I want a HERStorectomy, not a HIS!!

Here's a shocker....my gyno strongly urges me to get a hysterectomy to take care of the fibroid issue. She has some compelling arguments:

I have a history of cervical cancer, so leaving the fibroids in there makes no sense.

The fibroids are 12 cm, 8 cm, 6 cm and 5 cm in size, and they are too large to ignore. Laproscopic surgery would require a 3 month course of a drug that would throw me int menopause, which sounds like absolutely no fun to me.......

A Myomectomy would still require a similar incision to the hysterectomy, and I'd still have a 30% chance of recurrence, plus I'd have to remove my IUD and get on a course of oral birth control.

The procedure , Uterine Fibroid Embolization would actually "blast" the fibroids, as if it were a game of asteroids. It is a fairly new procedure, and only a handful of surgeons in Portland, OR are even familiar with the procedure, and even they do only a few procedures each quarter.....meaning there is a large error margin, if you ask me.....plus I'm not into putting plastics in my body....I'm still reeling from the water bottle fiasco earlier this year! So, I'm not big on the "paint ball" method, as my husband refers to it.

I obviously have a lot of research to do, and I'm on the phone all day with all of my physicians (My endocrinologist, and my Thyroid Eye Disease surgeon) trying to decide what the best next move in.

My poor husband is beside himself.....men are such babies. Last night as I was describing my quadruplets with friends over dinner, my husband had to excuse himself. As he ran outside I turned to my friend and said "We should hear a primal scream any time now".....actually, he threw up! Poor guy!!

And the drama continues.....

It's Quadruplets!!

I tell you, when it rains, it POURS! I’ve been having mysterious menstrual issues, and unfortunately my Grave’s disease has masked some symptoms for me.

Ironically, I had the Mirena IUD placed two years ago. It is laced with a low level of estrogen, so when my periods stopped, I did not associate it with Hyperthyroidism, but thought it was because of the Mirena. We’ll never really know for sure which it was, but it eliminated the one symptom that might’ve gotten me into an endocrinologist sooner.

Now, in yet another ironic twist, symptoms that I’ve dismissed as “Grave’s related” masked the fibroid tumors that an ultrasound just discovered this morning. I’ve had periodic breakthrough bleeding which I have been ignoring for months, thinking that it could be related to the odd cocktail of hormones running rampant through my body. And the frequent urination was passed off as the result of all of the cleansing teas and extra water I’ve been focusing on to improve my health. Sure, I’ve had a lot of abdominal bloating and weight gain….but what hypo girl doesn’t balloon up?

Turns out that I have 4 tumors: One the size of a Grapefruit (whom I’ve named Gertrude) 2 the size of Plums (whom I’ve named Penelope and Pumpkin) and a little one the size of a walnut (aptly named Wally) It’s fruit salad in my uterus….no wonder I love to dance like Carmen Miranda!

My Uterus is the size of a pregnant woman in her second trimester, and it is estimated that the combined weight of the fibroids could weigh around 8-10 pounds, which puts me much closer to my ideal weight! LOL!

So, now the question is this: do I deal with the fibroids before the eye surgery, after the eye surgery, or insist on a two-fer in the O.R.?

“One of you take the head, and the other can work on the bottom half…ready…set…"