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PMS, TBD, and TMI
Spoiler Alert: This post is all about my period.
Last night my period started, which, after approximately 33 years of fertility, is not exactly news. Still it feels momentous because it may, in fact, be my final period ever. As I have been warned by my doctor, he may not be able to save my uterus when he removes the fibroids, and if my uterus goes so does my period.
I don’t remember if I was 10 or 11 when my period started but I do remember I was in 5th grade. Mrs. McGrath was my homeroom teacher, and she walked me down to the school office where she exclaimed to the secretaries, “One of my little girls just became a young lady.” One of the secretaries—yes, that is what we called them back then—opened up a cache of emergency supplies and out came a sanitary napkin that was pretty much twice the size I was. Not only that but it was the kind that was designed to be worn with a sanitary belt. I made do with two diaper pins instead.
Later that evening, my mom gave me the talk. It went a little something like this.
Mom: Do you know how you get pregnant?
Me: (tentatively) By playing with boys.
Mom: That’s right.
To be fair, my mother remembers the conversation rather differently, with her version having a little more detail. Whatever the actual exchange, I got the gist. Given that I’ve spent most of my adult life either as a virgin or celibate, with only a handful of years of being sexually active, I’ve never really paid that much attention to my period. Sure it’s annoying but I never worried much about tracking as I didn’t have to worry about pregnancy. I figured it would just get here when it got here. It’s actually embarrassing the number of years (and by years I mean decades), it took me to pay enough attention to realize that my body actually gave me plenty of signals when Aunt Flo was arriving to spend a few days on my couch.
I did, however, finally notice a few years ago that the several days a month when lines of poetry presented themselves unprovoked by prompts or any my usual poet’s tricks coincided with the days preceding my period. So while I don’t exactly look forward to the physical mechanics of menstruation, I do look forward to that time when, for whatever reason, I seem to have greater access to my creative spirit. I sometimes think about the Old Testament prohibitions that say women must be separated from the group during their cycles. I’ve come to believe that it’s less about cleanliness and more about giving women a time apart to fully engage with their creativity. Even as the body physically cleans itself of the unused mechanisms of physical creation, the mind itself shakes off and shakes out the lines, the scenes, the characters that have been waiting for fertilization. Some land on the page, some are reabsorbed to gestate a little longer. Yes, I realize I’m willy nilly mixing my metaphors here, but hopefully you get the point.
I wouldn’t say that I’m scared that my creativity will suddenly disappear if I no longer have a uterus and get a period. But I am mindful of the metaphoric implication of giving up that place in myself that was designed to harbor life.
I’m not sure how to write my way out of the end of this post, and I guess that’s where the TBD comes in. The poems will still be there hidden in my body, I will still be capable of creation regardless of which body parts I may or may not possess after surgery, and while something will be lost, I am expectant that out of that loss, something else will be born, some new metaphor for creation that I’ll only be able to hold onto if I’m capable of letting go.
A return to normal?
Twenty-three days still to go till I have my uterine surgery and I’m beyond ready for it be April. I’m ready to have my wound be healed up, I’m ready to not look pregnant any more, I’m ready to be exercising again and working toward my weight loss goals, I’m ready to not be worrying about where I sit for 10 days of every month and having to cancel engagements at the last minute cause I’m woozy from menorraghia, and I’m definitely ready to buy new sheets and have my only worry be that they’ll become ink-stained because I insist on writing long-hand in bed. I’m also ready to have my brain back. Currently it’s abuzz not only with my usual to-do lists for work, but also “write down French Press instructions for Mom” and “schedule someone to help with laundry and making the bed” and “make an e-mail blast list for people who’ll want to know how surgery went.” I’m also ready to be rid of the low-grade anxiety that starts my heart racing at the oddest of times, like when I’m trying to enjoy an episode of Bones and one of the characters whips out a scalpel.
In other words, I’m ready for life to return to normal. I keep cautioning myself, however, that I won’t actually feel normal, or more precisely, that, for me, normal doesn’t mean asymptomatic. I’ll have lighter periods if all goes well (and maybe no periods at all if the only option once I’m on the table is a hysterectomy), I’ll be slimmer, and I won’t be chronically exhausted. But I’ll still have trouble breathing on warm moist days, I’ll still occasionally have trouble not breathing heavily while walking uphill no matter how diligently I’m working out, and I’ll still occasionally get dizzy on those days when both my allergies and my asthma are conspiring a to keep my intake of oxygen to a minimum.
I wish I could say I am ready to just accept my battered body the way is, but I’m still struggling with that one. Even before the fibroids became an issue, I found myself frustrated and angry whenever I had an asthma attack. Sure I knew I was incredibly blessed to still even be breathing and above-ground. Sure I knew that an exacerbation of my lung issues were par for the course during pollen-heavy or humid times of the year. But still, I’d convince myself, on the long stretches of days that I felt great that I was finally well. That the next time I went back to the doctor, she was going to tell me to ditch my inhalers and stop taking the laundry list of medications that is usually way too long to fit on the “what medications do you take” part of any medical intake form.
I wish I could tell you that after the surgery, I’m going to return to living with grace. And maybe some days—hopefully most of them—I will. And as for the other ones, I’ll just keep limping through them till grace kicks in again… as it always does.