When Surgery Doesn't Go As Planned (Lupus #14)

Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Including surgery.

So how does one cope? Here are some of my surgery memes today to help me cope with the fact this didn’t go as planned. After all, laughter is always great medicine.

Why Surgery?

Remember this post awhile back? Roe vs. Wade, Support Group, and the Question? These were largely inspired by my own story of fighting to keep an unwanted pregnancy (which I have written exhaustively about and not yet published) and began hemorrhaging three months after baby Kai was born until I needed a blood transfusion. (There was bleeding before that, but it became life-or-death back in June).

And although we’ve been band-aiding the problem with hormones, which are bad for Lupus patience and those with a history of blood-clots, the bleeding hasn’t stopped. Reduced, yes, but surgery became the best option. And yet, it took two months to actually reserve an operating room to have the surgery.

Finally, after bleeding for most of 4/5 months, today I went back into the hospital for the 7th time JUST since the baby has been born (two of which were just for the bleeding). Today I had a D&C and uterine ablation to get this problem knocked out for good. For one, it sucks to have a low blood count and be anemic. For another, it keeps me very weak, affects everyday life, like parking, what I can/can’t do, and relationships.

Let’s just say I’ve been really hopeful about this surgery!

And yet, despite extending the surgery another 45 minutes and trying every trick in the trade, the surgeon was unable to complete the ablation.

I am so disappointed.

What Do We Do When Chaos Never Stops?

Even though I know surgeries are unpredictable, I had hoped.

And that’s life, isn’t it, changemakers? Beautiful, and yet full of chaos and suffering. It’s why we do the good in the world we do, to help relieve some of that.

And yet we cannot just spend our energies being productive, on mission, making a difference, and advocating for justice. For otherwise we too will be swallowed. The chaos isn’t just others, wee experience it to. For me, in this season it is systemic lupus, a newborn (and three other kids), uncontrolled woman bleeding, and PTSD from it all. For you, it might be something else entirely. It could be a loved one passing, a need for healing, a bunch of change, or a struggle with depression.

We have the opportunity to prioritize becoming fully alive. We get to choose to engage in the hard work of healing. We practice skills to bring us back to gratitude and joy.

Resilience isn’t born of pushing through.

Resilience is born of going deep.

We go deep.

But right now, just excuse me a moment while I go away and cry a little.