defective plumbing

since the health card doctor diagnosed me with endometrial cysts way back in 2002 (has it really been that long?), an ultrasound has been pretty much a way of life for me. thank goodness that soon after i got operated on (to remove cysts, which eventually led to a ruptured ovary, leaving me with one fully-functional ovary) tita celia trained to perform ultrasounds - these days, no matter what my health card states (it's almost always a pre-existing condition, boo!), i can get myself checked out for free.

or, well, at least all it would take is a weekend away from manila + the bus fare to get here.

in any case, my period the past couple of months has been the horrible kind, so while i'm not exactly the pill-popping kind of girl (i actually abhor taking meds), i've resorted to regularly to pain medication. thing is, i just don't get PMS when it's close to my period -- once in a while, i get major cramping, the kind that makes me want to double up and ask the doctor to take out every bit of reproductive organ i have, just to make the pain stop. but, since i know what i have, and i know in my mind that this is part of the entire prognosis, i'm pretty much resigned to things being the way the are. it's not like some miracle will restore my ovary to full health, right?

this morning i had another ultrasound and as my aunt probed and poked around (it sure does feel that way!), she made the tsk!tsk! sound several times and proclaimed that while my ovary is healthy (miracle!), my uterus isn't. turns out i have this.

if the wikipedia article could be trusted, then i could very well say i'm an overachiever (or at least my reproductive system is -- while it rarely occurs together with endometriosis (10%) and in women from 35 to 50, i, the girl who had endometrial cysts + is only 34 years old have been diagnosed with it. it isn't cool, but it's good to know that there are parts of me that aim to be "ahead" of the pack.

still:

1. it's not cancer

2. i'm not dying

3. it'll go away once i enter menopause

and for now, those three things are good enough for me.

pain, horrible pain.

right now i am in so much pain that i wish i could cease to exist.

okay, that may be partly drama but if you know me in real life, you'd also know that (1) i'm not the type who takes a lot of medication, even pain medication; (2) i am as tough as they come; and (3) it takes a huge lot to get me to be absent for work. so when i say i am in pain, i really am in major pain.

boo.

right now i'm experiencing extreme menstrual cramps. eight years ago (it's been that long?) i had an operation which resulted in the removal of one of my ovaries. i remember the doctor saying then i should get married within a two-year period and me thinking "like i could buy a husband from mercury drug". i remember her telling me that my condition was more or less permanent, that what they did then was merely a stop-gap measure, and that unless i get myself a husband and babies soon, well, there's the huge possibility that it was all going to come back and haunt me.

a friend told me then i should get my eggs frozen. but i was 25, was dating someone amazing, and was confident that it wouldn't be long before i "solve" my problem with marriage. now, 8 years later, with no prospect in sight, i still think i made the right decision. after all, what good are frozen eggs if no one was going to be father of the babies, right?

anyway, sometime september of last year, i began experiencing major pain and, after an ultrasound, my aunt/doctor confirmed that indeed, the cyst is back. it wasn't ginormous yet, but since we only had one ovary to work with, we had to be aggressive. so i took hormones, and then she put me on pills, and then i got a procedure done, and then i went on injectibles.

for a while, they all worked. and they'd stop working, and i'm back to experiencing the horrible stuff that goes with my condition: major menstrual cramps, a painful lower back (apparently the cyst pushes the other organs), and regular bleeding.

sometimes i wonder if the pain is all worth it. if maybe i should just ask them to remove everything. after all, i am 33. no one's in the horizon. (and after dating the last person i dated, i know for a fact that there is nothing in the universe that will force me to settle down with anyone out of sheer desperation. been there, done that. alone is way, way better than being with a horrible person.) maybe all this pain isn't worth it. maybe preserving my remaining ovary isn't worth it. maybe i should just ask them to open me up again, take everything away, and leave me pain free, worry free, and, unfortunately, ovary-free.

then again, maybe it's just the pain talking.

and for the sake of my future husband (hello, hello, wherever you are!) and our beautiful spawn, i do hope that it is.