Have you ever had surgery? What for?

I have undergone two surgeries in the entire 31 years that I have walked this earth.

Allow me to explain.

The first surgery had occurred after I was diagnosed with endometriosis. For those of you who do not know what that is, it is a condition in which women have additional tissue grow around and sometimes inside their reproductive organs. If this condition goes untreated, it could progress to other organs in the body. When this condition occurs, it can cause irregular periods, break through bleeding, excruciating pain during a period or even during sexual inter course.

I had experienced the pain and irregular periods for about two years before I was officially diagnosed by my obgyn in January of 2022. My obgyn had me start off with an anti-inflammatory inclusion diet. This diet consisted of me taking away many of our favorite foods. These foods included red meat, processed sugar, dairy, caffeine and gluten. This information was given to me upon my doctor asking me if I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather emotionally lately. Initially I hadn’t until she prescribed me with my new “depressive diet”.

I jumped into this diet cold turkey and the first two weeks were extremely brutal without having at least a drop of caffeine coursing through my blood stream. I experienced headaches, nausea, fatigue and an insatiable appetite (once my nausea had been curbed). This diet remained in place for 90 days and within those 90 days, I had dropped 15 pounds without even regarding that as a singular goal. My overall goal was to try and determine which food group triggered my endometriosis pain the most.

During those 90 days, I had been working out 3-4 days a week while playing volleyball. What I can attest to is that by following this diet within a exceptionally strict regimen, I was able to move through the workouts without much difficulty. In fact, I even felt lighter and and more agile.

As time went on ( 3 months later) I had multiple internal ultrasounds performed to determine the rapid growth of a cyst on my left ovary. Once this cyst had exceeded the 3cm allowable threshold, my obgyn had scheduled surgery in fear that the cyst could potentially rupture my ovary.

My surgery was performed a few weeks later and it had marked the milestone of my very first surgery. All I can say is that it had been a very painful surgery upon waking up in the recovery room. Regardless of the medications the doctors and hospital staff had given me, I could still feel the pulsating pain from where they performed the laparoscopic procedure in my lower abdomen. After a couple of hours of being in post op recovery, they decided to finally discharge me and pulled the curtain over so I could change.

I must say that the most challenging part of this entire excursion was having to redress myself when I had multiple medications coursing through me. A few curse words and attempts at putting on (what I thought was the correct leg) through my pant legs, the nurse slid the curtain over with a large smile spread across her face. It was clear that she had heard my demonstration of colorful displeasure as I struggled to reclothe myself.

Once I was finally discharged from the hospital, the doctor had informed me that they were able to save my left ovary and removed all of the additional endometrial tissue around my reproductive organs.

A year and a half later..

My second surgery had occurred due to having a gall bladder that refused to function at more than 14 percent. These tests to determine chronic cholescitis involved an ultrasound, a HIDA scan and overall follow up with the general surgery department. The surgery itself only had taken a total of 45 minutes, however, trying to find my veins to be able to inject the intravenous fluids into my system took much longer ( thanks to my incredibly stubborn veins). This process had taken a total of four nurses and the ultrasound vein finder.

The first nurse had taken one look at me and said that she will cut her losses and have a more experienced nurse come in. Well the more experienced nurse arrived and tried and did not render successful. Each nurse that had tried all said the same thing “ well you’re just a challenge today.” They were not wrong but I also did warn them that they might struggle to find a vein. My sister had been sitting in a chair by my hospital bed and began to chuckle.

When the last nurse finally was able to locate a sturdy enough vein, the surgical team wheeled me into the operating room and placed a clear mask over my nose and mouth and instructed me to take a couple of deep breaths; within moments the entire room went black. Later, I woke up in recovery with the mention of a successful surgery and one less organ in my body.