Monday, April 30, 2012

My journey - Part 2

Part 1 of my story here...

So I left off just after my Mom shared the news from my doctor.  We decided to start hormone replacement therapy (hrt) after the first of the year.  This was necessary for me to have any physical development as bloodwork showed that the presence of estrogen and progesterone in my blood to be significantly below normal ranges (essentially zero).  At that point I was 5' 1" or 2" and barely 80lbs... pretty much a twig!  I can remember that between starting HRT at the beginning of January and my next appointment with my doctor in late February, I gained 20lbs... That sounds really significant, but you actually couldn't tell by looking at me.  I only remember because I broke the 100lb mark during that period.

Emotionally, as you can imagine, I was all over the place.  My self confidence which was marginal at best went even lower.  I have been told that people I went to high school with thought that I was kind of "stuck up" or thought I was better than others... the truth was that I was scared to let anyone in too close because I didn't even know how to process what was going on, let alone another person who might have questions for me... and a person who was a little shy to start with became even more reserved.  I can see now how this must have come across to classmates.

I started HRT in January and an odd thing happened at the beginning of March.  I experienced something like a period... I was at school, VERY unprepared, and a little (ok a LOT) confused.  I can remember asking my Mom to explain how this was possible given what I did not have - needless to say she didn't really have an answer.  We called my doctor and he was surprised but did not seem overly concerned with this new development.  He simply added progesterone to my monthly medicine routine.

This continued as the status quo until just before graduation.  We sat down for a more in depth talk with my doctor because I was really starting to have questions - the main one being how was  I cycling if I did not have a uterus?  We decided to repeat the ultrasound and laparoscopy.  I went back to the same ultrasound place and they began imaging me.  Again, the tech left and brought back a colleague... this was starting to get too reminiscent of my first ultrasound!  I remember asking if everything was ok and they simply asked why I was being imaged and what had happened the first time.  I explained everything to them and again asked if everything was ok.  They said yes and that my doctor would call to let me know the results.

The results?  According to this second ultrasound - two ovaries, one uterus... all measuring a little small but all there!!

WHAT???!!!!

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