Month One of Life Two

             I think my friend Val described it best when she said: “I remember the feeling just as if it had happened only moments ago.  I was 29 years old.  Compared to you, I was lucky - I had already given birth to 3 children and I was married at the time.  Still, I felt like a piece of cardboard and it was the loneliest feeling in the world.”  As I stand in front of the bathroom mirror tonight and examine the strange, red bumps that have formed around one of the many scars on my stomach, I can’t shake Valera’s words.  Here I am encouraging empowerment, and I can’t help feeling like the loneliest person in the world.  It is true; tonight, I feel like a piece of cardboard.

             There is nothing like hearing the word “cancer.”  Be it a small lump on your nose or the force that takes your last breath – or any kind in between.  There is no way to explain the immense feeling of fear the word “cancer” can generate.  Funny thing is: there’s nothing like hearing the word “barren” either.  In a world where women still make the babies, and by and large, men still make the money - what do you do with a woman who can’t make any babies in the middle of her finding-a-good-man-that-can-also-bring-home-the-bacon years?  And if you decide that you don’t need a good man to bring home the bacon, how do you overcome illness and provide for yourself in between insurance payments and doctors’ bills – let alone car payments, rent and food? And if you do fit into any of the aforementioned categories of girls, how are you supposed to feel?  And, even if there really is any which way to feel, who do you talk to about those feelings?  How do you find someone who can really relate to your situation?  

 I have found that these questions only lead to more questions, and the overall frustration of the situation is, in many ways, worse than the fear of imminent death.  Instead, these very basic and very honest questions confront you with the very real terror that you just might spend the rest of your life feeling like the epitome of a poorly manufactured woman.  Like, perhaps you were the only one born with faulty parts or somehow created by lazy labor-cells.  Just like that piece of flimsy, flawed, inconsequential cardboard.

             As the statement above implies, I am a newly-turned 27 year old girl and in June of this year – I came face-to-face with the realities of the word “barren.”  I had a hysterectomy.  Now, this decision was by no means taken lightly, nor was it made in haste or to avoid something that could have been dealt with without such extraordinary measures.  Despite many years and multiple operations, drug therapies and tests – I just couldn’t stop the illness that stemmed from my reproductive parts, and sadly, I probably became “barren” many years before I was forced to accept it.  But, the hysterectomy did definitively end my 8 year long struggle with a variety of reproductive diseases and ovarian melodramas, and does explain my unexpected 2 month hiatus from the internet.  But, where does it really leave me? 

Well, I have found that the hysterectomy itself has handed me something unique to any surgery that came before it… it has handed me a very sharp double-edged sword.  On one side, there is: extraordinary relief, a sense of infinite gratefulness, the ability to actually finish something that I start, and above all - a purpose.  On the other side, I am faced with the very overwhelming, very real, very indefinable feeling of lifelessness.  So, I guess what to do with this knife is really the topic of conversation in this blog post.

 Outside of the emotionally erratic moments, the bouts of depression and the days that find me feeling so lost that I can’t even cry, I have found a silver lining.  Since having a hysterectomy, and in other words – since facing my demons - I have found a sense of peacefulness that lulls even the highest of highs and lowest of lows.  I read once in the book Shantaram that “suffering, of every kind, is always a matter of what we’ve lost.  When we’re young, we think that suffering is something that’s done to us.  When we get older – when the steel door slams shut, in one way or another – we know that real suffering is measured by what’s been taken away from us.”  I find this statement to be one that quite accurately describes any double-edged knife’s cold and callous truth.               At some point in time, be it today or thirty years from now, to overcome the suffering, we must accept our pains to be our truths, and then we must choose to accept our truths to be nothing more than character defining moments in life.  This moment is not one that has been done to me, it is one where something very dear to me has been taken away from me.  It is unfortunate that the ability to create my own kicking & breathing little life had to be what was lost, but in order to heal, I must choose to learn from what has been gained.  And just look at all that’s been gained…

 I have found that my daily decisions no longer find me constantly consulting the old adage: “the better of two evils.”  I have recognized that I can have options if I allow myself to feel worthy of them.  I have realized that I am valuable to myself and to others.  Most of all, I have found a purpose – to take the loneliness away from at least one other girl.  To lighten her load – even if by just a little bit – even if just momentarily.  Lastly, I have discovered that even cardboard has substance, and although flimsy at times and subject to the fancies of the worldly winds, it still has a purpose.  So, allow yourselves to find purpose within yourselves ladies - dig deep - and even still, don't worry when those moments of cardboard take over - remember that I am here & that I have once been where you are right now.

So Over These Ovaries...

Hello, Blogging World.  My name is Catherine Elyssa Brown -- Lyss, for short, and I am officially Over These Ovaries.  I've never been particularly good with beginnings, but then again, I always imagined my story making its debut on The Oprah Winfrey Show. I imagine that it is probably much easier to tell the beginning of a story when Oprah is the one asking the thought provoking questions and coaxing out the gut-wrenchingly honest answers. Alas, as Oprah says goodbye to network television, I guess I've succumbed to the fact that timing really is everything – and that there really is no time like the present. Well, either that or the fact that I better get busy while I still have a shot at dancing on stage with Ellen DeGeneres!  I mean, who doesn't feel better after an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show?

Like too many girls out there, I've spent the past seven years (and all of my twenties!!) fighting an unknown and disheartening ovarian syndrome. Whether it was cancer or cysts or irregular periods or infertility... or even explaining to my newest boyfriend that I likely could not have my own children, and that I could end up in a hospital bed in the forth coming weeks -- I have spent most of my days in a Sisyphean attempt to control something that is truly terrifying and uncomfortably uncontrollable. I actually got the idea for this blog one day when I realized that I could no longer count how many times I'd shouted in exasperation: "I'M SO OVER THESE OVARIES!!", or painstakingly explained to someone that my life was crumbling "over these ovaries." All I could quantify was how much I had grown to despise those three little words.

So, what do you do after six major surgeries, a thousand doctor's appointments, various all-nighters in the Emergency Room, serious drug interactions, deadly allergic reactions and the loss of a left ovary and most of the right one? How do you cope with the idea that all of that blood & gutsy stuff…that all of that physical pain & actual suffering is actually the easiest part? What does one do with the ravaged path of destruction & uncertainty that is left behind? Worst of all, how do you do all this and continue working, socializing, dating and living???

I have discovered over the past seven years that this question has been one that has haunted my every move. Unfortunately, I have also discovered that the resources available to us girls (and by girl, I mean under the age of 30!) struggling with ovarian issues still target women in the later stages of their lives. When I search the internet for answers, friends, or support from other girls that might possibly understand my situation, I find myself bombarded by websites that discuss the impact of ovarian diseases in the post-baby years & sort through emails from women with tag lines reading: “I’m 40, but still 20 at heart!” Although an ovary is still an ovary no matter how old the woman, and granted -- cancer is still the same scary six letter word no matter who it attacks, there is no way to compare the issues facing a 19 year old ovary-less girl with those of a 45 year old ovary-less mother of three.

So, I have decided to start writing a blog once a week about my ovaries’ path of destruction. I will be sharing my story and my mechanisms for coping with uncertainty.  Most importantly, I will be creating forums for girls under the age of 30 to connect, commiserate, confront and conquer their own uncertainty. From discussing the loss of one ovary, to the loss of both ovaries; from confronting the anger we face when losing the ability to have children, to the fear we swim through just to breathe; from managing the pain we feel, to the faith we alternatively lose and find – I promise to discuss the process from beginning to end, and to listen to every concern & fear. I promise to become your friend as you become mine.

There is an old Cuban saying that goes: “There is no evil that lasts a hundred years, nor a body that can endure it.” It is a quiet expression of hope amongst a society that has undergone a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. It is also the acknowledgement that for every beginning, there is an end. 

So, ladies – as you go on leading your lives & continue fighting your fights, please keep in mind that your heads & your hearts are purposefully and perfectly positioned in your bodies to tower over these ovaries.