My Most Serious Health Concern, Part 5

Plans & Dreams
*****
So, we know I’ve got a ruptured endometrial cyst and I’m still in serious pain. However, we know it’s not terminal, just painful.
But this scuttled all my plans for the summer- No summer Company tour. My parents flew me and my mom back up to Alaska so that I could see a surgeon. My Dad and my sister, Beth, drove up to Fairbanks as fast as they could- took about a week. By the time they got there, we’d already seen a good OB, Dr. L, to schedule a surgery.
Here’s the extra exciting info we learned from Dr. L.: in my file the original OB who’d diagnosed my endometriosis had written that I had a ‘serious’ case and would require intervention, probably surgical, within a year. But he’d told us that I had a ‘mild’ case, and not to worry. In fact, this discrepancy was so weird that Dr. L. wouldn’t have believed me if my mom hadn’t been there and been able to corroborate my story.
I took some serious pain meds until the surgery. And once again, I had a HORRIBLE reaction to the anesthesia (even worse than the first time). I ended up staying in the hospital several extra days. I was pretty pathetic afterwards, too.
The strongest memory I have of that summer is of the incredible heat. We had a very hot summer for Fairbanks- in the 80’s & 90’s- and I was sick and miserable. I laid around on the couch and floor drinking ice water, eating popsicles and holding a wet cloth on my head for about a month. Bonus: I lost about 15 pounds.
The OB told us that he removed multiple cysts and that they had twisted my ovaries around and messed up the left one ‘til there was almost nothing left. He told me it was unlikely I’d have children. I was kind of numb- sick from recovering, sick from the heat, sick from missing out on summer Company, and heart sick from what had happened.
I kind of went into a depression and it wasn’t until a few years had passed by that I realized how angry I was at God. I had always wanted to have several children- in fact, I’d always been jealous of my Mormon cousins. There were seven kids in their family and they always seemed to have the most fun. Every time we’d go over there we’d have an adventure. Not that I really wanted seven kids, but I did want children. This is a poem I wrote that summer:

Cleansed

I stand under the pitiful spray of my parent's shower and question the ceiling.
I see names printed with a slow dream hand,
now rinsed down the drain.
I wrote them on the walls of my mind,
too precious to be shared aloud.
Joshua, for the mighty Biblical hero who stood against
laughing enemies and his own doubtful people,
carried down the pipes on old soapy water.
Sharalyn or perhaps Auralyn, for my Grammy,
flushed from my future like a gold bauble lost at sea.
Maybe Jonathon, for my parent's dreams,
washed into the ocean of never-never land.
Tears mingle with visions,
float away,
purify my mind of hope.
I let them go.
I do not hold them.
I do not smell sweet baby.
I do not hear dog and child
playing tug-o-war.
I do not wash dirt rings
left from hard play.
I step from the bath,
Cleansed and sterile.