I have two major things where two groups of doctors all told me the same thing: YOU CAN NEVER HAVE CHILDREN. It was a warning I was first told when I was in the 5th grade. My appendix had burst and I walked around for weeks with a ruptured appendix. I went to the doctors as a child, almost every day. I was told I was faking it, that nothing was wrong with me. One intern decided on Labor day to have my checked for appendicitis as my complaints were always about my stomach. I was in surgery the next day and spent months recovering.
My sister told everyone at school I was dead. (Now my sister is painfully shy and couldn’t stand being questioned. She was in the second grade.) So yes I did have my resurrection moment in my childhood where people stared at me and said ‘I thought you died.’
What I learned about myself at this age is that I have a very strong threshold for pain. I wake up in the middle of surgery despite the drugs that were pumped into me. (I woke up in the middle of the operation and the scariest moment of my life was waking up in recovery where I thought they put me in the morgue. I screamed and screamed for my mother. Remember I was still young.
What I also remember about this hospital visit is that a doctor told me she tried to save my ovaries, but it would be best if I never had children. I might bleed out on the table as my stomach might not heal if they have to do a C-secton.
I asked a doctor in Florida a few years ago and showed my scar. She said it would be unlikely I’d have children ever.
I’ll continue with the second doctor story of my life, this time with my spine tomorrow.
The image of me bleeding out on a hospital table has haunted me all my life.
