Uterine
Monologue: In 2-Parts
Uterine
Monologue, Part I
Or –My Uterus is NOT
an appendix!
To paraphrase Eve Ensler, “My Uterus is angry. It’s pissed off…” Did you know that by the age of 60, more than 33% of women will have had their wombs surgically removed? And the number one reason is not cancer, is not life threatening (but can be lifestyle daunting) but for fibroid growths. 20% of all women in their 20’s, 30% of all women in their 30’s and 40% of all women in their 40’s have fibroids and most don’t know it. Fibroids are caused by hormonal fluctuations. Fibroids disappear after menopause.
This article came about because I have heard one too many stories of women who’ve had a hysterectomy and found religion. That is, a resurgence of energy and relief because their pain and bleeding had stopped. It’s understandable that they would be overjoyed after having lived with extreme discomfort for so long. However, I haven’t heard from women who’ve chosen other solutions for their health. I offer my experience, which I know pales in comparison to what some have gone (and are going) through. Hopefully this monologue will open a dialogue so that women will know they have more options and more choices than their doctor may be offering.
What I thought was my period began on April 14th and hasn’t yet fully stopped. Since I’d always been regular as clockwork and they’d always lasted 5-7 days, at the end of April I went to my healthcare provider. “Oh, you’re 44, you’re probably pre-menopausal. You probably didn’t ovulate this month. Here, take these birth control pills to stop the bleeding and get you on a regular cycle.”
Hmm. I know I ovulated on April 1st. Very strange. Very strange to take the Pill, when I’m not in a relationship and the only time I’ve ever used the Pill was for a couple months when I was 15 – I’ve always been happy with another, non-hormonal method. So I dutifully take the pill and continue gushing.
Mid May I have an experience I now know is called flooding. I’m auditioning for a play, had just changed a super tampon and overnight maxi, walk out into the hallway and immediately saturate everything. I’m called directly into the room to do a scene with other actors. I’m standing there, trying to focus on the script and praying that my black pants and long men’s jacket is hiding everything, and that I’m not dripping on the floor. I’m freaked. I don’t think I can go through with this. I’ve waited for six years for a chance to do Shakespeare, but how can I be in a play with my insides turning out?
Shortly afterwards I go back to my healthcare provider. The Pill is not working, I tell them. This is not my period. This is clots and chunks and tissue. I am tired all the time and need to sleep a lot. Now they are concerned. I’m sent into Seattle for an ultrasound the next morning. There’s a possibility it’s uterine cancer. Bizarrely, I’m in a good mood; I’ve never had an ultrasound before, both my kids were home births without all this technology. I crack jokes to the technician who doesn’t respond – I guess she wasn’t expecting this kind of reaction. I glimpse the ultrasound monitor and my heart leaps to see a little bulge. I have a bouncing baby fibroid, the size of a golf ball. I think I’ll call it “Junior.”
So I’m told that the fibroid is causing this unusual bleeding. They say, take extra doses of the Pill to stop the bleeding. The choices I’m presented with are – continue taking the Pill, or taking a drug called Lupron that mimics menopause and causes the fibroid to shrink (but then you have the problems associated with menopause such as osteoporosis). They don’t tell me but my later research reveals that you can only take this expensive drug for three months and then your fibroid can regrow to 90% of its original size. My other choices at the time are – cauterize the inside of my uterus, which can stop bleeding for five years. Or a hysterectomy.
For me, personally, a hysterectomy is out of the question. My inner information is that this fibroid grew from an unmet desire for a third child. I had desperately wanted one in my late thirties when my marriage ended. To be honest, I hadn’t really decided whether or not I was done having kids. It’s just that all the men I’ve dated since my divorce have been ten years older than me and have had vasectomies. If the right Tim Robbins appeared to my Susan Sarandon, I’d definitely consider it. But also, I don’t want Medical Science determining my fertility. I personally believe that Western Medicine’s attitude is ‘cut first and ask questions later’. I found that a year ago when researching breast cancer. Well, my uterus is NOT an appendix (or a tonsil, adenoid, or foreskin) – something to be cut out or tossed aside. I’m certain there must be other choices out there.
Meanwhile, I notice someone I’m very attracted to and ask a girlfriend about him. “I checked him out a couple years ago,” she said. “He doesn’t date women with children. He’s looking for someone younger to make babies with.”
Ah me. And here I am facing the loss of my uterus.
So I go into the next month on this hormonal roller coaster. In order to stop the bleeding I have to take 4 birth control pills a day. That makes me just a wee bit emotional, just a week bit testy about things. I’m instructed to lower the dosage once the bleeding stops. So I do, go about five days, start to feel completely normal, get a bit cocky and go to yoga class. And start bleeding again the next day. It takes a week of mega dosing the pill to get it to stop. I do this about three times when I consult with a gynecologist who suggests I not exercise – not even walking a treadmill. ‘Don’t do anything that encourages more blood flow”. I’m in rehearsals for the play I auditioned for, and watch the other actors warming up feeling really frustrated that I can’t move my body as easily and effortlessly and I used to before this all started. Then, a directing change in the last scene calls for an actor to throw me over his shoulder as we exit. Ooof. I start bleeding again the next day.
I decide, enough of this, I can’t be having uncontrolled bleeding during performances. I commit to taking mega doses of the pill for the duration of the play. In the midst of all this I meet Katarina Hirsch and begin Body Talk sessions. It’s the only non-medical approach I try until August. Meanwhile, I see a specialist in Seattle and discuss with him the other alternatives for treating fibroids I’ve discovered by going to www.mayoclinic.com – the Mayo Clinic’s homepage. Laser surgery is out; apparently my fibroid is too imbedded in my uterus. A myomectomy is possible, when they just cut out the fibroid, but it’s more complicated than a hysterectomy and there’s the chance the tumor will grow back. He starts telling me the details of both operations – a week in hospital, four to six weeks of recovery at home while the stitches are healing. My brain starts racing – a week in hospital? Four to six weeks out of work? I’m a single parent, I can’t do this. I have only one window of time, from August 25th to September 20th, where I could possibly be out of commission. I don’t have savings to last me beyond then. I think about a friend who underwent a hysterectomy for cancer – she had a loving partner and an army of friends bringing her meals. I can barely come up with someone to drive me to the hospital. I hear the doctor’s voice, “or there’s fibroid embolization.” What’s that? “I can’t really answer that, I’m a surgeon and those are done by radiologists.” He hands me the name of one to call.
I phone this guy, Dr. Morton D--. He answers the phone “Dick D--.” Well, yes, if my name were Morton, I’d call myself Dick, too. He turns out to be very helpful. He tells me of the website, www.fibroid.com which details the procedure. It’s an overnight stay in the hospital and a week at home on pain pills. It sounds like the answer to my prayers. A week on pain pills sounds delightful. I’ve been majorly bummed that I don’t drink and have been going through all this completely in touch with all my feelings. He says he wants an MRI before scheduling the procedure, so we set one up for the end of the month.
By this time, taking mega doses of the Pill, I’m not bleeding, but I’m cramping and feeling a lot of lower abdominal pain. I get scared. The play is almost done with its run but I’m afraid that being thrown over someone’s shoulder three times a week might cause flooding. How can I ask for a change without explaining why? I decide to tough it out through the final performance.
I have the MRI at Swedish. I’m very excited. What single parent wouldn’t leap at the chance to lie down for 40 minutes and do nothing? The pump that runs the machine sounds like a bird rhythmically chirping. They give me ear plugs because the sound of the MRI is very loud. I imagine I’m napping next to a construction zone. Afterwards I get the feeling that I’m not going to like what they find but I’m rigorously determined to remain cheerful. I meet with Dr. Dick and he shows me the MRI. I’m surprised to see that the fibroid isn’t growing into my uterus like a little embryo but is growing on top of it like some weird alien head. Also, it’s no longer a golf ball. It’s a base ball. Too much tissue, not enough blood flow for an embolization, I’m told.
The next day I’m pissed. Pissed that my alternatives are dropping like flies and I’m feeling railroaded towards a hysterectomy. Pissed that I don’t have a partner to stand by me through this. I paid my dues as a dutiful wife in my marriage, faithfully and loyally standing by my former spouse during his illness and five long hard years of recovering physically and financially. Pissed that there’s no one here for me. I start thinking, okay this is not a crisis, this is an event. I’m thinking, I really prefer my drama to occur on stage, not in my real life. I’m thinking, the Universe doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle. I’m thinking the Universe thinks I’m too friggin’ capable
I talk with the gynecologist and tell him IF I have a hysterectomy, it has to be on August 25th, so I have a month to recover. He says they’re already booked; they’d have to reschedule other people, gather a surgical team, book an OR. I’m given until Monday to make a decision.
That weekend is Earth Fair and I’m sharing a booth in the Healing Arts section. I go into it majorly tweaked. I see my friend Deb Pierce who had offered me a free massage. Her booth is about Drama Therapy. Skip the massage, I say. Give me therapy. So we do a role play between my lower self, the one that’s tweaked, and my Higher Self. Lower self vents, gets a tad too loud for the Healing Arts area. Higher Self tells me I have plenty of time to come to my decision. Something inside me relaxes. I run into Shaheeda Pierce, a midwife who took my aura healing class years ago. She trades me a consult for a psychic reading. I am enormously relieved to hear she’d once healed herself of an ectopic pregnancy by using natural techniques. I get tons of helpful suggestions for self treatment. She tells me about Susun Weed’s recommendations for fibroids. She gives me the number of the Hysterectomy Educational Resource Service in PA, that offers free phone counseling and has a huge library both on the operation and its alternatives. And she also says that, holistically, a fibroid represents a pregnancy – a gestation of something creative. I think about the unmet desire for a daughter but at the same time I think about my book. When I was 37 and desperately wanting that third child, I sat down to write a novel. Three months later I stood up with two, 200,000 word books – part of a trilogy. The process of producing the first books was so intense (each chapter was like a contraction) I never wrote the final novel. Most of the story is in my head. The main character is female. Instead of getting a hysterectomy on August 25th, I think I’ll start writing my book.
Meanwhile, I’ve learned of an experimental technique pioneered at Harvard Med School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. It uses high frequency ultrasound to disintegrate the fibroid. It’s the least invasive medical technique I’ve found. I email the head doctor about being a volunteer at their clinical trials. I get an email back with a couple websites www.fibroids.net and www.insightec.com – the first being their local site for signing up as a participant, the other being a site listing the other hospitals in the world doing this procedure. The Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins are the only ones listed in the States. I email both places about being a volunteer for them as well. Monday I get responses from Johns Hopkins and Boston, and get on their wait lists. I tell them I have family in the area so I can attend all their required follow up visits. Okay, I have family in DC, so it’s close to Johns Hopkins. I haven’t really lied to Boston because, hey, DC is closer to them than Seattle, right? I call the gynecologist’s office and tell them not to go to the trouble of scheduling me for surgery.
I see Katarina for a Body Talk session and we focus on shrinking the fibroid. It hadn’t occurred to me to do that before. I think I was trying to gestate it. I wonder why I’ve spent so many months bashing my head against allopathic medicine when I’ve been a spiritual healer and energy worker for 22 years. Why had I forgotten all my inner knowledge?
Something inside me shifts. It’s like my river of life has hit rapids and I’d been under the raft trying to slow it down. I decide, screw it, and throw myself fully into the current. I have no idea where I’m going to end up. I just know my life is going to be 180 degrees different by October. I have a very edgy attitude. It’s anger but it’s the ‘get the fuck out of my way’ kind of anger. The kind that burns through all my old limitations and rigid personas.
I hear the guy I’m still attracted to has expressed interest in a colleague’s 21 year old friend. And he’s turning 40. Oh my. The wrinkles in my face look like ice crevasses.
I have four hair cuts in twelve days. I go from very long to shoulder length. I go from shoulder length to above the ears. The shortest it’s been in 20 years. My kids think I look like Jamie Lee Curtis. I could audition for Peter Pan or the Sound of Music. Susun Weed’s website suggests acupuncture for fibroids and then next thing I know I’m lying on Ann Leda Shapiro’s table full of needles and thinking, “this hair isn’t short enough. It does not reflect the amount of transformation I’m going through. It’s too friggin suburban housewife.” I go to my hair dresser, a friend of many years and say ‘Annie Lennox’. She doesn’t know who Annie Lennox is. She does her best but as she’s clipping she says, “Joan, you’re usually so conservative.” The next day I go to a friend’s stylist in Fremont. As she’s working I talk non-stop about co-creating a garden with Nature by communicating with devas and nature spirits. I don’t know why until the stylist tells me she’s been wanting to start a vegetable garden and is very excited about my information. When she finishes with my hair, I let out a sigh of relief. I pat my chunky, spiky head. Happy. This is it. Which is good, because my only choice after this is Sinead O’Connor. And I won’t look like a chemotherapy victim. I do not have cancer.
My dad emails me about a friend who had a hysterectomy and was pleased with it. I reply saying that if I hear another story of a woman happily having her uterus removed I will scream. This miffs my stepmother, as both she and her eldest daughter had theirs taken out because of fibroids. If you’ve ever seen Dharma and Greg, my dad and step mother are Greg’s parents. I do not apologize well, making a slam at Western Medicine and, after sending the reply, remember that her youngest daughter is an MD. They had offered to come stay with me if I’d had a hysterectomy, I realize it’s a good thing they won’t have to - – I’d have to be too friggin’ well behaved.
Then my mother kindly sends me an article from the Washington Post called “A Hysterectomy Journal” about one woman’s experience blindly choosing a hysterectomy with little research and a second opinion from another surgeon, complete with smiling photographs. I am incensed. I write the Washington Post a seething email chastising them for being so irresponsible in publishing such drivel. Do they know for every woman extolling the miracle of hysterectomy, there’s a woman not talking about hers and experiencing continued pain and possible sexual dysfunction. I offer them all my websites, all my research, on other alternatives then pose the question, “if Western Medicine were dominated by women, would men be having their testicles removed because they were done being fathers?” Afterwards I discover that the woman author is a member of my father and step mother’s book club. They’d seen her article, decided it was mindless fluff, and chose not to send it to me. I wonder if the Post will publish my letter. I wonder what their next book club meeting will be like if it does.
Next I phone Susun Weed on her Tuesday night free consult time (informational for callers, instructional for her students). It is not a pleasant experience. I feel that I’ve committed a great sin by not reading her book “A New Menopausal Wisdom” it’s as if she’s there with her acolytes and I haven’t read the Bible. I do get good advice on herbs to stop bleeding, so I can stop taking the pill (which I suspect caused the fibroid to grow). My acupuncturist tells me she’s met Susun Weed and that she is a bit cantankerous. That’s putting it mildly.
I go to Minglement and they don’t have the herbs Susun recommends but Eva gives me her own tincture, personally created for her by Kathy, the resident herbalist expert. I am tearfully grateful to meet another person with fibroids, as all I’ve met up until now are women who’ve had hysterectomies. It prompts me to write this article.
So this monologue doesn’t have an ending yet. I’m doing acupuncture. I’m taking herbs. I’m doing castor oil compresses. I’m visualizing. I’m waiting to hear from Johns Hopkins and Boston. I am sailing out into the unknown. I don’t know if I’m heading towards the ocean or Niagara Falls. But the other day I did get a vision of myself at 65. And I still have my womb.
Uterine Soliloquy –
a sequel, Part II
Or, “To Bleed or not
to Bleed?”
by Joan M. McCabe
Women have been sharing with me their happy uterus and not-so-happy hysterectomy stories. One woman had a myomectomy (an operation just to remove the fibroids) after years of heavy periods and successfully kept her uterus. She validated for me how much time and attention this constant bleeding takes – I’d been questioning how much of my day this issue occupies.
Another woman shared that she’d had a hysterectomy – which her insurance covered – only after she’d run out of money for alternative therapies – which her insurance didn’t cover. She didn’t know there were other medical, surgical and non-surgical treatment options that her insurance most likely would have paid for.
Another shared that she developed fibroids when she was 46 and is 52 now. She still has heavy periods but has learned how to live with them. For example, she lives on Maury Island and during her period can’t drive from her house to the ferry without flooding through her pants, so she just brings a backpack with a change of clothes. (I listened to this and thought, and men wonder why menopausal women are so grouchy!)
A colleague of mine had a vaginal hysterectomy for fibroids. The doctors had underestimated how large the tumors were, and they tore ligaments as they were being taken out. She is now facing reconstructive surgery.
An acquaintance of mine manages her heavy periods from fibroids by using a special herbal tincture which prevents flooding.
A woman I know had taken the Pill for two months to stop bleeding and then underwent a fibroid embolization. During the procedure she suffered a pulmonary embolism – a blood clot in her lung (a side effect of the Pill) and nearly died.
After the Ticket article came out, I received an anonymous voicemail from a woman sharing her fibroid story – over 20 years ago had a myomectomy, had an easy time getting pregnant, and the fibroids never returned.
A good friend had battled endometriosis since her mid twenties and finally had a complete hysterectomy – ovaries and all – in her early thirties. Now, in her late thirties and after being on hormone replacement therapy for five years, her endometriosis has grown back.
Myself, I’ve been through a series of events and revelations that have brought about a breakthrough and perhaps a miracle in my own fibroid journey.
I’d bled all August, even while taking 3-6 birth control pills a day to try to stop it. (Normally a woman only needs to take one a day to prevent her period). Also, I’d been having heartburn and an uncomfortable sense of fullness, a pressure on my diaphragm. When I was pregnant with both my kids, I had three months of morning sickness and six months of heartburn. Could I be having heartburn because this fibroid was the size of a three month old fetus? Was the pressure from this tumor pushing my organs upwards? When you’re pregnant, your joints become flexible, your pelvis and ribs naturally open to make room for the baby growing within you. But I was having no such chemical changes within me to signal my bones to widen. If this tumor kept growing, what would happen to my body? (Later I learned that they actually do measure fibroids in terms of fetal size. “I have a 4 month fibroid.” “I have a 12 week fibroid.”)
At a professional training weekend on the Hood Canal I had the opportunity to walk the labyrinths at the place next store – Harmony Hills, known for their cancer retreats. . I considered the irony that cancer patients, with malignant tumors, had walked these same paths as well.
I was going to walk the one with lavender that had bees, because I have no fear of bees and no one else would walk it, but there were too many people standing nearby. The next one had beautiful flowers and only one person had started on it. As I walked I realize that I never let myself take the easy path, the beautiful path, the one everyone wants to take. I thought how my summer started out like this path – I was in the play I’d wanted to do for years, and I’d felt an attraction for someone for the first time in years as well. I thought about how I had messed everything up through my fear of rejection, and my struggle to ignore the physical and emotional pain I was going through because of the tumor. By this time a good half dozen people were on the path behind me, and I’d come to the middle and someone was already sitting on the only seat in the center. I left to try the last labyrinth.
No one was on it as I started trudging along the crushed gravel, feeling miserable. I ran into one of four saplings planted in each quadrant of the labyrinth, which forced me to look up. In the branch, there was a porcelain angel. I said hello to it and went back to feeling sad and lonely; how could I expect anyone to get on this boat with me as it’s hurtling downriver? The second sapling forced me to look up again – it, too, had an angel, and also some prayer beads. The Universe was forcing me to look upwards. Cancer patients have to look upwards in order to live through their experience. At the center I sat on one of the benches surrounding the redwood, and noticed all the many coins, earrings, pictures of religious figures, people had left in the tree’s bark. There was a necklace of a female form with a spiral in her womb area. Then I noticed I’d have to take the same path out to leave as I’d taken to get in. And this time there were several other people on the path. It was interesting that, with each person I encountered, I was the one who stood aside so they’d have space to pass. Each one was so absorbed in their journey they hadn’t considered stepping aside for me. After I passed the last person, I had a quadrant to walk by myself and felt my inner wisdom surfacing - I don’t have to have a hysterectomy, I can take all the time I need to decide how I want to create my reality. Also, it’s entirely possible that someone out there could get on this boat midstream. I needed to release all my limiting thoughts and beliefs. Suddenly I was at the end of the path and had to leave before I felt ready.
At the end of the weekend there was a graduation ceremony and a dance. I intended to sit out the dance because I’d not been able to do any strong physical exertion without causing flooding in recent months. I found myself crying uncontrollably (but silently – a technique learned in childhood) and the group leader came and sat with me. It was amazing to have someone gently be with me as I released months of fear, frustration and grief. Later I learned she was a cancer survivor.
A few days later I had a Body Talk session with Katarina Hirsch. She mentioned that my stomach was soft. Yeah, with the amount of ice cream I’d been eating recently she was probably feeling a good five extra pounds of fat. But she was right. Before my stomach had been hard and smooth – the same way your abdomen feels when pregnant. This felt jelly like, the way it feels after giving birth. And I no longer had heartburn or a sense of fullness.
The bleeding continued and unusual colors as well. Was this the fibroid breaking down and clearing out of my system?
As I’d been taking 3+ birth control pills a day for four months, my acupuncturist was concerned about possible side affects. Yes I’d had occasional heart palpitations, and a catching of my breath, but I’d talked about these with my doctor and they weren’t concerned. I decided she was being overly cautious. But during a meeting on the Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, I felt a deep pressure on my chest, momentarily making it hard to breath. It was followed by chest pain. I sat there with my eyes closed wondering how seriously to take the symptoms. No way in hell did I want to call doctors for anything. The only medical professionals I wanted to hear from were Johns Hopkins about my participating in their clinical trials. When I got home I looked up the Pill on the Mayo clinic’s home page, and looked up the various side affects. I had a whole lot that fell into the category of pulmonary embolism. It said you could be accumulating several small clots over time. I checked out the treatment, beyond major hospitalization, was to take ibuprofen or aspirin. So I stopped the pill cold-turkey and began taking several ibuprofen every four hours. I felt another episode than evening, and another Monday morning, and none after that.
When the flooding kicked in again, I choose not to resist it. I’d been fighting my bleeding for months. What would happen if I just stocked up on tampons and pads and considered it a never-ending period? Some pre-menopausal women have periods that last for six months, so I could just pretend this fibroid-caused bleeding is the same thing. I stock up on iron supplements and vitamin B12. I order tinctures from Joseph Montagna, a healer in Portland (www.alternativescentral.com) and felt an immediate reaction. I gave my photo to Tammy Dunakin, to take down to John of God in Brazil, a miraculous healer to people who visit him and those who send their photos, (www.johnofgod.com ). The flooding ebbed back to a regular period flow – just the same as in August taking 3-6 birth control pills a day.
I feel I’m in the midst of something momentous. It’s taken a huge amount of energy to break through this wall of prevalent reality – the predominant belief of Western Medicine to cut first and ask questions later. It’s similar to when I was a teenager and broke through the restrictive world presented by my parents. I’d successfully created miracles back then – I lost 50 pounds by myself, I moved to England on my own and went to drama school, and I’ve created miracles in my adult life as well. I’d been hitting my face against this wall of Western Medicine through my own resistance, which is not the energy I need to create my present needed miracle. When I fight something, I give it power; I actually attract what I’m resisting. After seeing ‘Whalerider’ I have a dream that I’m on an island trying to leave and I keep hitting the Great Barrier Reef. I’d used the metaphor of being on a river and hitting white water to describe my journey so far, having no idea where I’d end up. Perhaps my destination is the open ocean?
I joined the Y – because I used to exercise when I had periods, so why not now? This fibroid has been controlling my quality of life long enough.
I’m not giving any more attention to Western Medicine’s version of reality. I’m only aligning myself with people who’ve experienced miracles within them. A woman who’s healed herself of an ectopic pregnancy. Another who’s recovered from post-polio syndrome; a year ago she could barely walk and now she’s hoofing it everywhere. A woman who was diagnosed with scleroderma and given five years to live, even less when it spread to her brain – and the disease is completely gone from her system now, six years later. And last week a new friend told me that several years ago it was discovered that she had a tumor growing from her jugular vein up to her eardrum. She had just had three dates with this guy and told him he didn’t have to stay with her as it was going to get ugly and hard – she didn’t know if she was going to live or die. He chose to stay by her through two surgeries and radiation and is now her husband. It made me realize that it’s possible to have someone get on board with you in the midst of white water. Inspired by these amazing women, I got very clear that what I’d like to happen is for this continuous bleeding to stop and to go back to having regular periods.
I order Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book “The Wisdom of Menopause’ from the library and find at last the sensible and balanced information I’d been seeking about having fibroids. It lists reasons to keep your uterus, cervix and ovaries. Two stood out for me. The first was that ovaries are the equivalent of the male testes, producing hormones involved in normal sex drive, “Removal of the ovaries literally castrates the female” it says! The second was that the uterus has rhythmic contractions during orgasm, and many women no longer experience the depth of sexual pleasure after hysterectomy. I discover that her ‘Women’s Body, Women’s Wisdom’ has been on my book shelf all along – and it contains similar information.
Johns Hopkins emailed that they have 200 women on their waiting list and are only accepting one new patient a week. Good thing I’m no longer waiting for a miracle from them!
My photo went to Brazil on September 22nd. On September 24th, my bleeding stopped. Five months and ten days after it started. I don’t know if it’s the acupuncture or the tinctures, John of God, or my change of attitude. I suspect it’s a combination of all three. People tell me I seem softer and more relaxed. It’s true I no longer feel frightened or desperate or urgent. I’m curious to see what happens now. Will I have regular periods again? Have I stopped altogether? It’s amazing all the changes that have happened since April.
And to think I could have had a hysterectomy in August.
~~~
About
the Author
Joan M. McCabe, CPC is a
professional life coach,
ordained minister, accredited
Transformation Game®
workshop facilitator and
Living Your Vision®
coach. She has over twenty
years' professional experience
in the spiritual and personal
growth field. As a coach,
Joan assists clients with
living the life that makes
their heart sing. With Living
Your Vision®, clients
discover their inner vision
and life purpose, and create
a Master Plan for success
and fulfillment in all areas
of their lives! Joan offers
Customized Transformation
Games® specifically
designed for small groups
of up to five people to
discover intuitive solutions
to life issues. Ordained
in 1983, Joan performs weddings
and commitment ceremonies
throughout the Puget Sound.
And there's even more! Joan
is also the author of Tapestry
of Time Trilogy -- if you
enjoyed this chapter, check
back next month for the
next installment!!! For
more about Joan, go to www.jmmccabe.com
