On The Road to Recovery Part 1

I promised myself hat once I had something to update you all regarding my period then I would. So here I am, with an update that I have found a consultant who is willing to stop my periods. I intend to try and keep a more active log of my journey of how I’m getting on with things, as there are a few things that are happening that I know an outlet of stuff might be a safe space for me to create and a journey to share with you all.

My periods, as you all know, have been dreadful as I’ve chronicled in posts past. Through an incident at work that caused me to haemorrhage suddenly and I had to go straight to a doctor I had another altercation with a GP about my periods. She assured me while shaking before her that I would not get seen by a gynaecologist due to my previous disputes with my last gynaecologist. Openly asked me if I would consider psychiatric care to continue down the lines of asking for medical professionals to deal with my uterus. Nonetheless, she sent a letter away for me to go and see another private consultant. I got a letter back with an appointment 3 months away, which I thought odd. Usually going private here means that you get seen fairly quickly, but this was unusual.

Going to the appointment made me nervous, after all, going through so many consultants who didn’t listen to me and I wasn’t optimistic about giving myself to the process again only to be ignored. She, amazingly, didn’t have any of my previous history notes, said she didn’t need them. That she wanted to start fresh with me so I told her everything and she took detailed notes. We arranged for my blood test results from the Haematologist to be sent to her as we’d already ruled out a blood disorder. She immediately scheduled me for an MRI and talked to me about being put on a GnRH analogue with add back hormones but that we’d try and talk through the other options first. As a hysterotomy/laparoscopy may be required as well. She was going to take my file and bring it to her review board, as my case was super unusual and then a letter would be sent out to me with the results of the discussions along with the next steps. In the meantime, I was to call the nurse at 8:30 am for my results from the analysis. I left with a prescription for 2mg of oestrogen that she hoped would help ease some of my period-related symptoms — it had some effect. It certainly slowed the rate of the bleeding and some of the pain but I had it for a longer period of time, and I couldn’t tell in an 8 week period if that was my body adjusting to the new hormones or not. I figured it was related, as I broke out quite a bit with the new hormones. So I knew myself an adjustment period would be required. I would get super greasy everywhere for those first few weeks. So the adjustment wasn’t terribly smooth, cosmetically or internally.

By the time I got around to calling the nurse, she couldn’t tell me much on the phone. Just that the discussion happened and that she couldn’t say yes or no that my scan was clear. Needless to say, that’s worrying. A week later, a clerical error resulted in my letter being sent to my GP, and I wound up being called by a very concerned sounding doctor from my GP’s clinic asking if I could come in to talk to her. It was about my letter. I went in the next day to collect my letter and was greeted with my doctor who just asked me if I was ok with what was in the contents and I said yes at the time, but I wasn’t. What does “essentially” normal mean? That’s not the same as clear? Why do you want to stop my periods immediately and put me on the GnRH analogue? Wasn’t that meant to be our last resort?

I called the nurse to try and talk through the letter that I received. Turns out my uterus is very deep set in my body, usually so apparently and that it’s anteverted. An anteverted uterus isn’t anything to be concerned about but sometimes added pain is cause enough to look for things like endometriosis and other things. I was initially reluctant to go on the GnRH analogue as I thought that it was a last resort, and the nurse said since I had so many questions that I should go and talk to my Gynaecologist about it, but she was unsure if she could get me in before Christmas. I debated it, for me it was all very sudden.

However, what sealed the deal for me making the jump to the GnRH was the fact I had one of the worst periods I had in a while. Vomiting, and having diarrhoea on top of the loss of blood and period pain I experienced was horrendous. Splintor and I sat on our bathroom floor while I wept and told him I had to take the prescription, that I couldn’t endure this anymore when there was a solution in a bottle somewhere for me. I know he supports me in whatever decisions I make about my body, but the prospect of putting myself into a “fake” menopausal status at 26 is terrifying. If I’m honest, I’m not certain which I fear the most, a life without my period or the fact I may like it.

Nothing sums up the feeling better than a quote from “The Great American Game” by Levi the Poet

Yeah, it’s painful, but it’s familiar — so habit breeds comfort, and I don’t know what I’d do without him.

I’ve existed for most of my life with this as a menace, but I don’t know what a life without it is like and as much as I often wish for nothing more than for it to end. I fear what it means to have that be a reality. Reading the warning labels on the bottles would have anyone running scared, but for something so expensive simple, could this really be the solution?

I don’t know. I’m on the nasal spray (2 pumps. One in each nostril) and the oestrogen supplement nearly a week at the time of writing, I feel no different. However, I’m due a period in the next 2–5 days, and I’m not sure when it’s meant to take effect. (I didn’t get a set date from my gynaecologist when to take the spray — my periods are sporadic at best, so I don’t think in this instance it would have mattered when I started it) If I get a period will this be my last one? How do I feel about the potential of that or what if it doesn’t work and it’s not my last one?

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions, either for myself or you. Though, I do intend to keep you informed of my progress as my thoughts form about it.