on the desogestrel for now, though. Double dosing is just too risky, when you consider the risk of clots in my lungs, so I have to dial it back. If I experience another bout of heavy bleeding, I have to call her immediately and she'll do what she can to push the surgery forward. She also wants me to have another thyroid function test done, because she can't understand why Dr. K pretty much went, "Yup, your levels are fine so you don't need to take Synthroid anymore." That may not be the root cause of the problem, but it may be a contributing factor, and she wants to get to the bottom of this and eliminate what she can.
I'm definitely off work for another week or so, to continue to recover from lousy hemoglobin levels. I still get out of breath from walking up the flight of stairs to my apartment, and I've only managed to go a couple of days in total without needing at least one nap in the afternoon, just to keep me going until bedtime. I'm taking iron supplements and being careful about my activity levels, and trying not to get frustrated because I can't do as much as I want to do.
Anyway, in news that doesn't involve what's happening with my internal organs...
I've discovered the joy of Steam, and its many free MMOs. Currently I'm playing Everquest 2, and I have plans to hook up with a few people to play Star Trek Online at some point. I'm looking forward to it. I've been on a bit of a video game kick again, for the first time in years, and I don't know how long it'll last so I'm enjoying it while I can. It occured to me only today that I bought a couple of Humble Indie Bundles in the past, too, and I can register those through Steam, which is what I'm in the process of doing right now.
While also moving some other large files from my laptop to my external hard drive, to clear up some space. Haven't done that for a while, and things are getting cluttered. I suppose I'll also be able to delete the install fires for the Humble Bundle games that I downloaded, too, since I'm re-getting them through Steam. Ought to be able to clear a nice amount of space on my laptop's hard drive.
Still making my way through reruns of Star Trek: TNG, and laughing at the absurd amount of slashiness between Q and Picard. I swear now, watching that show as child much have planted the seeds of slash in my head to flourish as an adult!
Not to mention that I love making jokes about how the Q are just a bunch of space-faeries. Their powers, their arrogant superiority... It's so fitting! The jokes make themselves, sometimes.
I'm tearing my way through Betsy Dornbusch's Exile, which, coincidentally enough, is mildly slashy too. But that's only part of the enjoyment; the plot's quite interesting, the world she built is one that I like the feel of, and her writing is pretty good. Many thanks to Night Shade Books for the ARC, as usual. They provide me with so much reading material!
I seem to be getting a lot of packages in the mail lately, which makes me very happy, because I love receiving mail. My father sent me a box of goodies, among which was a fossil as long as my forearm, two boxes of green tea KitKats, and two boxes of strawberry milk mochi, which were shared with friends and eaten in just two nights! A friend from across the country sent me a copy of Dark Cloud 2, still shrink-wrapped, because I mentioned that I wanted to play the first game in the series after finding it in my bedroom the other week. And just today a package arrived containing a copy of China Mieville's The City and the City, which I won from a contest on a book blog. I feel so happy every day when I go to my mailbox and see even a letter there for me, let alone a whole package of things!
Not a hysterectomy, however. Dr. S still doesn't feel that's warranted, though I'm aware that's partly because I'm of child-bearing age and nobody believes me when I say that I don't want children. But given the circumstances, she still thinks that a day surgery to insert an IUD and to take a sample of the uterine lining would be a good idea.
I'm of two minds about this. One one hand, all the research I do says this ought to work to stop the heavy bleeding and actually return my life to rights. On the other hand, if it doesn't work, I'll be out $400 for the device, and will probably have to end up having my uterus removed anyway.
And even if it does work, it'll only work for 5 years. Which, yes, is a long time, but am I going to be in the same boat in 2018? Am I going to go back to heavy bleeding and massive pain and anemia?
She didn't give me too much info about this. The IUD's length of use I had to find out for myself. Now that I know a bit more, I have more questions. Is she going to keep looking for an underlying cause while the IUD's doing its thing? Would the IUD mask the problem, because I might not be showing symptoms to the 'correct' severity? I don't know these things, and I really wish I did.
But for the moment, there isn't much I can do. They'll call me to let me know the date of the surgery, and I can go from there.
She wants me to cut back on the desogestrel for now, though. Double dosing is just too risky, when you consider the risk of clots in my lungs, so I have to dial it back. If I experience another bout of heavy bleeding, I have to call her immediately and she'll do what she can to push the surgery forward. She also wants me to have another thyroid function test done, because she can't understand why Dr. K pretty much went, "Yup, your levels are fine so you don't need to take Synthroid anymore." That may not be the root cause of the problem, but it may be a contributing factor, and she wants to get to the bottom of this and eliminate what she can.
I'm definitely off work for another week or so, to continue to recover from lousy hemoglobin levels. I still get out of breath from walking up the flight of stairs to my apartment, and I've only managed to go a couple of days in total without needing at least one nap in the afternoon, just to keep me going until bedtime. I'm taking iron supplements and being careful about my activity levels, and trying not to get frustrated because I can't do as much as I want to do.
Anyway, in news that doesn't involve what's happening with my internal organs...
I've discovered the joy of Steam, and its many free MMOs. Currently I'm playing Everquest 2, and I have plans to hook up with a few people to play Star Trek Online at some point. I'm looking forward to it. I've been on a bit of a video game kick again, for the first time in years, and I don't know how long it'll last so I'm enjoying it while I can. It occured to me only today that I bought a couple of Humble Indie Bundles in the past, too, and I can register those through Steam, which is what I'm in the process of doing right now.
While also moving some other large files from my laptop to my external hard drive, to clear up some space. Haven't done that for a while, and things are getting cluttered. I suppose I'll also be able to delete the install fires for the Humble Bundle games that I downloaded, too, since I'm re-getting them through Steam. Ought to be able to clear a nice amount of space on my laptop's hard drive.
Still making my way through reruns of Star Trek: TNG, and laughing at the absurd amount of slashiness between Q and Picard. I swear now, watching that show as child much have planted the seeds of slash in my head to flourish as an adult!
Not to mention that I love making jokes about how the Q are just a bunch of space-faeries. Their powers, their arrogant superiority... It's so fitting! The jokes make themselves, sometimes.
I'm tearing my way through Betsy Dornbusch's Exile, which, coincidentally enough, is mildly slashy too. But that's only part of the enjoyment; the plot's quite interesting, the world she built is one that I like the feel of, and her writing is pretty good. Many thanks to Night Shade Books for the ARC, as usual. They provide me with so much reading material!
I seem to be getting a lot of packages in the mail lately, which makes me very happy, because I love receiving mail. My father sent me a box of goodies, among which was a fossil as long as my forearm, two boxes of green tea KitKats, and two boxes of strawberry milk mochi, which were shared with friends and eaten in just two nights! A friend from across the country sent me a copy of Dark Cloud 2, still shrink-wrapped, because I mentioned that I wanted to play the first game in the series after finding it in my bedroom the other week. And just today a package arrived containing a copy of China Mieville's The City and the City, which I won from a contest on a book blog. I feel so happy every day when I go to my mailbox and see even a letter there for me, let alone a whole package of things!