Hi there! I trust everyone is well and having a good start to the weekend.
I am okay-ish. My left side hurts. I can feel the egg making its merry way through my body in time for my period. Every once in a while, it sends out a pulsating sharp pain to announce that there are red days ahead. OF course, I am eating anyhow - I just consumed a large bowl of garri and groundnut before settling in to write. So delicious and frustrating at the same time, considering I should be consuming only alive/blanched things in the name of diet. But you know what? This life is for the living, I cannot kill myself ;-). I stumbled upon a meme a week ago saying women only have one week of the month to themselves if you think about it; there is PMS week, ovulation week and period week. Truer words have never been said.
Anyhow, we move. Today, I am honoured to share Obehi’s journey with you all. Behi is my “girlfriend” and I mean it like that. Lol. She and I have been friends since 2007 I believe and she’s such a joy. She is 30% the inspiration for Our wombs because she is very open about her journey. Watching her undergo her myomectomy like a queen gave me the courage to take out my fibroids and get on with life. Shall we begin?
Obehi will say that her first Aha moment regarding her womb would be on a date. She was 21. “I was out on a date and enjoying life, all of a sudden I felt this sharp excruciating pain in my abdomen. I went to the bathroom and could not stand, I immediately thought maybe it was appendicitis. I was hunched over and took some painkillers which provided no relief. She would have it checked in the hospital, and it was an ovarian cyst. Within three days, she went from hot date to theatre. When she was rushed to the hospital for initial check up, the doctor kept asking her, Are you a virgin? In front of her mother no less. Hahahaha. I am convinced this is the favourite question for all doctors in the world. Yes, I understand that a lot of probes go into the vagina to check out things, but nobody cannot tell me this is not also done with some element of glee, in Nigeria at least. Obehi said she told the doctor her and her boyfriend have been playing Ten Ten together. A Classic.
She had a successful cyst removal and describes the cyst as being weird. It had features like hair and teeth. She says what kind of ogbanje cyst is that. I laughed out loud but damn, that would have freaked me out. Sadly, the doctors also informed her that one of her ovary and tube was not fully developed and optimal for conception. This could have been congenital as she was born early at 7.5 months. The doctor recommended trying to have kids immediately. At 21, no thank you sir.
Post surgery, her periods went back to normal, and she had okay-ish cramps. Nothing dramatic. Fast forward to 2015, She started experiencing chronic back aches, malaria type PMS symptoms, swollen eyelids, and all sorts of mood swings. She was also exercising crazily yet had a bloated lower abdomen. Certain workouts also hurt particularly crunches. She went to the hospital and was informed she had fibroids, in her Uterus. She said it was not exactly shocking news as this had been mentioned in her regular yearly check up but was told it was not a problem. In 2015 however, this was affecting her lifestyle and she was literally calling in sick three days every month whenever her periods came through. In 2018, she made the choice to take them out and had such a good quick recovery. It was this quick recovery that made me arrogantly go and submit myself to doctor na. Everyone’s journey is vastly different. Follow follow will not kill somebody.
Obehi would get only a brief respite before the cycle of pain began again. I remember this period in her life. I could not believe she was still experiencing discomfort after such a major operation. The gynae recommended a HSG (click to read more) test to check things out. She describes this as one of the most painful thing ever. She uses more colourful words which I have saved you all from. The results showed that she was premenopausal and had the eggs quality of someone vastly older. This was a tough pill to swallow. She got a second opinion in the UK and the diagnosis was the same. At the time, she was exploring freezing her eggs and by law had now passed the age of egg freezing in the UK.
In her bid to seek options and opinions, she would find out that a vast majority of friends had taken this route and had their eggs frozen years ago, in their early thirties. Obehi describes this as bloody treacherous, Lol. Girls would say Oh I am going to London for vacation and while there, get their eggs harvested but not say one word to help a sister out. Meanwhile we were using our money to buy new bag and shoe up and down. Hahahaha. I laughed please; I personally was too zoned out a few years ago to care about this. I mean this involves needles and I am irrationally afraid of needles. But here are some questions Obehi has had for herself since being told this is no longer an option. Why wasn’t I told by more people to explore egg freezing? Why did I not plan on my own knowing that I have reduced chances already? She is now exploring alternative medicine and Chinese therapy to help with this since conventional medicine is just more of the same thing. Lots of teas with many colourful flowers etc.
What is the one thing you would like to leave people with I ask? Empathetically she chimes, Freeze that egg!!! Do not wait for anything or anybody. Invest in your future and freeze it. I have to agree. As more and more women explore work and travel before family, I think it is a no brainer. Give yourself options. If you are considering this, click here, here and here to learn more. Thank you Obehi for your openness. I appreciate you for carrying me personally on your journey and I learn a lot from you even if I do not say so. You have taught me to laugh in hard times. We all wish you a smoother onward journey.
Before I sign off, I want to rant a bit. So, I had my review with the doctor post the tests/body scan I ran on my last visit. Not too many surprises there but I have to up my Calcium and Vitamin D intake. These are known side effects of Zoladex so again, not surprised. Evil drug that it is. The doctor advised I sit in the sun every day for 30 minutes to boost this. I laughed. As in hot Lagos Sun sir? I avoid the sun. I rub sunscreen like willy willy when I am going out. The kind of face creams I use do not support such activities. I literally came back from one week away in the sun looking like burnt Oreos. Ta, I will take the supplement. The real surprise was high levels of lead and arsenic in my body. Arsenic ke? All my binging of crime TV points to this being a chosen poison for murder. Apparently, processed meats and imported rice have high levels of arsenic used in storing them, Wonderful. And cows’ milk? The doctor laughed well when he asked if I still do cow’s milk and I said yes. The worst apparently. So, Tigernut and Coconut milk are now my best friend which are quite tasty by the way. We cannot avoid lead in Nigeria due to generator fumes, so best to just detox regularly he states. He upped my spirulina intake to 12 tablets a day and provided some vegetables from their garden. I blended Malabar spinach, reportedly good for endometrial issues in a smoothie. My goodness, it made beetroot seem tasty. I am suffering guys, I am. And getting breakouts from the onslaught of green foods I shall suppose. Finally, please be minded of fruits you purchase in Lagos. Lots of fruits are artificially ripened on the outside with calcium carbide but totally rotten inside. Calcium carbide has such severe side effects including cancer and blindness that I am wondering what manner of wickedness makes someone purposefully inject it into a fruit. God have mercy on us.
That is all for today my darlings. Do not forget to share and help someone else on their journey. If you happened upon this post by chance, hit subscribe to get the newsletter into your inbox directly. Till next time, toddles.