Everyone Needs a Lila (but you can’t have mine!)
First off, thank you so much to everyone who has reached out to me after my last blog entry. Your responses and well wishes are very much appreciated. I now realize how few people knew about my surgery back in June. I hadn’t given it much thought until now how private I had been about all of this.
Rest assured; I am fine. At this writing, the surgery was 11 weeks ago and I am basically fully healed. I spent a lot of time in the Berkshires, which, as I mentioned previously, provided the perfect setting for rest, relaxation, and reflection. It was in the Berkshires where I first came up with the idea for this blog.
My doctor had told me to walk as much as possible. Fortunately, I had a wonderful walking companion in Lila, our 11-year-old malamute mix. If you know me at all, you knew I would work Lila into this blog! I think that everybody needs a Lila, but you can’t have mine, you’ll have to get your own. Whenever I wanted to go for a walk, Lila was more than happy to keep me company. Lila doesn’t travel much beyond visits to the vet, groomer, and occasional visits to her human grandparents, but she seemed to enjoy her time in the mountains.
I had a telephone follow-up with the surgeon at about 10 days post-op. The pathology reports from the organs that were removed all came back clean—that is, there was no evidence of cancer or precancerous growths. This was, of course, good news; the surgeon had told me that in about 10%-15% of cases, precancerous growths are detected in the post-op pathology.
I had taken 2 weeks off of work. After the first week, I felt well enough to work at my computer and got back to answering emails, taking phone calls, and doing other work-related tasks in short bursts. I am grateful to my work colleagues in the US, Canada, and Israel, who were so understanding and supportive during my medical leave, even as they didn’t know exactly what was going on, other than I was having a surgical procedure.
Physically I feel fine now. I’ve done some running again (not very consistently, to be sure), went kayaking on the lake, and hiking in the Berkshires. The incisions on my abdomen are red and ugly, but they will fade with time. I’ve gained some weight, probably a combination of lack of exercise and less-than-stellar eating habits in the Berkshires, but I’m making an effort to get back to healthy eating now.
So, what are my thoughts about all of this? I should feel good—relieved at least—that I have reduced my risk of ovarian cancer by about 80%. That’s good, of course. The scary thing about ovarian cancer is that it is so difficult to detect, so I’ve taken that worry off the table. Still, it was odd when I had my annual gyn exam with Dr. K., and he ran his usual checks. “No, nothing there,” he said with a smile when he palpated the ovaries and uterus.
And yet—I’ve just surgically removed healthy tissue. What if they never would have become cancerous? What if I didn’t really need to have this done? I’ll never know. That bothers me.
I am now a woman without fallopian tubes, ovaries, and a uterus. No, those parts did not make me who I am. I am not defined by specific body parts. Even more, in this era of nonbinary and transgender rights, no body parts really define who is male, female, or neither exclusively. For me, those reproductive parts had undoubtedly outlived their usefulness anyway. Yet it still feels weird, mentally, to know that my “female parts” are no longer a part of me.
This week, a law went into effect in Texas that de facto outlaws abortion in the state. I think a lot about women who just had their right to make medical decisions about their own bodies curtailed. The law is not about fetuses; it is about who controls a woman’s right to make medical decisions over her reproductive organs. I am grateful that I still have the right to make decisions over my body, and I am distressed for the women whose right to control their uterus was taken away.
In the end, I just checked something off my BRCA1 checklist. Uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix removed—check! But the checklist is long, and I have a long way to go.
cisforchaya.com 