Putting it all into perspective
I recently got in touch with a friend I hadn't talked to in a long time. We've kinda become e-mail penpals actually. Well, I took an excerpt, you could say, from one of the letters I wrote him. And it basically summed up my life in about 7 years by just a few paragraphs. It was painful to go back and read. But it's my life, amd I'm just trying to keep going.
Basically, I have two incurable diseases. The first is a bladder disease called Interstitial Cystitis and I was diagnosed with it when I was 16. Like I said there is no cure and there are a bunch of different treamtments and meds to try but many don't work. When I met you, I had just returned from a really good school that I got accepted to in Iowa but I had to come home cause the healthcare there was bogus and they couldn't help me for shit. But I wanted to try to go out there anway cause it was my dream school. I thought Metro would just be a temporary thing until I found a school I really liked, until I realized I actually loved it and made my major criminal justice cause their program was so good. Well, I went through a ton of problems dealing with the disease. No one knows exactly where it comes from. I bascially just woke up one day and was in pain. I was dating a guy at the time (you know who the Photo Atlas is?) well their drummer Devon was my boyfriend at the time and he dumped me cause we stopped being able to have sex. That's the huge symptom that told me something was wrong. It was too painful to even be touched.
It's been a long road and I've tried lots of different things. I go through periods called remission, which is where it feels like it goes away and then I live a normal life, which is amazing cause I feel like I have my life back. Well it was going like that for a while.....then in September of 2006 my big brother (my only sibling and best friend) committed suicide. Without going into that in too much detail, I'll just tell you this...it basically killed me too. Not long afterward I tried to kill myself too because the combination of my illness and his death was too much for me. Suffice it to say I was in the worst place I'd ever been and pretty much lost all my friends, whether it was pushing them away or them abandoning me. I just lost my life.
I was with a guy at the time that I really loved. Up until this May it was 2 years we were together. Well, in the past 6 months I'd say, something else started to go wrong with my body. I started having my period constantly and they were so painful that I had to be in bed the entire week. They had always been bad but nothing like this. I started to get them every single day to the point where I was never not bleeding. So it was back to the doctor for more testing. Tons of different doctors too. I even went to New York to see a specialist to find out what was going on. Turns out, I have a second incurable disease. It's called Adenomyosis. It's really hard to explain so if you'd like to know about it you should definitely look it up. Basically there is no cure and it means that I have to have a hysterectomy--my uterus has to be taken out. And so I have two choices. I can do that now, or I can have children now before I have to take it out so I don't have to sacrifice that part of my life. Or a third choice--not do either and suffer the pain and "see what happens."
Well, when I told my (now ex) boyfriend about all of this, and what he thought about the kids thing, he said absolutely not. He didn't even think about it. He just selfishly decided our fate in about 5 seconds and that was the end of it. And since the beginning of our relationship, he promised marriage and children as soon as we were ready. That's what we both wanted and couldn't wait when we were ready. He also promised to be there for me through it all, through everything I needed, and vice versa. He was by my side through my brother's death and my bladder disease was never a problem for him. So when I really needed his help, I guess I expected him to be there for me. He backed out on our life plans basically. And believe me, I realize none of this was planned and it was the hardest thing I could ever ask him, considering he was working and going to school, and I can't work and I've barely been able to attend classes. So because it wasn't convenient, it just wasn't gonna happen.
Directly after that, I fell for someone else, and he cheated on me with his ex. So my heart couldn't have been more broken...
Then I went in for this series of surgeries which was: an epidural (they actually left a little catheter in my back to inject pain medicine through there), a hysteroscopy (where they look inside my uterus with a camera), a D&C (they scrape the uterus...it's like an abortion minus the baby). All of this is the third option I talked about above, which is just waiting and hoping. I'm buying time before I have to have this thing done and we're trying everything we possibly can to wait. If my ex had stayed with me and had children with me, we could be working on it now. And even though I have to get a hysterectomy eventually in my life, having kids can actually help my condition. But now, it's not like I can just go out and find someone to marry and have kids with in the next week. And unfortunately that's exactly what I need
As you can see, I'm in such a difficult position. The two illnesses make each other worse, but if we could take care of the bleeding, it would definitely help my bladder...
Basically, I have two incurable diseases. The first is a bladder disease called Interstitial Cystitis and I was diagnosed with it when I was 16. Like I said there is no cure and there are a bunch of different treamtments and meds to try but many don't work. When I met you, I had just returned from a really good school that I got accepted to in Iowa but I had to come home cause the healthcare there was bogus and they couldn't help me for shit. But I wanted to try to go out there anway cause it was my dream school. I thought Metro would just be a temporary thing until I found a school I really liked, until I realized I actually loved it and made my major criminal justice cause their program was so good. Well, I went through a ton of problems dealing with the disease. No one knows exactly where it comes from. I bascially just woke up one day and was in pain. I was dating a guy at the time (you know who the Photo Atlas is?) well their drummer Devon was my boyfriend at the time and he dumped me cause we stopped being able to have sex. That's the huge symptom that told me something was wrong. It was too painful to even be touched.
It's been a long road and I've tried lots of different things. I go through periods called remission, which is where it feels like it goes away and then I live a normal life, which is amazing cause I feel like I have my life back. Well it was going like that for a while.....then in September of 2006 my big brother (my only sibling and best friend) committed suicide. Without going into that in too much detail, I'll just tell you this...it basically killed me too. Not long afterward I tried to kill myself too because the combination of my illness and his death was too much for me. Suffice it to say I was in the worst place I'd ever been and pretty much lost all my friends, whether it was pushing them away or them abandoning me. I just lost my life.
I was with a guy at the time that I really loved. Up until this May it was 2 years we were together. Well, in the past 6 months I'd say, something else started to go wrong with my body. I started having my period constantly and they were so painful that I had to be in bed the entire week. They had always been bad but nothing like this. I started to get them every single day to the point where I was never not bleeding. So it was back to the doctor for more testing. Tons of different doctors too. I even went to New York to see a specialist to find out what was going on. Turns out, I have a second incurable disease. It's called Adenomyosis. It's really hard to explain so if you'd like to know about it you should definitely look it up. Basically there is no cure and it means that I have to have a hysterectomy--my uterus has to be taken out. And so I have two choices. I can do that now, or I can have children now before I have to take it out so I don't have to sacrifice that part of my life. Or a third choice--not do either and suffer the pain and "see what happens."
Well, when I told my (now ex) boyfriend about all of this, and what he thought about the kids thing, he said absolutely not. He didn't even think about it. He just selfishly decided our fate in about 5 seconds and that was the end of it. And since the beginning of our relationship, he promised marriage and children as soon as we were ready. That's what we both wanted and couldn't wait when we were ready. He also promised to be there for me through it all, through everything I needed, and vice versa. He was by my side through my brother's death and my bladder disease was never a problem for him. So when I really needed his help, I guess I expected him to be there for me. He backed out on our life plans basically. And believe me, I realize none of this was planned and it was the hardest thing I could ever ask him, considering he was working and going to school, and I can't work and I've barely been able to attend classes. So because it wasn't convenient, it just wasn't gonna happen.
Directly after that, I fell for someone else, and he cheated on me with his ex. So my heart couldn't have been more broken...
Then I went in for this series of surgeries which was: an epidural (they actually left a little catheter in my back to inject pain medicine through there), a hysteroscopy (where they look inside my uterus with a camera), a D&C (they scrape the uterus...it's like an abortion minus the baby). All of this is the third option I talked about above, which is just waiting and hoping. I'm buying time before I have to have this thing done and we're trying everything we possibly can to wait. If my ex had stayed with me and had children with me, we could be working on it now. And even though I have to get a hysterectomy eventually in my life, having kids can actually help my condition. But now, it's not like I can just go out and find someone to marry and have kids with in the next week. And unfortunately that's exactly what I need
As you can see, I'm in such a difficult position. The two illnesses make each other worse, but if we could take care of the bleeding, it would definitely help my bladder...