Christmas!

It's almost over.  My Christmas music is almost gone for another year.  It will soon be time to put away the decorations I have out although unless I get help the tree itself may be up until March as that sucker is HEAVY.  Yes I've heard many complain that it all, music, decorations and store stocking of holiday merchandise starts to early but to me it makes me happy.  I love Christmas music even the religious sorts of songs even though I'm not remotely religious.  I just love the music. I love the lights, and the trees and the ornaments and just the overall beauty of the season.  Some of the greediness, impatience, crabbiness etc, not so much.  I also have to admit that I have a bit of ambivalence to the day itself. 
When I left the JW faith the first couple of Christmases were made incredibly special by some very wonderful people that were my chosen family at that time in my life. As time passed and I moved to be closer to my mom and tried to return to her chosen faith in an effort to retain a relationship with her I stepped away from Christmas.  That was so hard for me since I so truly loved all of my decorations.  Many years later I did get some of them back from a friend who had kept them safe for me.  The one thing I never have gotten back and I had thought for sure I kept but apparently I didn't was a picture of my first Christmas tree ever.  I kid you not, this tree was ridiculously huge and round. It was bigger than my friend's car, we had to bend the top to get it in the apartment.  It was so funny and I loved that tree that took up the entire living room.  That year I had a friend and her young son living with me as they had to quickly move away from their home for safety leaving much of the belongings behind.  My friend who had assisted in bringing home my tree decided with her family that they would "adopted" us and made sure there was a mass of presents under the tree Christmas morning for all 3 of us.  This is a gesture that I know I will never ever forget. 
At that time I wanted big holiday parties.  I wanted a big house with a house full of people to all celebrate together.  I dreamed about the day I would have kids to share Christmas with.  See as a kid I had never really felt like I was missing out on much with Christmas.  I got presents year round so that wasn't an issue and it was pushed pretty effectively that it was bad to see the decorations as pretty, Santa was a lie and all the practices surrounding the holiday were lies as well.  According to mom Satan wanted us to see them as pretty so we'd want to participate.  So I spent the holiday season trying to ignore the decorations because I didn't want to be "BAD".
Since then I refuse to believe that seeing the beauty in the season makes me bad although I now feel more like there was a lot of the beauty and magic I missed out on.  I enjoy my decoration, music and my holiday even though I don't participate in the religious side of the whole holiday.  My relationship with religion is a whole other post and probably even something that I need to still be seeing a therapist for. 
Most of the leads to my love for decorating for the holidays.  I can't wait to put up lights and trees and pull out the ornaments and all the decorations that I have. Let me tell you folks, I have A LOT of Christmas decorations. Most of my ornaments have a story that go with them that I remember every year when I take them out of their boxes. Just opening all those boxes is so much fun.  I just tell people I was Christmas deprived.  The sort of strange thing is, the day itself tends to be sort of anticlimactic? I don't know if that's the right word but the day itself often leaves me a little blue.  I usually don't have much of a celebration.  Working in health care I often get one of the major holidays off a year and given a choice I'd prefer to have Thanksgiving.  If I'm going to decorate my house for Christmas I want to be home to enjoy my decorations! And if I'm going to be in California at Christmas and away from my chosen family I'd really just as soon be at work on that day making some extra money and letting those who have family to celebrate with be home.  Plus I'm a little weird about spending the holidays with people I don't know.  I hugely appreciated that people invited me over for their celebrations but I'm really uncomfortable being around a large group of people I don't know.  So I'd mostly just stay home, hence it's better to work than stay home and feel lonely. 
This year I was so sure I had it all figured out.  I knew I was working Thanksgiving since I would be off pretty much all of December and January.  My surgery Therefore I would be going home for Christmas.  I was excited.  Then recovery ended up being so much worse than anticipated.  About a week or so after surgery my chosen mom asked me please not to come.  She was worried that it was too much for me physically and she was probably right.  So I did stay home.  Several people did offer me to attend their celebrations which I declined.  The whole unknown people thing.  A neighbor was cooking (borrowed several cooking dishes) and offered to bring me a plate which I accepted.  Yesterday she asked if I just wanted to come over instead and I said I would as I felt bad asking her to bring me over food.  Then she mentioned friends coming and I cringed.  Of course it all went fine.  Everyone was nice I was able to carry on a conversation and not feel overwhelmed by being surrounded by unknown people.  Helped that there were only 2 unknown people there.  After dinner and visiting for a while I came home claiming the need for a nap. 
I am appreciative of the invites.  All of them.  The one I accepted and the ones I refused.  I'm also a little sad that I couldn't be with my chosen family.  I'm also a little sad that it may always be like this.  Again, I'm ok with and have made peace with the decision that I will never give birth to a child.  I haven't necessarily ruled out adoption but right now for various reasons I'm not really open to the option either.  I know I have a lot of friends and chosen family who care about me yet at times I still feel so very alone.  I can also accept or own that often that aloneness is my own choosing.  Maybe its a bit of a stubbornness that if I can't have things they way I want them that I'll just stay home and do nothing. 
And maybe I'm just a goofy hormonal mess thanks to an instant surgically induced menopause.  I'm guessing tomorrow will be just fine.  Tonight I'm just going to snuggle my kitties, maybe turn on the fire, turn off the lights, look at my Christmas tree and be happy and thankful for what I do have which I know is a lot and so much more than many.  I do know that.  Sometimes though the sad just wants to move in for a bit. 
For the record I did just receive a call from my chosen mom and it did wonders for cheering up me up and I'm already feeling a whole lot better than I was an hour ago when I started this post.
I hope everyone has had a wonderful day.  Happy Christmas All!

Recuperation

Recuperation from surgery is still moving along.  I'm doing better and not using as much pain medicine but I am still needing the pain medicine.  I'm ok with this.  Receiving a lecture from an aquaintance about becoming dependent on the medications etc and how I need to tough it out I wasn't so ok with.  I'm 2.5 weeks out from surgery.  Having a huge muscle spasm in my hip where I can hardly walk tells me I need to take my Valium which I haven't had since 7:30 this morning.  Not that I need to tough it out.  Then maybe I'm just moody and annoyed easily.  Bad part is that I'm limited in what I can take.  I can't take ibuprofen after the gastric bypass.  I have problems with tramadol if I take it too often it cross reacts with my prozac.  So I've been trying to be careful and the lecture highly irritated me.
I've still got swelling but it is thankfully going down.  I feel like I have to pee constantly. I think this is a combination of having so much extra fluid my body is trying to get rid of and just all the manipulation that happened in there and my bladder is a little annoyed.  My girly bits are still rather swollen too although they aren't purple any longer which is nice.  I haven't had many menopause symptoms.  I've had a few hot flashes but then I was having those occasionally before surgery.  More often than not I'm cold. Like freezing, wearing 5 layers of clothing freezing.  It's all rather odd for me.  I did also have a low grade temp for a few days so the doctor put me back on antibiotics.  When I picked them up the pharmacist was very careful to point out that this antibiotic is very hard on the digestive system flora and to eat yogurt or take acidofilous. I've been doing the acidofilous anyways but it sort of struck me about how patients in the hospital are treated.  I've given this antibiotic to patients before. I've never reminded them it's good to eat yogurt or they'll have severe diarrhea.  I've never had the doctors order any sort of meds or supplements to counteract what the antibiotic is going to cause.  Makes me realize even more how it seems we only half way treat the patient.  Or we treat the patient but we don't assist with the side effects that come with the treatment.  Not very holistic care.  
I've had friends telling me I'm doing too much.  In some cases this has in fact been true and the reminders have been appreciated.  I'm also hugely appreciative of so many of my friends from work.  I am horrible at asking for help.  I hate asking for help. I've had friends offer and insist on giving me rides to Dr. appointments, take me shopping, go shopping for me, offer to drive me around and just generally be hugely helpful. They've offered to help me clean my house (I've declined as that just doesn't seem fair to ask). Heck one friend even offered to come over and shave my legs for me as they are rather uncomfortable to reach. 
Overall I'm doing really good.  Not as good as I had hoped but then I was completely unrealistic in what I had hoped my recuperation would be.  I had hoped/planned to fly home for Christmas.  It's really expensive but I was still trying to swing it.  My chosen mom finally asked me not to.  She pointed out that she really did want to see me but that she really felt I wasn't well enough for travel yet and honestly, she's right.  Could I have managed? Probably.  However I likely would have felt like shit in the process. So I'm planning a nice quiet Christmas at home with the cats and hopefully a good book.  A neighbor has offered to bring over a plate of food for me which will be nice since lately I hate cooking and if it takes more than 2 minutes it's probably not happening.  So, that's what's going on here.  I hope everyone out there has a Merry Christmas!

All Done

Goodbye to the ovaries and tubes
Goodbye to the uterus of doom
Goodbye to tampons, pads and period panties,
Goodbye to days of raging insanity.
Goodbye to the big flap of skin and fat,
Not a one of you will we missed even a little!

Yes, my surgery is done. As a matter of fact it's been almost 2 weeks.  I don't know if it's because the previous two procedures I did were laparoscopic and therefore fairly easy recovery or what but the recovery for this has been brutal. There's been a lot of outright pain and a lot of discomfort.  Both are improving.  I left the hospital on the second day after surgery (haha after me swearing I was going to do everything I could to get out after one night) with 3 tubes.  I had two JP drains to drain tissue fluid from around the incision and a supra pubic catheter.  The catheter was for bladder training.  I had a bladder suspension and there was swelling etc so the idea was to pee and then empty the bladder with the catheter.  Once the catheter was putting out significantly less than my body was, it could come out.  It came out last Tuesday thank goodness because it was the most uncomfortable of the 3 tubes.  The JP drains had to be draining less than 30ml (1oz) of fluid in a 24 hour period before they came out.  One of them came out on Friday, I'm hoping the other will come out tomorrow.  I'm still swollen every where.  According to the scale I've gained weight which is depressing.  I have a scar from one hip bone to the other.  I'm thinking some sort of tattoo may be in order there eventually.  I've been cold almost continuously since I got home where cracks me up since I'm usually overly warm.  I've slept. A LOT! All pretty normal I guess.  I'm fine with my decision and so freaking happy that I will never again have another freaking period.
My plan B that I sort of devised several years ago when I was contemplating being done TTC is pretty much in effect.  I have a lot I want to do this year.  I'd like to travel some.  I'm hoping to make it to Hawaii this year since I've never been there.  Eventually (maybe not this year though) I will be getting rid of Scooby (my sensible subaru family car) and I plan to get myself a mini cooper.  A convertible.  Once I finish my bachelors degree in nursing I will decide where I want to live although honestly there are a lot of things that I like about Fresno.  Who knows.  I just know that things look great from here on out.  At least once the pain in my abdomen is gone and I stop freezing!