reading here and crying again

First of all, thank you to everyone who responded to my earlier post. I haven't replied to everyone because my time here is very limited because, quite frankly, I just can't handle it emotionally right now. All I do is cry every time I log on and reading everyone's sad posts just makes it worse. I try to read the positive posts but I can't seem to imagine myself ever feeling that way. So I guess I just lurk here at the aching hearts where I can relate. Please understand that if I don't respond to your posts by typing an actual response, my heart and prayers are with you all and I am glad I have a place where people understand.

I went to where the abbreviations are explained to try to figure out what all the letters at the end of posts mean and it just freaked me out. I had NO idea there were so many ways to take apart a woman's body! I have no idea what the oncologist will recommend for me. I have no tubes and only one ovary as it is, so I find myself wondering what sort of bizarre set of letters will be attached to my name in my surgical chart. I get to be even more of a freak than I already am.

I willingly removed my left tube. "Rip it out," I told my doctor. I had a hydrosalpinx in it and my ex-husband and I were going through infertility treatments to try to get pregnant but my uterine lining was a wreck so we (the doctor and I) hoped maybe the hydrosalpinx fluid was messing it up and that removing it would help the lining form properly. I was ready and even eager to have it removed. It seems unreal to me that I would say such a thing! What was I thinking??? I lost my right tube and ovary less than a year later and very nearly lost my life at the same time. I was septic from an abcess and was very, very ill. My doctor tried to save my tube and ovary, but too much damage had already been done. I was so unbelievably sad when I woke up after 9 hours of surgery and he told me he had to remove them both. I keep thinking of how I felt then and wondering how much worse will I feel when I wake up and there is nothing but nothingness inside of me. It frightens me so much to even think of it.

I am no stranger to surgery. I have had 6 laparoscopies and 5 full laparotomies. I know how long it takes to recover from both simple and much more complicated surgeries. I know the post-op pain and restlessness. I know how icky and sickening it feels underneath the incision if I move the "wrong" way. I know it all. Or do I? I am finding myself terrified of the post-op pain and so scared of feeling the weakness and fatigue and all of the horrible feelings again. I don't want to feel like that! I don't want to be cut on again! I have been through it all before but I feel as if it is all new to me and I am so, so, so scared. But what scares me most of all is that I will do all of this, I will let them take my lame excuse of a uterus, and let them remove my pathetic ovary covered in cysts and adhesions, let them remove the masses of adhesions and endo and go through it all and I will STILL be in daily pain. What then??? What if it does happen that way??

I feel like I have swung from anger to total fear. Fear of so many things. I hate it. I hate feeling like this. I hate waiting for the appointment. I hate knowing my family wants me to have this done and thinks I am stupid for not having had it done years ago. I hate that I have let my husband down (new husband -- a WONDERFUL one that doesn't treat me like garbage) by not giving him a child and by being less of a woman who cannot make love with him because it hurts too much. I hate all of this.

Hi again sweetheart

I'm glad you can come here and feel as though someone is listening to your pain and caring about how you're feeling. We all do you know, even if we can't offer much more than that.

Please don't give any thought to replying to our posts....it's not necessary at all.

Don't worry about all the 'labels' at the bottom of our posts. They're only letters when all said and done. Please don't think that you're a freak....you're not. No way in the world are you a freak. You're just a woman who's going through so much anguish at the moment that you're not thinking straight.

I know you willingly let the doctor remove your left tube, but you did it FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS. It's not your fault that it didn't work out like that. You musn't blame yourself for this. You made a decision at the time (together with your doctor), to try and resolve your uterine lining problem. Hindsight is a wonderful thing as we all know. We'd all make different decisions in life if we'd had the benefit of hindsight but of course we haven't, and we can only do the best we can with the facts we've got at the time. You've got to believe that. I think you're feeling so guilty now over something that is way out of your control. For all you know you may have been much worse off if you hadn't made that decision.....have you thought of that? You'll never know, but you've got nothing to feel guilty about from where I'm sitting.

I'm so pleased for you that you've struck it lucky in the husband department. That is such a blessing!!! Please don't think that you're a failure because you can't give him a child. I'm sure he just wants a happy and healthy wife. You're not letting him down either, your body is....there's a difference.

Although I think it's fantastic you can come here and vent to us anytime, maybe you need someone else you can talk to, one to one. Have you considered some form of counselling? Have you got a close female friend you can confide in?

I wish I could reach right through this computer and give you a great big hug, but this will have to do instead

You take care sweetheart and come here whenever you feel the need. Maybe you should try and focus on reading only positive posts for awhile!!!!

Thank you so much for the hugs. I do very much need them. I do have a friend who understands a little and I feel I can talk to about all of this, but she lives in Florida and I am way up here in Ontario. I am very far from my family as I am an American who married a Canadian and moved up here so I feel rather isolated. I don't really have any friends here yet which makes it worse.

I am seeing my family doctor tomorrow to have stitches removed from biopsy sites and am going to ask him if he can recommend a counselor or someone I could talk to to help me come to terms with this. I can't do this by myself, but I would like a therapist who can relate to this particular issue and not say stupid things that just make me even angrier. After dealing with infertility for so many years I have heard all the stupid comments possible, even out of the mouths of therapists who are supposed to be helping me, and I am so not in the mood to do that again. I have reached zero tolerance, believe me.

Trust me, I know how blessed I am to have such a wonderful husband. I am so thankful we found each other. He tries so hard to help me and he is very sad that I am having to go through all of this at all. He is the one that found this place for me and I know he will do his best to take care of me when I am recovering from the surgery.

I'm glad you are awake, cause I can't sleep. lol

Thank you again!

No problems being awake here!!!!! It's only 6.30 p.m!!! I live on the other side of the world from you. It has its pluses sometimes.

I'm so glad you're going to ask your doctor about seeing a therapist. Honestly hon, I think that's your best option at the moment, even if some of them suffer from 'foot in mouth' disease. lol! It's a real shame you haven't got a close friend handy, but these things happen. No wonder you're feeling so alone though, being away from your family. It's all just conspiring against you at the moment isn't it?

All you can do is take one step at a time, one day at a time. Things will get better I know they will, it just doesn't seem like that to you at the moment.

Let's know how your doctor's visit goes tomorrow.