Hormones (Use your Discretion Reading This)

I have plans today. My mother and my sister are coming to visit. I love my mother and my sister. . . . separately.
To make matters worse, I had some “problems” and needed hormones to stop bleeding. I took a shot of lupron and I’m on aygestin for estrogen supplementation. I am really supergirl.
I think I’m going to be really nauseated tomorrow.
With my bone marrow suppression, my blood doesn’t clot so I can’t bleed at all. Generally, if you still have your menses, it’s stopped through hormones.
I don’t generally have this bleeding problem. I haven’t had that “problem” since Dec. 2006.
In Dec. 2006, right before Christmas, I tried to ignore some petechiae (small, red pin-prick like bruises). My grandparents were flying in. I wanted to stay for dinner.
I made it half way through dinner and decided to head to the ER.
I had a small fever. I was in a lot of pain. A sore in my nose had not clotted well.
I walked into the ER intending to knit while I waited to be admitted.
I went to the bathroom and tried to get a urinalysis. But I couldn’t pee. I tried. I tried.
When I finally did, I looked like I had been shot. I started to cry. I lost half a pint of blood in the toilet. I could tell, it looked like it could fit into one of the milk cartons I used to drink from as a kid.
The ER nurse kept telling me it was fine. It was going to be all right.
She was lying and I knew.
I got my first major morphine doses that Christmas: 2mg every 5 minutes, and it still wouldn’t stop the pain.
It took 4 units of red blood cells and two units of platelets to put me back together.
This time it only took me two units of packed cells, and I think most the damage was done from fluid overload.
I cried, really cried then. The nurses put me to sleep, and when I woke up I felt worse. My stomach was swollen. I felt worse than I had at my most pregnant. The pain worse than any contraction I ever had and unrelenting.
This is how doctors and nurses really earn their keep.
I recovered quickly with the normal cocktail of antibiotics. I probably had some anti-virals and anti-fungals thrown in there too. I don’t remember. That was a time in my life that is best forgotten, but I healed.
That was my first fling with hormones, and it lasted a while. Now they’ve come back. We’ll see how it goes.