Look closely

You see so much more.
This is a rose petal - the virtually black roses that Corin got for Valentines/Birthday for me are still going strong…I wonder how they are still holding themselves together. I ask the same question about myself.

It's just over a year since I bared my soul in this blog post about the reasons why I needed major surgery last March. I wrote that blog at quite possibly the lowest ebb I had ever experienced but with a degree of optimism in my heart that I was heading in the right direction.

For a few months after the surgery, my optimism seemed well founded.

But the deterioration since September, and increasingly so since January has wiped away the optimism completely and I am now 36 hours away from a return to hospital to see the consultant that discharged me in May last year.

I return as a NEW PATIENT … I am hoping that is purely procedural and that somewhere along the way, my records appear and I don't have to tell the whole tragic story again.

I have tried to avoid letting people look closely at me of late - I have built my walls up again and very few people, except those very close to me, have any real idea of the pain that has returned. But today I had no choice but to confess to a number of people as I walked around with a hot water bottle wedged into my suit and, later in the day, cried out in pain in the middle of a conversation with my boss.

Not normal.

The reality is that the insidious disease that they told me with absolutely certainty that they had got rid of, along with my internal lady bits, has returned. Research (medical papers, not t'internet rumour mill) reinforces that worry - it is damn near impossible to completely rid the body of all of the implants of endometriosis that occur as it hides, embeds itself into places that cannot be accessed and as long as the tiniest bit of it is there, whilst my body produces oestrogen, it will grow back. Scar tissue then forms and it is that which will most likely be causing the constant burning, stabbing pains that I feel in my abdomen, under my ribs, in my pelvis and in parts of me that I would rather not name.

How will I get my answer?

More surgery.

If it is what I think it is…the solution?

More surgery and the removal of the remaining producer of oestrogen…

My immediate future does not feel in the slightest bit rosie at the moment.