On Stasis & Soul

I am feeling very stuck.

Not necessarily in a bad way, though. Things are normal. Even keel. Same old, same old.

Routine is routine. And I guess that's great and all. I thrive on solid routines.

But but but.

I am feeling wholly uninspired and stagnant and it all just feels so...icky.

I have had several near-breakthroughs in the last six weeks. Fleeting moments of sparked joy and purpose and the lightness that comes with a "yes, this is it!" feeling and then...nothing.

Silence.
No flames.
No sparks.
Just...ick.

Everything just kind of feels like that black and white fuzz you used to get on old TVs. Like maybe there's a picture there behind all that fuzz? But it's all distorted and weird and you can't really tell what the heck is going on.

And now I can feel that feeling manifesting physically, which is really THE WORST. I feel tired and lethargic. Just "meh". Very low vibe. No bueno.

Clarity.
Purpose.
Soul.
Community.
Momentum.

I am craving all of it, but I can't for the life of me visualize a viable way to create these things in my life, and do it consistently. I feel so. damn. close...yet still so far.

Stasis: another word for equilibrium. And also the conductor of my own personal struggle bus--because I am in a funk of the most epic proportions right now.

I sit here and wonder if the universe put me here to really shake things up and make a difference somehow. I feel called. But how? Where do I start? There is zero clarity. It's so frustrating.

Finding that thing, MY thing that really sets my soul on fire. I need me some of that.

This is all so millennial of me, isn't it?

Gross.

Lynch Syndrome--So Can I Join the X-Men Now?

I'm fairly used to my body failing me. It's happened twice in the last six years.

First time: 2011. I was in labor with my daughter. I had developed preeclampsia. My blood pressure spiked severely after hours of labor and after failing to progress in dilation, I wound up with an emergency c-section. I can very vividly remember the guilt I felt. I tried so hard to avoid an invasive procedure, had the perfect vision of how Peyton's birth would go...and instead I wound up in an OR, the very last person to hold my (thankfully healthy) baby girl because my body just couldn't deal. I grieved, albeit selfishly, for the birth experience I wanted to have but couldn't.

Second time: 2013. I was 14 weeks pregnant with my second child. I went to the doctor for a routine check-up and ultrasound and discovered that my baby had stopped growing. My body never physically miscarried. My pregnancy symptoms were getting stronger. There hadn't been a heart beating inside me for weeks and my body just...carried on with business as usual. I can very vividly remember how betrayed I felt by my own body, being wheeled (yet again) into an OR for a D&E because the risk of infection was too great and my body wasn't working the way it was supposed to. This time I grieved for the baby I'd never know.

And now, I am faced with yet another blow regarding the ineffectiveness of my human body, this time slightly more sinister and a lot more long-term: in January 2017, I was diagnosed with Lynch Syndrome.

Lynch Syndrome, also known as hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer (HNPCC), is a hereditary disease caused by a mutation in a mismatch repair gene (mine is MSH2) which ultimately gives me a significantly elevated risk for a whole slew of cancers, including two big risks: colorectal cancer and endometrial cancer; but also: stomach cancer; ovarian cancer; gastrointestinal cancer; bladder cancer; kidney cancer; liver cancer; pancreatic cancer; skin cancer; brain cancer...and a few more.

And if that list doesn't leave you scratching your head thinking, 'What's left?', WAIT THERE'S MORE...cancer diagnoses usually occur pretty young in patients with Lynch Syndrome.

So basically, I'm a mutant. But instead of doing cool things like showing off my superhuman strength or harnessing my telepathic powers for the greater good, I'm just SUPER likely to get cancer at a young age.

Jean Grey I am not. How disappointing. Very anticlimactic.

My diagnosis left me very frustrated and defeated. But when you're lucky enough to be armed with your damning genetic information like I am, it would be stupid not to act on it.

I put on my big girl pants and I started making doctor appointments. ALL THE DOCTORS APPOINTMENTS.

The number of specialists I have seen and screening procedures I have had since April makes my head spin. I had my very first colonoscopy and endoscopy in May. They found two polyps during that procedure. This is what drove the gravity of my diagnosis home: had I NOT known about my mutation, I wouldn't have had my first colonoscopy until 50 at the very least...could that have been cancer in a few years? The statistics say yes, probably so. Instead, the doctor removed the polyps and I get to go back next year to do it all over again.

In the last three weeks alone, I've had one skin biopsy on my stomach, a uterine biopsy, an IUD inserted (due to research that suggests such devices can minimize the risk of uterine cancer), and a second skin biopsy on my left glute. I am sitting here on my fluffy pillow nursing my wounds and really--it's all emotionally and physically exhausting. I have never felt more tired and defeated in my entire life...and I haven't even gone into detail about the potential ramifications this has for my daughter's health and that of any children I have in the future (Peyton currently has a 50% chance of having Lynch Syndrome, too, which we will test for when she turns 18).

There is something very morose about looking at your body in the mirror and KNOWING you're playing more of a "when" game than an "if" game. That the odds are stacked against me, and the routine of doctors and screenings are a permanent fixture of my life until they either find cancer and I swiftly kick its ass (a likely scenario), or I die of natural causes at a happy old age.

This is my new normal. And yet I wonder--

Maybe there CAN be something superhuman about me, too?

My father has been bravely fighting cancer since 2015 and is the reason I know I have Lynch Syndrome--because he has it too. His strength is the very definition of superhuman. He is missing a section of his colon and one of his kidneys and is STILL fighting the good fight against the cancer currently housed up in his liver. And his determination has never faltered--not one minute.

When I talk to him on the phone and I hear the pain or sense the slightest edge of discouragement in his voice, he still presses on.

After enough rounds of chemotherapy that I've lost count--he still presses on. Trying the newest treatment, determined to beat this disease that his body is simply hardwired to be susceptible to.

When a lot of people might have given up, refused treatment and given in to cancer...my dad presses on.

I got my Lynch Syndrome from my dad, yes--but I pray every day I also get my superhuman strength from him, too.

So Dad, when do we get to join the X-men for real?

The One Where I Got the IUD

So. yesterday I got an IUD.

Glad I can say I did it because I can assure you it will never happen again. When it's time to remove it in five years they can just leave it where it is and take my entire uterus out of my body because I am NOT having that thing dragged back through my cervix.

No way.
No how.
GTFO.

After talking with my OB/GYN regarding my Lynch Syndrome diagnosis, my reproductive plans, and potential future prophylactic surgical options, she kindly brought up the fact that there has been some research suggesting that a hormonal IUD can, in fact, help prevent cancer. She made the suggestion that I should maybe consider getting one and keeping it until I either decide to have another baby or have my hysterectomy/oopherectomy.

Well then. Sign me up. Anything to help prevent cancer when the odds are so stacked against me as it is. So I made another appointment for a few weeks away for a brand new Mirena and went on my merry way.

The very premise of no-effort, long-term birth control is amazing. The idea of maybe not having a period: also amazing. I'd literally lay on my back for five minutes and walk out with five years of baby protection AND the added benefit of shorter, lighter, maybe non-existent periods, and maybe even a chance my uterus would not give in to my pesky cancer gene.

This is the part where the rosy glow starts to wear off a little bit.

I had done some research on first-person accounts of the insertion procedure itself. Reports varied, to say the very least. Some people claimed it was NBD. Others claimed the pain was horrendous.

However, I KNEW I could handle it. I was in non-medicated labor for almost 12 hours with Peyton until I caved and got an epidural, and then I got myself cut open hip to hip and had a small person forcibly removed from my body. I could handle a little bit of cramping. This would be a breeze.

The day of my appointment. I was mentally prepared. I took a couple of ibuprofen an hour before my appointment. I knew what to expect--and then once I got there my doctor was like "yeeeeeeah, we're going to talk more about your cancer risks and then let's go ahead and do a biopsy instead today before we put this plastic inside your uterus." He did the biopsy, and then rescheduled my IUD insertion for later in the week.

And that was the first day in one week my cervix was breached and my uterus was violated.

The morning of my rescheduled appointment I forgot to take my ibuprofen, but now I know it would have done NOTHING. Literally, zero. A horse tranquilizer would have maybe helped a little bit better.

Once I was comfortably resting on my back, feet a-stirruped and pried open with what I can only describe as the mother of all speculums (speculi?), my doctor said, "Okay, quick pinch."

Friends, that was not a pinch. It might has well have been a swarm of angry hornets blasting through my cervix.

"Two more quick pinches."

And then I unleashed all the expletives and questioned every motive I had to get this devil's contraption put inside of my body. No babies? No periods? No cancer? Who gives a crap.

Literally it was maybe 90 seconds of pain, but WHAT THE HELL. It felt like my uterus has been sucker punched. Repeatedly.

Any procedure done while I am still awake that causes me to break out in a cold, clammy sweat and threaten vomit that is NOT childbirth...is not a procedure for me.

I have never been so betrayed by a tiny piece of plastic before.

I decided that I could handle the remainder of the work day, but to be honest--I must have blacked out on the way to the office because one minute I'm in my car and the next minute I was sitting down at my desk, grasping the edge of it with white knuckles and grimacing through the pain that I was FINE. This is fine. I'll be fine.

But instead I was 99% sure that my body was doing everything in its power to push that tiny little T-shape out of my uterus and back to hell where it belongs. So I texted my mom, my sister, my friends, and my boyfriend that I thought I was dying and started saying my goodbyes.

Today I woke up and I felt fine. So anti-climactic.

Was the pain worth it? I guess we'll find out.

So yeah, I got my Mirena.



{Pssssst....donate to Planned Parenthood here}