Someone close to me is having a medical test on Monday. After it's over he is not supposed to drive home so he needs someone to drive him. I can't do it because I have Nana duty, picking up my beautiful sweetheart grandbaby after daycare. So my loving spouse will chauffeur the patient home while I complete Nana duty at our house.
This made me think back to a procedure I needed in the early 1980's when I was in my late twenties. I was in law school and my pap smear had come back abnormal. Not good news -- certainly not when studying for my first set of exams. So we ran a second pap smear, and it too, came back abnormal. All of this took time, of course. My doctor recommended as the next step to try freezing the cervix with nitrous oxide, an office procedure. I believe it was January when we set the appointment. His office told me there would be a local anesthetic used and the whole procedure would not take long. Originally I planned to drive myself home, but my mother-in-law insisted on going with me. Thank goodness she did! I was in no shape to drive. (Don't ask where my then-husband was that day. I don't think it registered with him that any of this was a big deal.)
I'll leave out the gory details, but I can say that the objective was not accomplished. The dysplastic cells only came back with a vengeance -- more of them, and more abnormal than before. But again, waiting to see if the procedure had worked, as determined by yet another pap smear, took time. My only options by then were to see if it would go away on its own (ha!), or give up my female reproductive organ to prevent those cells from turning all the way to cancer. It wasn't a matter of if, it was just when.
So at the age of 28 between my second and third years of law school I had a hysterectomy.
By the fall semester I was back playing flag football with our intramural team, the Lawdees.
Looking back on it now from an age that is double that number, it all seems long ago and far away. But I must say that 28 seems shockingly young to give away one's uterus.
On the other hand, I've had 28 extra years in trade. I wouldn't mind another 56 so long as I stay healthy. I've already told everyone that I've picked 106 as the age that I plan to leave the physical world, so that wouldn't be too far off. Who knows what our health care system will be like then? Maybe everything will be genetically based and modeled from our own DNA stock.
I'm reminded that the purpose of this blog is gratitude. As I've been writing this I have it in abundance. My former mother-in-law is still alive, bless her wonderful heart! I love her dearly. She has cared for me and taken care of me time and time again. I'm grateful for good medical care and the doctors who have given me good advice over the years. Excluding outpatient tests, I haven't been in the hospital since my hysterectomy in 1983.
That's nice. I hope to keep it that way.
Peace & Love
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