Fear and Doubt in Savoy

So there are things that I'm afraid of and none of them have anything to do with the Unit 4 kindergarten lottery. These are real things. Things that require trips to doctors. Things that cost a lot of money. Things that make my son look at me and see that I am, indeed, not the great pillar of strength that he needs me to be. Oh, the worry that can transcend in those little, blue eyes. He knows something's wrong. He's not stupid. He sees when Mommy doesn't have the energy to move onto the floor and play with him. He sees when Mommy decides to take him out to dinner rather than cook. He's watched my energy levels come and go like the freaking tide. He knows what's normal and what's not.

Today, I went to gynecology to talk to them about my fibroid. It turns out there is only one. It is small. It is benign, and if you're going to have a fibroid, you want it where mine is, completely out of the way, slow growing, nothing big. It's all good news.

The weird news is that she's not sure why my periods are now lasting 6-8 days. The placement of the fibroid makes it the least likely candidate to affect blood loss levels. But the attack plan stays the same, by either slowing my periods or stopping them altogether, it should help my issue with low ferritin, which should help the low protein and platelet count. It's been 5 months since I was diagnosed. We started with the conservative treatment of taking iron supplements for three months. When that didn't work, we ordered an ultrasound to look for fibroids and did a blood test for celiac disease. (And yes, I still take the iron pills.) The Celiac test was negative, but up popped the small fibroid. Then it took me, no lie, 6 weeks to get into ob/gyn. The doctor who came in to triage kept repeating, "You've been feeling like this for five months?" to me. Seriously? Get on the stick. To be fair, she was a resident. But she clearly didn't do her homework. So when the ob came in and the resident started talking to me about my thyroid. I tried not to roll my eyes. "Already been there, look harder at the blood work from September. It's fine."

"Oh."

So my choices were birth control pills, which I have a history of not doing well on, an IUD (Mirena), which appears to be my generation's birth control of choice, and endometrial ablation. I'm all about the conservative approach and don't want to take a pill every day, so we're going to go with the IUD for now, but it'll take another few weeks before I can get in for that appointment. Then, I have to wait another few months to see how it affects me. Some women spot the first few months, some have a shorter, lighter period. Some don't have one at all.

If this fails, it comes out, and we do the ablation. Since I don't plan on ever having children again, I can do this option, which, let's face it -- sounds a hell of a lot better to a 35 year old than a hysterectomy, which is -- surgery. And I'm not eager to be knocked out on any surgical table any time ever again.

But yeah, I'm scared about the fact that they don't know why I'm bleeding longer and heavier. I just am. I don't like the fact that the whole process will basically have taken over a year to go through the "safer" options. I also don't like the side effects of being borderline anemic. I am tired a lot, so my brain tells me to eat, even though I don't need food -- I need iron.

But it is what it is. I'm making the best of it. I have a life to live here...