The gift that keeps on giving till you yank it out...

Lately there have been a plethora of blog posts about menstruation.  Every where I look someone is broaching the subject in some fashion.    Life as a Reader has shared some informative and insightful posts. Brandi  and Tex Commando have bitched about the missing OB tampons.  Even my daughters added to it with their moaning and cramping and whining.  All I can say to this is--nyah, nyah, I don't have periods anymore!   I finally sent that uterus packing and I haven't regretted it for a moment.

Menstruation is truly a gift of life and it's beautiful and all that shit.  I know that.  But, damn, it's a pain!  I've always had the heavy, life-interrupting, irregular kind.  Sort of like the flash floods they have in the Southwest.You're just driving along, it starts to sprinkle a few drops of  rain, then BAM! You're caught in the middle of a raging torrent and life has to stop for a while.

I envied my high school friends who could get along just changing their itty-bitty tampons once or twice a day, no muss, no fuss.  When I finally found a tampon that could actually withstand the onslaught, what happened?  They recalled it! Oh, Rely, how I miss you. I have never found another tampon that worked with my body.  What's a little Toxic Shock when I could finally sleep at night without waking to a bloody mess of a bed? 

Maybe my body should have been recalled, too, because it continued to betray me.  My irregular periods meant my little ovaries were not releasing the little eggs for the little spermies to find.  So I threw some fertility drugs into the mess of hormones in my body and the result wasn't pretty.  PMS from hell, anyone?  The onset of my period then meant that I had once again failed to become pregnant even with additional help. Raging hormones + feelings of failure = many hours spent crying in the shower while my hopes and dreams for a baby went running down the drain with the water.

Eventually I managed to spawn four large children: Tumor, Stomach Cancer, Clogged Fallopian Tube and Temporary Insanity.  I became anemic from blood loss and my bladder had all but given up. Finally I found a doctor who offered me a tempting option--his Blue Plate Special, as he called it.  It would consist of taking out the pesky uterus, putting the poor battered bladder in it's own little hammock for support and tacking up the stretched-out mess that passed for my pelvic floor muscles.  I immediately placed my order and just a few short weeks later I was being gutted like a fish.  The results changed my life and I worship the ground the man walks on.  Seriously.

So here's to being uterus free and loving it!