My Husband As a Patient

It's become abundantly clear since my husband broke his arm that he's not used to being a patient.  I've been to about a million doctor's appointments in the past few years; him, an annual physical.  Me, depleting our savings on repairing my uterus and receiving psychotherapy; him, occasionally spending a little on a new computer gadget.  So it makes sense that I've got the patient routine down pat while he's just starting to navigate the system for his own needs.

At urgent care right after he broke his arm, the doctor asked him, "And who are you?" as one of their patient identification questions.  He thought she was joking, so joked back with, "I'm the victim!"  Uh, no, honey.  State your name.

Yesterday, I went with him for a follow-up x-ray to make sure the broken bone hadn't displaced.  I was really nervous for him; after all, I'm used to receiving bad news in the doctor's office.  I'm often the statistically unlikely case and maybe my bad luck had worn off on him.  Two of my friend's daughters have recently had emergency surgery for broken arms.  Broken arms are serious shit.

My husband didn't seem too concerned about the x-ray.  When the doctor came back into the room to discuss the results, my husband barraged her with less pressing matters.  Can he do such-and-such, is this twinge normal, etc.  HONEY!  Let the woman tell us the x-ray results!  She might be about to tell us that our next stop today is the hospital!

He finally allowed her time to tell us that his arm looked great, thank goodness.  Surgery/casts avoided once more.

His naivete about medical stuff is endearing.  It's amazing that he's retained some innocence after all I've been through.  He's quite adept at helping me maneuver the medical system, but when it comes to him being the patient, he seems a bit lost.

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Now I'm going to launch into another "woe is me" pain tirade, so feel free to leave off if you aren't in the mood/want me to get a life/have had enough of my griping.

I'm sick of this shit.  I'm also PMSing and crampy, both of which are not helping my attitude at the moment.  I'm starting to see trends with the pain.  Walking = more pain, which I've known for a while but sometimes have to relearn.  My menstrual cycle is also closely associated with the pain.  After this period, I'll probably feel pretty good for about a week before ovulation pain begins.  After ovulating, I might get a little relief before the late luteal phase cramps kick in.  All the normal cycling stuff further inflames whatever nerves, tendons, and muscles that already hate me from the surgeries.  I'm starting to admit that I need to think about this pain in the long term.  There will likely be no 5Ks this fall, more battles lost to cellulite, and a need to accept this pain into my life for now.

Writing this post reminded me to call my RE to see if maybe the Pill could calm down some of this.   I have less endo pain when I'm taking it so it seems like it could be an option.  It's not like we are going to be TTC anytime soon, anyway.  And I haven't talked my RE in a couple of weeks and she probably wants to hear my slightly annoying voice—ha.

I've had adoption on my mind.  A friend recently adopted a baby boy and it gave me hope, hope that sometimes adoption works out and hope that we have other options to explore.  And maybe I'm looking for a way out of this pain hellhole, but I keep thinking of reasons I want to stop giving my body to The Cause.  What if my next 3D sono causes a pain flare?  What if we see more scar tissue?  I'm sure as hell not going to have another uterine surgery to remove it.

What if we don't see scar tissue and we try another painful letrozole cycle, and I get pregnant only I'm in pain the entire time and the delivery leaves me with chronic pelvic pain for the rest of my life?  Or I get pregnant from letrozole, miscarry, and have another D&C that flares my pain for the rest of my life?  Or I don't get pregnant but the letrozole cycles themselves give me pain for the rest of my life?

Obviously, there's a lot of fear going on.  But there's also hope.  Hope that maybe someday soon I can give my body the break it desperately needs.  Not the kind of break where you take a few months off—I've taken off for almost a year, if taking time off includes endless procedures and surgeries.  I want the kind of break where we get off the damn TTC treadmill and find a way to start healing from the experience.