July

The day had come. July 11. It was time to go to the OBGYN and hopefully get some answers.


I was nervous, but not quite sure why. Maybe it was because I'd already gone through three months of this with no help or plan of action from doctors. At this point, I would do whatever it took to find some sort of relief.


With time to spare, my mom took me to Starbucks before my appointment. We were both nervous, but with nervous laughter, and lots of smiles, we sipped on our frappucinos. I think we were both silently wondering what would happen. This appointment kind of determined it all. Whatever I was diagnosed with could possibly determine how I live the rest of my life. All I hoped was that I wouldn't have to have another exam!


I couldn't be more nervous sitting in the small room, waiting for the doctor. My mom tried to calm me down with small talk and looking at magazines, but I knew we were both focused on the same thing and equally nervous.


As I described my pain, the doctor looked at me like a deer looking in headlines. She cocked her head to the side, almost in disbelief, that I could be in this much pain. But what to I have to gain by faking something this serious? Why would I make up something that has taken over my life to this level?


She ordered for a laproscopic surgery, as soon as possible, without even bothering with an exam. Tears immediately poured out my eyes. I was scared. During the laproscopic surgery, I would be sedated and then gas would be pumped into my stomach so that they could make an incision for a probe and camera to go down inside of my stomach. The incisions would be small, but they would go all the way through my stomach. I'd feel the usual recovery pain, but after about three weeks I would be back to my normal, happy, healthy self.


On the way home, we got a call that the surgery would take place in two days on a Wednesday, just the day before my friends and I had planned to go to the Harry Potter midnight premiere. I'd never been into the movies, but my friends were and if anything it gave me something to do and a night to get out and see my friends who I hadn't seen all summer. But now that the surgery was the day before, I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it.


The tantrum I threw must have helped my mom make the decision to let me go. I was so convinced I wouldn't be able to go, I had a complete melt down. The one time I got to get out, and it was taken away from me, because of a surgery. Once again I was seeing this illness I was cursed with take away from my teenage years.


The day before my surgery my best friend Brittany, and my friend Ally came over to have a little girl time, and to keep me smiling and happy. We went out to Manitou for henna tattoos and feather extensions and it was just what I needed to keep my mind off of the surgery taking place the next day.


I woke up early the next morning and got ready for my outpatient operation. It looked like we were moving into the hospital with everything we were bringing, but we'd be there for the whole day.


I couldn't be more nervous than I was for this surgery, but the time seemed to rush by. The nurse gave up on my IV in tears, so I wouldn't have to worry about that stress until later on. About an hour before the surgery we were moved into a new room where we met my dad. My parents and the nurses were just trying to keep me happy and keep my mind off of surgery and before we knew it, the anastegeologist was there to put my IV in and a nurse wheeled me off to the operating room.


With heavy sobs and my body shaking like a leaf in the hospital bed, I said goodbye to my mom and dad before I thought I'd have to so that they could put me under for the surgery. Both my doctor and the nurses were very reassuring and nice. I started the countdown backwards from 20 and instantly fell into a state of unconsciousness.


I woke up shaking violently with pain every where. I kept asking if I was okay and how I did and where my mom was. I knew that if I could make myself stop shaking I wouldn't hurt as bad, I just couldn't stop shaking. Once I saw my mom and dad in recovery, it was easier to calm down. They showed me the pictures that the surgeons had taken during the surgery of inside my stomach and told me all the scar tissue that I had in my stomach that the doctors took out.


Instead of the surgery taking one hour, it took almost three for the surgeons to pull all of the scar tissue out. The place I'd been pointing to, complaining of pain, had been my intestine which was completely pinned down by scar tissue and unable to move as it usually would. At that time I was diagnosed with endometriosis.


I didn't know what endometriosis was or how it happened, but I didn't care. I was on the road to recovery and I was going to be okay... So I thought.


The next day, I rested so that I would be able to go to the premiere with my friends that night. I also rested because it's all my body permitted me to do. The surgery pains hurt more than anything. I was so sore. Nick and I laid around on the couch and caught up on Harry Potter movies when I wasn't asleep. Around 9:00, with help from Nick and my mom I started getting ready.


I was hell bent on going out with my friends that night, but it was so hard on me that I just regretted it. I was hurting and swollen, and uncomfortable no matter what I did. I was looking so forward to going out tonight, but it was not all that I expected it to be. Not only were the stares from kids at school and being asked if I was pregnant over and over enough, but I hardly got to talk to my friends because they had chosen seats down the aisle from where I was. I came to this event for them, to see them, and spend time with them, and because this was something that they wanted to do. But all I wanted was to be back home in bed with pain medication, a heating pad, and sweats.


I cried all the way home because the car ride was so hard on me, and no one but Nick noticed, at this point I felt like Nick was the only one of my friends that cared. I was looking forward to being out with my friends that night, but our time together showed me just how much this summer had changed us all. The time apart from my friends had distanced us emotionally, so emotionally, that none of us could begin to understand.


This was a time that I needed my friends, but because I was going through something so above any of us, and they couldn't be by my side 24/7, they just couldn't understand. While I had been in bed with time standing still, their lives had moved on. It felt like we were on total opposite sides of the Earth. I felt completely alone in this journey to good health.


And that hurt more than any stomach pain.