Update on Tubal Ligation at 23

Hey! So, I left off on Monday.  I believe it was Wednesday night, I could finally sleep on my belly (my most comfortable position). It had been difficult to sleep, because the muscles under and around the uterus and ovaries are active when you’re trying to move around at night,  so I basically stuck to sleeping on my belly and my back at that point. During work, I found that putting pressure on the incision to support it and the muscles around it and keep them from moving helped a lot, and there was obvious pressure on it while I slept when I slept on my belly. If I had to get up in the middle of the night, it was far easier to get up from sleeping on my belly because I could raise myself up using my arms and thighs and step down from the bed. So I tried to keep myself comfortable in my belly most of the night, every night.

It took another day or so (so this is around a week) for my body to finally process air the right way again, because I still had air pockets under my ribs, and along with that, it took about that long to finally process food normally again too. Thank you, anesthesia and shock to the body.

BUT!!!

Thanks to the human body being amazing and the pressure on the incision from sleeping on my belly, the cut healed almost right before my eyes. Every morning it seemed more together, and the Steri-Strips got looser. Every day, the incision got itchier and itchier as it healed, and it felt like the itchiness came from the Steri-Strips pulling on my skin as it tried to knit back together and the hair kept growing back in. On Sunday the 15, I finally removed the Steri-Strips from my skin and the incision looked amazing for only being a week and a half old. It looked especially dry, so I put some coconut oil directly around the cut. (COCONUT OIL HAS SO MANY BENEFITS, GO RESEARCH IT!!!)

I believe that the coconut oil has helped immensely, because today, Wednesday the 18, the cut looks very healed around the edges, as if it shrinks in length every hour. The skin is pink like scar tissue and there is less and less of a discernable split in the skin every time I look at it. I’m still keeping a patch of gauze on it between my skin and my underwear so the slight scabbing doesn’t catch on the fabric, but I think that’s cuz I’m an extra worry warrior. I’m still putting coconut oil on it twice a day and it helps with the itching tremendously. 

Possible TMI:

I think I’m gonna be ovulating in the next couple of days, so that means there’s no signs of that Tubal Ligation syndrome some people talk about where everything is painful and nothing works right anymore. Did i mention the surgery started my period early? So i had absolutely no worries about being pregnant before the surgery, although I doubt they would have done the surgery if I was pregnant in the first place, they took a urine sample for a test before the procedure. Of course, it’s only been two weeks tomorrow since the surgery, so I have time to see if things are going to be different when it comes to ovulation and menstruation. But, so far, nothing out of the ordinary.

So now, all I have to do is see if it changes my tolerance for other people’s kids, namely my boyfriend’s son. We shall see.

What Women Need To Remember

No matter how sweet he is, no matter how much he’s there for you and he takes care of you when you’re sick or you have surgery, he’s still a man. He’s still going to piss you off and blow off plans he had made with you. Don’t ever get to the point where you lose your independence. Remember that you don’t NEED him in your life, you WANT him in your life. Always be prepared to go it alone if you have to. No matter how perfect he seems sometimes, he’s not perfect, just like you’re not perfect. He doesn’t remember how easily things he does and says hurt you.

Tubal Ligation at 23 Years Old

Warning: possible TMI

I’ll be 24 in July. This past thursday, Feb 5, I had a tubal ligation, commonly referred to as “getting your tubes tied.” As you could probably tell by my previous posts, I’m not all that keen on having children of my own. My boyfriend has a biological son and a stepdaughter,  and if he and I stay together, those two will be enough for me. Probably more than enough and I’ll be struggling until I grow up a bit more.

So I got a tubal ligation. I was planning on two small incisions, one near my belly button to one side and one lower on the same side, with local anesthesia. They gave me general anesthesia (and a small patch behind my ear as an antiemetic) and a horizontal 3-4 inch cut in the space just lower than the level of my hip bones. The general anesthesia was given to me through an IV on my hand, and the stuff made my hand and wrist ache as if i had the flu. But the aching only lasted about 5 seconds and then I went unconscious. My doctor used the incision and space (space created with inserting air under my skin) to remove a section from both tubes and cauterize the open ends.  When I woke up, it had been about an hour since that general anesthesia, and apparently I had told my nurse the pain level was a three, although I was not conscious of that. When I regained my consciousness, I was gripping the hospital bed’s metal frame and moaning over and over. My nurse asked why I was moaning, and I let out one word, “Hurts.” She asked me my pain level again, and I told her 5, although now that I think about it, the level was probably more of a 7. She gave me some pain medication through my IV and it helped, but she had to give me another dose about 20min later. My parents and my  boyfriend were there with me, but at my bedside, only two people were allowed to visit at once. My dad and my boyfriend were the two to see me with an oxygen mask over my face and gripping that metal frame, until my boyfriend took my hand and kissed my forehead. They talked to me and I answered slowly and quietly. When my boyfriend had to leave for work, he sent my mom in, and my parents stayed with me while the anesthetic wore off. The nurse told them things that had happened and answered questions that we all had. She went to get me ice chips for my dry mouth and sore throat, and after two spoonfuls, she let my mom give me the ice chips. It was another hour or so before I thought I was good to be ready to go home. The nurse helped me dress and helped me sit in a wheelchair to take me to our truck. I was asked not to let myself fall asleep In the truck, to prevent motion sickness, but thanks to that little patch behind my ear, my stomach was happy enough. I sipped apple juice that the nurse gave me, and did my best not to let my heavy eyelids stay closed while we drove. Thankfully, my dad took the long, smooth way home to minimize any discomfort.
We got home at around 10am, and I made myself comfortable on the couch, falling right asleep, waking up for five minutes or so before falling asleep again. It wasn’t until about 1pm that I could stay awake enough to eat a banana and take my ibuprofen, which actually did nothing for my pain.

I kept drinking water, so I could help my body rid itself of the anesthesia and to soothe my throat after being intubated during the surgery, and it wasn’t long before I had to use the restroom. Surprise! I had a full bladder that I couldn’t void. It was a mix of bladder retention (which happens when medicine like general anesthesia and the antiemetic patch interfere with the brain’s automatic system of telling the bladder to empty itself), swelling from the surgery, and fear of putting pressure on my incision. I voided very small amounts at a time, and stopped drinking water because it was feeling like my bladder couldn’t stretch any more. I took my other pain medicine, Tramadol, to try to manage the pain, and that didn’t work either. I did my best to remove the gauze from my incision; I had to wet it to get it unstuck from my skin. I had to change it two times before I went to bed due to small amounts of drainage. My parents helped me so much, and my boyfriend came over after work and he helped me a lot, and he grimaced along with me when he noticed I was in pain. I told him about my bladder retention and he did some googling and that’s when we found out about it being due to the medicines.

I took D-Mannose supplements and Azo supplements to keep myself from getting a urinary tract infection from the catheter they gave me during the surgery. Little by little, the bladder retention wore off. So I went to sleep, waking up twice to try to use the restroom again, and when I woke up at about 8am Friday,  my back and shoulders were so tight from me putting my stress there to protect the incision that it was very hard to move. In addition to sore back, my abdomen was filled with the gas the doctor put into my body during surgery, and since bowel function slows to a crawl after surgery, I couldn’t rid my body of much gas at all. Friday was the same as thursday, slowly moving around and trying to void my bladder more easily (which was more successful). I did take a small walk to the end of the block to try to loosen my back and help my body absorb the gas in order to pass it. Since my pain medicines weren’t working, I decided to try Gas-X and a muscle relaxer close to bedtime. I slept better that night,  on my back more so I could stretch the incision a bit so it would heal in a way that would allow me to walk at least semi-erect.

Saturday was much better for my back and the gas issue, but it wasn’t completely resolved. I went for a walk around the block and was only mildly sore afterward. I was eating a bit more, and bladder voiding wasn’t a problem anymore. My boyfriend and I binge watched Bates Motel thanks to Netflix, and the day went more smoothly than Friday. I actually went for a ride with my boyfriend and my dad to get some lunch, but I stayed in the truck while they went inside to get the food. I found that squatting/kneeling down helped to move the gas to a place where I could get some of it out, and stretching my back by putting my shins on the floor and stretching my arms helped both my back and moved the gas to a less painful place.

Today is Sunday,  and I feel even better than yesterday. Only a small bit of gas remains trapped, and I’m trying to walk normally instead of holding my tension in my back.  I’m supposed to go back to work tomorrow, and I think I should be able to do that if my progress keeps improving as fast as it has the last couple of nights. It will be slow going, not very easy, but my boss and coworkers know what’s going on so I’m sure they’ll be understanding. My boyfriend is coming over again today, and he told me he actually loves taking care of me, and I make sure he knows how much I appreciate him doing things for me. He also knows it would be exactly the same if he was the one that had surgery and I was to take care of him.

That’s all I can really report right now, but I’m sure I’ll be updating on my progress the next couple of days.

Respect Crisis

We as women are in a respect crisis. We want so badly to be loved and respected and fought for, but too many of us feel that the way to earn that is to give away our assets and show them with very little covering is the way to do that. THAT IS WRONG. The way to earn love and respect is to love and respect yourself first. The women who are so busy taking selfies but leaning over to show their cleavage or wearing ultrathin clothing or shorts that are half an inch from public indecency cannot possibly respect themselves, and if they do, they have fallen victim to a male-oriented view of the world. WE NEED TO TEACH PEOPLE TO LOOK AT WHO WE ARE, rather than the parts of our bodies that should, conceivably, be shown to one person besides ourselves. There IS a difference between dressing to be beautiful and feminine, and dressing to catch attention.

I went through a time in my life where I thought any attention was good attention and every single day I felt empty and wanting– craving– something better. And upon talking to friends who respected me and wanted better for me, I realized that I was showing people that I didn’t deserve respect. So I felt used and, quite frankly, disposable. I decided to do what I had to in order to show people that I was strong and capable and confident. I stopped feeding on negative attention that douchebags gave me, and started accepting the attention that MEN gave me, the friends who spoke to me about real world issues, not pigs who wanted to know what I was wearing. Once I started respecting myself, in walked a man who has become my best friend and who treats me like a queen, which inspires me to treat him like a king, and I have never been happier.

I hope this has touched some of you. And I sincerely hope some of you will share it and inspire others to share it. We need to start encouraging each other to train people to see us as beautiful not because of our assets, but because of who we are in our very souls.