Hi Hi, how is everyone doing today? I am sleepy! This is a running theme in my life by the way, I am obsessed with sleep, I average about 4/5 hours most nights. I complain of tiredness all day long but rarely take naps and for some reason, no matter how exhausted I am, about 9/10pm, I’d get a boost of energy from God alone knows where that keeps me going again for hours. I do not know who swore for me like this but please have mercy! Anyway, we move! Thank you for the kind feedback and support for Toyin who shared last week on her thyroidectomy, I passed on the love to her and simultaneously twisted Kasie’s arm into sharing her own journey today. Every time she will say to me after reading a post “What did I just read ehn?”, but when I ask her to share, she avoids me. Nobody can avoid me, Lol, honestly I am a bug, I am the T in tenacious and I am used to dealing with objections since I have a career in Sales! So please, future story tellers, save us both the heartache and open up when I ask, you hear? *coughs Hi Tutu coughs*.
Alright then, let us begin. After harassing Kasie to share, she begins like this. This is my very incomplete story, I pause here to highlight that none of us have complete stories, we are all dealing with life. There is no future to look forward to where life will not happen, I really wish there was. Look at me, despite my “beautiful womb” shoutout from my gynae last year, I still have pains and numbness in my lower abdomen, no one has been able to tell me why. I recently resumed running after a two-year break, the pain in my lower pelvic after each run leaves me frustrated. I reckon the muscles there are confused by this assault in the name of exercise. Oh, I also get abdominal pains when I am ovulating, which I never got before my surgery so… I never listen when people say they do not want to share because their journey is evolving. We are all work in progress.
Back to the matter, Kasie is currently recuperating from a Hysteroscopy which is a procedure to evaluate the womb’s condition and conduct any kind of removals for polyps, fibroids or abnormal growth if found. This week, she is scheduled for a post procedure care, the doctors had placed a silicone seal within her womb to manage adhesions from the procedure which will be removed during her check up. How did we get here?
She says, let us go back a very very long time ago to puberty. She had always suffered Dysmenorrhea which is essentially very painful periods. The initial start to her menstruation was drama free with no pain but things changed quickly at age 18-19 when she developed severe pain which would see her taking pain medications days before the period to cushion the effects of what lay ahead. Her periods always arrived with a slew of ailments- vomiting, nausea, fever, stooling, severe sweating, bouts of pain so intense she would retch, throwing up the pain medication and then she will begin the cycle again. She has a lightbulb moment as she shares and muses out loud, I wonder how I pulled through for years. I just realized, every 3-5 days each month for 12 months since puberty (She is in her mid-late thirties now), I have been dealing with pain, this is crazy. Every episode, I think God, I can’t do it but next month I do and survive it.
She recalls a particular incident when she was in so much pain, she blacked out and had to be revived. Pain injections were the only remedy for this situation as regular pain killers were too mild. In 2014, the pain graduated from painful period to pain even on off period days and began to affect her lifestyle like exercise. She tells me, remember when we would go running, I would double down due to the pain on one side. I remember us running, and her taking breaks but she never told me it was from this sort of ordeal. I have to digress here, Interesting how two people can bond on life and share laughter and sweat sef but such an important part of the other’s struggle is not touched on? We ran at least three times a week, sometimes it would be long 10km walks when we talk about “life”, career, or man problems. Please, who did man ever help in this life now!! And how is it that those career moments that seemed so consuming at the time are no longer relevant today? We must do better with one another, more openness, more in-depth deliberate fusing of selves. Then again people do not like to hear of struggles, this is a sad fact, and it is probably why social media is only awash with nicely filtered lives. A friend once told me she couldn’t wait for my fibroids surgery to be done with so she could hear other things from me, well imagine how that felt. I have now filtered what is said. Vulnerability is how we should connect, if you are dealing with a tough moment, share with someone, find a way to let people in. Anyway, I am not surprised Kasie would hide stuff, she is painfully secretive, I still love her like that sha. I just laughed out loud recalling the man in her life then that was giving us sleepless night. Nonsense and Rubbish!!!
Back to serious matters, as the pain continued to affect her lifestyle, she sought help, an abdominal scan would indicate the presence of cysts. These cysts were quite tiny that the doctors surmised it could not be the cause of the intense pain she was dealing with. She was placed on Zoladex which to me is the actual devil incarnate, Tueh. She began the treatment immediately and her periods ceased as is expected for one year, she says it was a huge relief, If Zoladex with all its side effects was a relief then I cannot imagine what her pain levels were, the needle alone used to inject this hormone into the abdomen is traumatizing. Post the treatment, she had a checkup where it was observed that the cysts were gone, her dysmenorrhea also significantly improved when her period resumed.
In 2018/2019, the pain intensified again with a sharp pain to her side. She went back to the hospital and had a scan done. It was discovered that the cysts had regrown, she decided to remedy this naturally and embarked on a plant-based diet. She says I started eating just grass. I laughed, Kasie is a small size 6-8 so eating grass is not something she is used to I suppose. She restricted her diet to basically broccoli, barbeque fish, sweet peppers and sweet potatoes every day for months and at her next check up 6 months down the live, the cysts were gone. She says, that is how I know you can change your meals and change your life. I might need to adopt this diet myself and see for myself. I went Pescatarian in January, cutting out red meat, sugar and processed food, I really should stick to this diet as it banished bloating and lethargy.
Ehen as Kasie was saying, she tried to maintain this clean diet but fell off the bandwagon as expected, that was quite restrictive. In 2020, the pain had returned, and she went back at the hospital where the test results were inconclusive. The doctors would say, we see something but not sure what it is – some pelvic inflammatory disease, gonorrhoea that was not well treated, she laughs here…not only gonorrhoea, When it was not like “I was doing the do”, she means sex here of course. People are still shy to say sex in 2022, Lol. A CT scan will reveal what looked like a cyst, they surgery was proposed to have it removed. She has a successful laparoscopy which diagnosed on entry, small cysts but severe endometriosis. She was advised to have a baby right away (every gynaecologist favourite advice) to help with easing this, she was placed on Zoladex in the interim to treat the adhesions seen internally where her digestive colons were stuck together. It had resulted to a pulling of right fallopian tube and ovary, displacing them. The left area was in good condition hence the doctors impressed upon her the urgency to have that baby right away. During the surgery, they tried to separate her organs which were tightly coiled together, and she started losing blood so they stopped as all the essential professionals needed for a successful surgery were not in the theatre. Another operation to separate all the organs when all the experts would be available was recommended.
Kasie had just started dating her now husband, it was new new and no serious conversations had ensured so, how does one now start talking about baby? I really wish doctors would be mindful about this advice, I have seen the pressure it causes, I had a friend’s lover abscond once she told him about this kind of news from the doctor. This is the 21st century, surely the options should not get pregnant alone! I am chuckling, so many sperm donor roaming about and not even aware. In 2021, she sought a second opinion and had another scan done which further confirmed the first diagnosis. The doctors did advise treating the endometriosis first before trying for a baby to increase the chances of conception. In Mid 2021, the pain had now spread from the right side to her back as well, apparently, the process of trying to separate her internal organs had caused more scar tissues and further adhesions thereby aggravating the pain. Life had become unbearable as she was always taking pain medications as well as and carrying a hot water bottle constantly with her, piping hot weather or not. Of course, she ended us frustrated and tired of managing things but there was more to come. In September 2021, her monthly periods became erratic, and spells of hot flashes started occurring. This led to mood swings and irritation with anything, and everyone as can be expected. Finally, her hair started to fall out. Kasie has long full hair, I used to tease her that hers was like that guy in globetrotter, I have linked it if you can’t remember the guy in question, full wild afro that feels like she could pull out a train from within. Her hair started falling out in very large clumps, she says handfuls, enough to be on someone’s entire head, she had a noticeable bald patch even though she has very fast growth. Off to the hospital again and this time around, a different diagnosis, Primary ovarian insufficiency. This happens when the ovaries stop producing estrogen before menopause. It is common with people diagnosed with endometriosis. It is essentially early infertility characterized by infrequent menstruation or monthly ovulation with no egg production. Basically, having a baby as soon as possible was now a loud siren in her ears, she would have to go the assisted pregnancy route as natural conception was near impossible. It was also observed that it would be difficult to harvest her own eggs because egg production response was low based on results from test carried out, she had reserves in the minus range. They also believed that inducing her to stimulate egg production might not be responsive, their best advice was to consider donor eggs.
This was very heavy news to take in she states, I am grateful to be alive in the 21st century where advanced options are available, and people are open minded about these things but this news hit me hard. She says “Nnenna, science has found opportunities for people to have children if they really want to and I am willing to embrace all the options available to me”.
Let us go back to where we began with the recuperation, Kasie has decided she would go through with the process of ovulation induction to harvest her eggs despite the odds, one or two is what she hopes for and she expresses her faith in God to pull through. Her Hysteroscopy results were positive, her womb is in good condition so for now, healing from the surgery is her focus then on to removal of the silicone this week and when her period resumes, she will commence treatments to induce ovulation so yeah, incomplete…she trails off here…
Thank you Kasie for letting me hound you into sharing. I want to write that I feel bad I harassed you into sharing, but I am not sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Okay I am, thank you for letting me share your journey. You are in my thoughts and prayers as you know. This is where I leave things off for now. As always, I welcome your thoughts, comments, and shares, and don’t forget to follow @ourwombs on Instagram where I share quick finds or remedies about women’s health. I have made a promise to myself to write something light next week. I mean there are light moments in these our wombs, no? I want to write about something hilarious like UTIs…I chuckle here because that thing is even more devilish than Zoladex. That is all for now, I am off to eat puff-puff at my friend’s birthday. Byeeeeeeeeeeeee
Thanks for sharing Nnenna…..Every time I read, I’m astounded by all the different issues/silent battles ladies go through but more importantly by the strength these ladies have shown. I have said a prayer for Kasie and she’ll birth her bundle of joy.
Thanks for sharing. I pray for her complete healing and there is nothing too hard for the Lord she will have a baby