Master of Disguise

It is needless to say that when you are jobless you come into a lot of free time. This is not necessarily a negative side effect of unemployment. Unemployment can mean the opportunity to take some much needed time to relax and enrich your life. More free time means more time to learn how to knit, try new recipes (albeit cheap recipes), learn Korean, go hiking, write a book, or take care of some much needed surgery.
What a girl like me to do with all this free time? I will take option surgery.

That's right, surgery.

The benefits of being unemployed and retaining health insurance (Thank you, Sheet Metal Worker's Union) have allowed me the wonderful and relaxing opportunity to have diagnostic laparoscopic surgery today.

Jealous?

Well, you should be. I checked into the Parkway Surgical Center around 11 pm, where I was lucky enough to don a chic hospital gown and put my feet up in their cozy non-slip blue hospital booties to relax. In 106 degree weather I was able to enjoy the strictly air diet for 8 hours prior to the surgery (does wonders for the skin, if you like that dehydrated look.) A skilled anesthesiologist helped me say night-night for the 45 minute procedure in which the good doctor cut me open and wiggled a little camera into my belly button in hopes of discovering what the source of my many health issues for the past five years have been. No -ectomy, no excision, no treatment. Just pictures.

Why would I chose to undergo such a silly and seemingly pointless surgery you may ask?
Well, you see since about 2005 I have been a pretty unhealthy girl. Stomach pain and fatigue have been harassing me since about then and while I have had several surgeries to "supposedly" address the issues, no diagnosis has left me with much relief. After an appendectomy and ovarian cystectomy, I eventually learned to deal with the pain.

That is until January of this year. This is because since January my abdominal pain reached a point where it could no longer be ignored and I also began to suffer from a week long once a month fever. I sought several doctors' opinions that left me with treatment options such as taking a one-time three-month-long dose of hot flashing, mood swinging, premature osteoporosis causing, pseudo-menopausal inducing medication or forfeiting my reproductive rights by hysterectomy. Eventually we decided that finding out once and for all what was wrong was the most important thing to do , instead of continuing to guess treat. That is what lead me to this fateful day of surgery where I had hoped to learn once and for all what is wrong with me, at least physically before I decided which treatment option is ultimately best.

So imagine my disappointment when the doctor told us that I had a tiny spot of endometriosis (a disease which floods your reproductive organs with painful scar tissue) but not enough to be causing my symptoms and an enlarged left ovary that may or may not be the culprit. Now brace yourselves. What the doctor said next came as one of the biggest shocks of my life. He informed us that I have had my right ovary removed.

WHAT?!?!? News to me!!!

The doctor suggested we collect all my medical records and that we might need to consult with an attorney. Right now, I am drugged up on pain killers and in all honestly, a little overwhelmed.

I always remind myself that blessings come in disguise, and this maybe one strange disguise yet. Thank God we have the time to deal with this now. I am thanking God that we have this time without the stress of returning to work or having a time line for recovery. I also want to thank all my friends for keeping me in their prayers. I appreciate you all so much and am incredibly grateful to have been blessed with such great people in my life. Blessings in disguise, theme of my life. Unemployment is not all bad.