Part 8

After surgery, I spend the next couple days recovering.  By Monday, I feel pretty good – and it’s a good thing because we are hosting Thanksgiving in four days and both my mother and mother-in-law will be arriving on Wednesday.

I am up and moving about pretty well by Wednesday – and even took a trip grocery shopping for Thanksgiving supplies with my mom when she arrived in town – not bad for less than a week after surgery.  However – I’m am not the best person when it comes to understanding my own limitations.  So I pushed it – feeling like superwoman.  At this point, the only thing I feel like I can’t do is wear pants that zipped.  With one of my incisions right at my belly button, pants with zippers pull and rip the incision every time I sit down or get back up – murder.

It’s now Thanksgiving Day and I find myself pushing even further.  I am standing most of the morning, moving about the kitchen, chopping and stuffing and bending up and down, in and out of the oven.  With two perfectly capable and talented cooks at our house (our mothers), I should be letting them help – but I don’t.  I’m not sure if this is because I’ve never “hosted” Thanksgiving all by myself and have something to prove OR that I do – more than anything – love cooking for people.  It brings me great joy: a trait I believe I got from my grandmother.

But, irregardless of cause, I pushed it too far and by the end of the day I am in pretty severe pain.  I guess that’s what I get for attempting cook an entire Thanksgiving meal.  I spent the rest of the evening and most of that weekend on the couch – vertical.

It’s now Sunday evening and by the time our mothers depart my incisions are throbbing.  I knew I needed to take it easy – which would be no easy task for me – especially because one of our biggest conferences of the year was coming up that week.  So that Monday morning, I call Dr. Bean’s office and ask if I can move my surgery follow-up appointment up.  I want to have him look at everything, get a refill on my pain meds, and feel good about my recovery before I head to Orlando for the conference for 5 days.

That afternoon, Ben and I are in Dr. Bean’s office.  When the nurse shows me to the patient room, I was relieved to learn that I don’t have to strip down and put a gown on.  I already felt like I’ve shown enough to Dr. Bean and the world.  A few minutes later, Dr. Bean walks in.  He’s always so kind and warm and caring and calming.  I feel myself give a sigh of relief that he’s there – I don’t know why – I just trust him.

Dr. Bean asks me to lay down and he takes a look at my incisions.  He agrees that we might have a potential infection brewing at the incision in my belly button.  He writes a prescription for some antibiotic and some more pain medication.  Then he says, “Let’s chat about your surgery since you’re here, that way you don’t have to come in again next week.”

Just then, he pulls a single sheet of paper out of my file.  On the sheet of paper are six pictures – they’re pictures that the scope took during my surgery.  He pulls out a pen and he begins pointing and explaining what I am looking at:

“You see Jessica, this is what I saw when we stuck the scope in.  (I look at the picture and all I see is a white mass – I have no idea what it is.)  I could barely get it into your abdomen.  What we’re looking at is your small intestines, sitting right on top of your uterus.  Okay….  That’s not abnormal, but when we attempted to move them to get further into your pelvic cavity, we realized, they were fused – likely from the endometriosis.”

Dr. Bean then moves to the next picture.

“What you see here is what we found as we began to separate your intestines.  That dark red-chocolatey stuff is the endometriosis.  (What I see looks like the German sausage served in Sister Act 2 to the nuns and priests, topped with blackberry jelly.)  It had fused your intestines into a ball.  I can’t imagine the pain you were in and the trouble you were having with bowel movements.  This was pretty bad.”

Dr. Bean begins pointing to the next picture…

“Once we got your intestines out of the way, I found that your ovaries, fallopian tubes were also fused by the endometriosis.  (I can’t describe what I am looking at.  Human insides and blood.  That’s all I have.  He’s pointing to some of the picture and telling me that’s my tube or ovary – all I see is blackberry jelly.)  In fact, essentially everything in your pelvic cavity was pretty much stuck in one big ball.  That would explain why when we did the HSG test, the right tube was blocked – it was fused to your uterus.  The organs in your pelvic cavity are not supposed to be stuck together.”

Dr. Bean stopped and looked up at me for the first time since he pulled out the pictures and said, “The good news is that we freed up most of everything in your pelvic cavity.  You should have significantly less pain.  Your endometriosis was pretty bad, but it’s manageable with birth control.  Once your incisions are healed you should feel a lot better.”

Then Dr. Bean pauses,

“But, because of the severity of your endometriosis and the likely damage that occurred to your reproductive organs because of the endometriosis, the bad news is that I do not believe that you are going to be able to have kids on your own.  I’d like to refer you to Dr. Carnovale to seek fertility treatment.  You’re going to need assistance getting pregnant.”

Wait, what?

“You’re not going to be able to have kids on your own.”

Those words – “You’re not going to be able to have kids on your own”…like a knife.  No matter how much you prepare yourself for the bad news…nothing prepares you for those words.

I just sat there, nodding, looking at Dr. Bean, with absolutely nothing I could say.  I was blank.

Dr. Bean then continued, “Dr. Carnovale can take a couple months to get the first appointment.  I’d recommend you and Ben keep trying naturally until then.  I’m not going to put you on birth control.  That will also help Dr. Carnovale start a treatment protocol for you right away, sometimes they have to wait a month if a woman’s on birth control.  You guys keep trying naturally.  Sometimes after surgery women end up getting pregnant because everything is back to normal.”

Dr. Bean hands me my handwritten prescriptions and Dr. Carnovale’s card and says, “I’d call to make an appointment today.  The sooner, the better.”

I got up, slowly, from the table and looked at Dr. Bean and said, “Do you think I’ll be able to have children at all?”

Dr. Bean looks at me straight in the eye and says, “Yes.  You’re just going to need some help.”

Ben and I leave the office and I’m in a daze.  I’ve got nothing.  As we’re driving back home, Ben, in an effort to offer some comfort says, “It’s not a death sentence.  We can still have kids.  We just may need some help.”

I look at him, tears in my eyes, and say, “You’re right.”