Don't you feel sorry for me? Yes, me too. I got very, very good at feeling sorry for myself. This mixed with menopause is not a good combination. It thought of myself as uni-polar. I had lows and real lows. In between I felt like I was being roasted from the inside out from hot flashes. MERCY, they can be nasty. I kept a wet washcloth in the refrigerator so I could put it over my heart right before the spontaneous combustion that must be coming.
I was also begining to think that my "OFF" switch had been hidden inside an ovary. I could not keep my mouth shut. Everyone was entitled to my opinion dripping with self pity. Self righteous doesn't even come close. I was everyone's moral center suddenly. I had been wronged by the fates repeatedly and I was going to give back with my quick and venomous tongue anyone who dared hit a nerve.
Mom took me to the surgeon's office two weeks after surgery for my first follow up. On top of everything else I now had Frankenstein belly. I had been cut from navel to pubic bone and the been sutured and stapled and the incision was crooked and ugly. Of course it was back in the stirrups because apparently what was inside my emptiness was another complex mess of sutures and I guess by now, dust.
Poor Doctor Shit for Brains. He had no idea what was coming. Nor did the people in the waiting room, including my little mommy. As he was pushing and probing my insides he made the mistake of telling me how lucky I was. "Really?", I spit at him. "How the hell do you figure I am lucky?" "You didn't have breast cancer, that's devastating". I can't describe what happened next but I am pretty sure I broke a stirrup sitting up in full rage. "DID YOU SKIP ANATOMY?" I hurled at him. "BABIES ARE NOT SQUEEZED OUT OF YOUR TITS". Then he said the most awful, hurtful, painful, true thing that I will never forgive him for, "you shouldn't have been sexually active at such a young age. This unfortunately sometimes happens to girls like you". There it was. I had sealed my own fate by being a little tramp. NO. I won't believe that. The Beast however did believe and whispered it to me constantly. I remember threatening to drop my pants in his waiting room so his patients could see what ugly work he does. Then something about how he should have been a butcher.
He was no longer my doctor.
Poor Bart. He got it next. I was maybe three weeks into my recovery, still at my parents and he was being the dutiful boyfriend coming to visit everyday. I was not always happy to see him or anyone. I was having an awful recurring dream. In the dream I have come home from the hospital with my daughter, Amanda, and I put her down for just a minute and then turned around and she was gone. I search everywhere in a panic for her. These dreams were so real and heightened by the pain medication I was still on. I started having insomnia. I didn't want to sleep. I didn't want to have that dream. So, now add exhausted to the list of things I was experiencing and Bart decides to ask me when we might be able to, you know, have sex. "Never", I said. "Why would you even ask me that right now?" Bart went on to explain that I needed to get back into life and quit being so sad. We needed to return to our regular routine as soon as we could. Was I just going to wallow forever? "Why don't you understand that I am grieving the loss of OUR baby on top of the loss of EVER having a baby". "Well, he said, "babies can be adopted and now they have those test tube babies".
"PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME THAT YOU THINK THEY GROW FULL TERM BABIES IN TEST TUBES. YOU STILL NEED TO HAVE A REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM TO HAVE THOSE BABIES. WHAT? YOU THINK THEY JUST MOVE THEM INTO PROGRESSIVELY BIGGER JARS UNTIL THEY ARE DONE?"
Only my dad seemed to get it. Mother was still trying to explain that she didn't mean not having children was a good thing just that I would not have those bad periods and cramps anymore. "You know your father and I want to be grandparents so we are disappointed too." Somehow that was not what I needed to hear either. Then again I just wanted to be furious all the time. Dad was almost tender in is worry. Of course he had heard me say that life would be worthless if I had cancer and not a baby. He knew what it was like to be depressed. He finally got me. At least for now.
Elsie had called and he had a thought about the P. A. He said we would talk when I felt like it but he would get me cash for the P. A. system and make sure that I could use it anytime I wanted or needed.
Oh great, he's going to be nice. WHY?
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