The Day of Miracles

What happened that Sunday is best described in an email I sent out to friends a week later-


What has occurred, I feel I should get you caught up on, so you can get the organic perspective as well as the psycho-emotional. I wrote you about thinking that something might be happening, I was having to manage my pain with Percocet – the pain was radiating from under my rib cage to my left knee. As you know last summer I came home early to have a procedure done to slow down the growth of the fibroid. It was successful in curbing the symptoms the fibroid was causing. But by September I was having periodic pain. The guy doc who did the procedure (a guy I really respect) referred me to a GI specialist, thinking that perhaps there was some GI thingy complicating my recovery, because my symptoms weren’t like anything he’d encountered. GI guy thought I was having spasmodic muscle problems with me pelvic floor that just so happened to coincide with inflamatory symptoms. Then we got a MRI the day before Xmas eve after an excruciating week. It showed lots of inflammation. It also shows that the tumor is dying. So we’re thinking maybe some over reaction of my body kind of auto-immunity question. And maybe some underlying inflammatory condition that would have indications. But I was also extraordinarily fertile. Three fertile eggs released at once showed up in the MRI. Another consultation with a my OB/GYN, who brings down my estrogen. Then the week before last, the bleeding returned, and that friday night I passed what looked to me like it could have been named. Almost got to the ER that day thinking a transfusion was the fix, but it wasn’t necessary.

Then we come to a week ago today. Morning broke, I watched Tori Amos on “Breakfast with the Arts”. I’m in the middle of writing a musical with her music, dedicated to Nicola, so I was in no big hurry to deal with the crick in my side. She’s done, I take a pain killer. Half hour, another. Not the slightest help. And I’m scared. Maxed the narcotics dose and I’m now on the ground not able to breath. Nowhere to go from here.

So I jump off the cliff I’ve been swimming upstream to avoid. I know I’m anemic. I know if I show up at the ER with my history they’re going to do as they think they must, the best they can. I’m over the waterfall. They’re going to take my uterus, and whatever else gets in the way.

I’m lying in the ER weeping. I’ve got my hands on my lower abdomen. I’m just saying thank you thank you thank you – saying goodbye, having a moment of gratitude, for all dreams it held, all the promise, of the service it gave me.

And then a face I know. It’s my OB/GYN!! SHE’S THERE! She’s got another case at the hospital, and she’s been paged by the ER. Miracle number 1.

Pelvic ultrasound. Lots of inflammation, the tumor isn’t as large, but it’s taking up lots of space. Maybe a D&C we’re talking.

And then the exam. My cervix is dilated four cm. and she finds all this necrotic material. It’s so painful. I keep saying it’s the tumor, but she can’t seem to remove it. She’s worried that it’s a miscarriage. HA! The pain I’ve been in, the hormones I’ve been on, there’s no possibility. But I am sexually active. It could be months. And I’m shattered. She runs out (it seems to me). Speculum out. Everybody leaves. I’m shattered. The idea. Of losing someone. The potential of someone. What’s been the point of preserving myself if all I’m going to end up doing is creating angels who will wait for me in heaven.

She comes back in. It’s negative. It’s negative. You haven’t lost anyone. Nobodie’s been sacrificed. Tears of gratitude. Thank you thank you thank you. Miracle number 2.

SO what’s next. Well a D&C is not going to cut it. She’s called the surgeon on call at the specialists who operated last summer. We’re going in. And there’s no guarantees. She’ll go in with the hope of removing the dead tissue only, but that could translate in blood loss and dead tissue, to losing my uterus. She knows it’s not what I want. She’s going to try to call in the dr. she trained with for consultation. She doesn’t work in this hospital or even in this part of the city, it’s Sunday, but she’ll try.

They wheel me into the OR. And I talk to the anesthesiologist. I talk for a few minutes with my Dr. and I meet the Dr. she trained with. The talk about where they’re going in, how they will proceed. And they talk to me. A lot. And to each other. And I’m struck by the obvious mutual respect between these women. One trained the other, and in return the other delivered her children. They’re touching me, and holding each other’s hands. They are smiling. I’m among angels here, to each other, and to me. Miracle number 3.

All I remember is the sensation of being moved in the black. Hands under my body. I hear my own voice, crying, moaning, ouchouchouchouch. And I hear my doctor’s voice. No tension, light, enthusiastic. “I’ve got to show her this before you take her”. She asks me to try. I open my eyes and all I see is her thumb holding a polaroid. Against a hospital green background lies what looks like a full loaf of sourdough bread, soaked in blood. I smile, “did you have to take it all”. “No sweetie, we got just it out, you’re whole”.

“I’m so happy”. Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyothankyouthankyou. Dumb numb, gratitude. Miracle number 4. The big miracle.

What follows are the lesser miracles that continue to amaze me.

I can still have kids. I’ll probably be on bed rest and I’ll definitely have to schedule a c-section at 37 weeks, but if it’s the right thing, I can do it. It’ll make the decision all the more serious, but maybe that’s all for the good.

In most of these surgeries there is the risk of noticeable scarring. I’m wearing string bikini undies and you can’t even see the inch and a half of steri-tape that vertically covers the scar. They removed a degenerating fibroid that tips out under my ribs, making my uterus the size of a 17week pregnancy, and they did it without an external vertical cut. The horizontal cut is beneath the line of pubic hair.

In most of these surgeries they cut through abdominal muscle. She massaged and stretched and moved mine to the sides. When they were done, they put a small dissolving stitch to pull them back together.



I got exactly 7 vases of flowers. One from a group of friends that said, “if you’re walking around and sitting up and going to the bathroom by yourself… then you’re not on enough pain killer”. Or "hiking friends" that said “I think I should make it clear that you are not allowed to be sick when I am not around to take care of you”. A cheesecake from a neighbor. Or the 7 emails from my internet friends who didn’t know, but didn’t care, and sent out their messages in bottles of hope and care and concern.

Much as earlier in the year, I was trying to keep up with whether or not the nurses are getting my antibiotics to me as scheduled. In the hospital longer than before I meet a lot of nurses. This time however I can't really advocate for myself because I am just too out of it. Imagine that -- open abdomenal surgery and I can't advocate for myself -- duh. One of the doctors on rounds CAN NOT make any kind of eye contact -- NONE. He is amazing in the extreme -- why oh why would he think he should be working in OB/GYN?? Pathology would be my choice for him. He sincerely stared at the ground and I remember NOTHING that he said. Pointless. A nurse comes by, I ask her to leave my door open a while so I can hear the babies, and as I am on the maternity ward, she askes me "what I had". "a tumor", I replied, the comedy of it not escaping of me. But that was insensitive, because she begins to tear with sympathy. I reassure her that I'm lucky, I'm okay. WHAT a sweet compassionate soul.

And it’s a week later. I’m walking straight up. My brother has made me laugh and I didn’t rupture. He’s hung out with me and played healing songs on his guitar and lulled me to sleep. Thank God for Billy Bragg and G’s guitar. I’m going to be okay. I am whole and healing and able. What a miracle.


ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou.