Day 3 Post-Yeet

 Well, the last 24 hours have been something of a shitshow. 

Last night, I was feeling unwell. I was having pain and trying to avoid taking the narcotic painkiller, there was itching and pulling in my umbilical incision (there still is. It's fucking weird), I could feel my intestines shifting to fill the void (it's a real thing, look it up), and then I coughed. Now, in general, my pain hasn't gone much above a 3. But when I coughed, I didn't have a chance to brace my belly, and the pain fired all the way up to BEES! (https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/6y2tgn/an_improved_pain_scale/)

That led me to doing the thing that I always do. I started to overthink. This was a bad idea. I should have waited. I should have held off until I had lost more weight so I didn't have the belly pulling on the incision. I should have just dealt with it. I made a bad call.

None of these things are true, necessarily. It may not have been the worst idea in the world had I waited a little longer and gotten rid of a little more pudge, but ultimately, I know myself. Even at my skinniest, I had enough of a pooch that it would have pulled and been uncomfortable. Luckily, I have a great partner who is both very supportive and very logically-minded. He reminded me that this is something that I've been trying to get done for years, and that once I've healed, it's going to be a far cry better in the long run than it would have been if I had just kept going with the IUD. He's right, of course. And he held me while I whined and complained, didn't judge me for being crazypants, and didn't try to rush off. He's good people.

Sleep was shit. I have to do all kinds of horizontal gymnastics to get myself into a comfortable position, with the use of a body pillow that makes getting under the blanket complicated. Lee is afraid to get too close for fear of accidentally bashing into a tender spot, so cuddling is out. And once I get into a "comfortable" position, that's it. No movement. Because movement is uncomfortable at best. I got into bed at, I don't know, maybe 11ish? And woke up to pee at 3:30. And then didn't fall back to sleep until well after 7. And woke up again at 9:30. Ugh.

Eating was also shit today. I had about 2 tablespoons of the taco/sloppy joe beef that Lee made last night, and when I couldn't do any more because my stomach started to protest the protein, I grabbed a donut. That took a solid hour to eat, which is sad as hell. Around 1:30, I was finally hungry enough to make another food attempt. So I busted out the leftover pho I had...well, the broth and the beef, anyway. I left the noodles out because that would have been far too substantial. Again, took me well over an hour to eat, which is just absurd. It's broth and a couple of strips of bland-ass beef. And then I started to feel unwell. The nausea built up from about 3:45. I took a painkiller and a zofran at 5pm when I couldn't take it any more. I ate some crackers. And then I got to googling. Because again, overthinker. I checked for fever (temp is perfectly normal), I inspected the external incision sites for any signs of infection (there were none), and finding no obvious cause, I began to look up what's "normal" following a hysterectomy.

Now, my surgery was robotic-assisted and left the ovaries in place. So I wasn't looking at what to expect from complete hysterectomies. Everything said that the nausea is typically anesthesia-related and goes away within 24 hours. We're well past the 24 hour mark, and there's neither anesthesia nor narcotic in my system. Fuck. Keep reading.

And then I accidentally read about what to expect after ovary removal. Nausea lasting up to two weeks is one of the symptoms. Because your body basically goes cold-turkey from the hormones your ovaries produce. The article recommended taking an estrogen supplement. And that's when it hit me right between the fuckin' eyes.
I've had an IUD for the last 7ish years. My body hasn't had to figure out how and when to produce which hormone, because it had a piece of plastic taking the wheel. When the uterus came out, so too did the IUD. Know what the number one side effect of removing an IUD is (save the pain of actually, y'know, pulling half a crucifix through your fucking cervix)? Yeah, it's nausea. (This also explains my sudden emotional outburst last night. Go fucking figure.)

So what do I do now? I could call my doctor tomorrow during office hours and see if there's any medication he can give me to take and then wean off of so my body can figure out wtf is going on. But that requires calling, probably getting an appointment, and driving to the office. Which I can't do quite yet. So that's out. But there are a whole mess of foods that have plant estrogens, and they're easy to get. Chick peas, garlic, soy, green peas, dried stone fruits, cruciferous vegetables...so we'll start there and see what happens. Granted, this is going to be complicated, because nausea, but it's something.