Is this year over yet...

2015, what an absolute stinker this year has been. It's been an odd one though, things health wise haven't been great, which we will get to in a minute, but also all around me things have been happening to people that I love and care about, things that I wish I could help with more or change. But those aren't my stories to tell but lucky for you guys, the papaya story is, I know, I know, contain yourselves...

So although the title of this post is 'Is this year over year', that really winds me up.... why do we think that at midnight on December 31st that all the crap of the previous year will just stop!? As if our health and problems think, 'Oh, wait a minute, it's now 2016, lets give her a break....' I guess it's just something for us to cling on to in the hope that it will get better.....but then, being British, we start moaning four days into January (when the hangover has finally gone) when the same problems are still sat there, laughing at us for thinking things would change because the year has.

Anyway, so the health thing... I kid you not now.... I have been in pain every single day since 7th January 2015. Not all the same pain, well, my knee has been the one constant (so I do understand why a lot of people thought I was having a knee op). I have had one day, when nothing on my body hurt me, which was 10 September. It lasted for one day, in fact, I think it was only 4 hours in total.

So here is the list of ailments... its a bit of a long one today so bear with....

7th January - I do something to my knee while doing Les Mills Grit - Plyo. I then do a really blokey thing and carry on working out. That includes, more Grit Plyo, Bodypump, Grit Cardio, running, basically all the sort of things that will make a knee injury worse... I know, I'm a dick.


March some time (still working out with my dodgy knee), I keep getting some crazy stomach swellings (the picture to the right isn't me sticking my tummy out, it was ROCK hard like that all the time) which then starts a number of tests... blood tests, scans, and eventually a camera up the papaya's neighbour, nice!

You would have assumed at this point that one of the blood tests they carried out would have tested my blood count.... but no...that would be too simple..

So now I'm at the point where I am getting ridiculously out of breath walking up stairs, chronically tired from the moment I open my eyes (I felt all day like my eyes had only just opened, you know, that bog eye type feeling), when I take my make up off, I look like Casper the friendly ghost on smack. I have massive black patches under my eyes and I'm deathly pale, I just feel like I'm falling apart and can't understand it, especially when I have had so many tests recently.

Being a mum of two pre school children and holding down a job, the time period between Feb - Aug was the hardest part of this year. To this day now I have no idea how carried on with my day to day life feeling the way I did.

Jump to May, and the mouth ulcers. If you're friends with me on Facebook you will remember mouth ulcer-gate. Nearly 3 weeks of the most painful mouth ulcers ever, all over my tongue and gums. Nothing, and I mean, nothing, would ease the pain. I used to get temporary relief from Orajel but apart from that nothing helped.

I kept googling mouth ulcers and the NHS website said 'Most mouth ulcers will clear up by themselves within a week or two. You only need to see your GP or dentist if the ulcer gets worse or lasts longer than three weeks, or if you develop ulcers regularly.'

So I didn't go to the doctor until week 3, where she did my bloods again.

Friday before we went on our first family holiday abroad, I get a call from the doctors, 'Hi Kirsty, can you come down to the surgery within the hour to see the doctor'. In my 'non dramatic' way I think, this is it, I'm a goner!

When I got there the doctor said and I quote 'your iron stores are depleted, you have no iron in your body whatsoever'. I was like, oh, ok and that means....? I was severely anemic. My red blood cell count was 5 (I think from memory) when it should be about 175. I actually burst out crying when she told me because I had started to question my sanity and although the symptoms I mentioned above were happening, I never put them all together and I never got them looked at individually because I just thought it was nothing, stupidly.

The doctor wanted to get me in for a blood transfusion but I begged not to because I was going on holiday two days later and promised that I would instead take the iron tablets and eat iron rich food while sunning myself in Spain. She agreed, phew.

The next step was working out why I was so anemic because I eat iron rich foods all the time and have a well balanced diet.

After a couple of months of taking the iron and my levels going up, then back down again, then up and crashing down again, everything pointed to the really heavy periods that I had now got used to living with.

The periods, however, were getting worse every month until at one point, when I was staying down in London for work I flooded everywhere when I was in the office. Being away from home, this was horrific. I actually cried in the toilet. I couldn't just run home and change and I only had enough clothes with me for my overnight trip. It was getting unmanageable.

So then begins the pills and potions to try and ease the monthly nightmare. The doctor gave me Norethisterone to take if I needed to delay my periods for times I was going to London for work, or had a social event. Not fixing the problem as such, but controlling it.

I then got to the point where I was feeling exhausted two weeks before mother nature showed up and felt the same the week when she was in residence. That meant I only had one week of the month when I felt ok and had energy. So the doctor signed me off work for a month to try and get this under control and  changed the Norethisterone dose to take 3 tablets a day from day 15 - 26 of my cycle.

Anybody that knows me know that me and hormones don't get on. I can't take the pill because I've had a blot clot in the past and I am hypersensitive to hormones and any side effects associated with the pill, I get. So now, I was looking like a hormonal teenager with shockingly bad skin and my periods were coming every 20 days and only slightly lighter so still not solving the problem.... arghhhh!

In the meantime my papaya fixing appointment was getting closer and I had my appointment for the pre-op with the nurse. When I get in she sits me down and said 'So Kirsty, we have you in for a prolapse/pelvic floor fix and a papaya hysterectomy'... I was like, erm, NO, prolapse fix yes, but hysterectomy, NO..... and then I thought, ahaaa.... this could be the answer...... The nurse reassures me nothing will be done without my consent and that the consultant will go through everything on the morning of the op... So off I skip home.... to google 'vaginal hysterectomy'.....

Which then leads me to papaya surgery day....

#papaya
#sharingiscaring

The poorly papaya

I've been pondering all day how to write the papaya story as there is quite a big back story to it all and I don't want to bore the pants off you, I mean how much can one person write about a papaya...

I guess we are about to find out....

So on a cold dark evening in November (the 22nd to be exact) in 2010, I went into labour for the first time ever with my cheeky little monkey, Isabelle. I rolled (literally) into that labour ward armed with my birth plan (what a waste of paper, time and effort that was).

Anyway, no epidural and no forceps featured in said birth plan... funny that.... Isabelle was born under stressful circumstances having had an epidural and Isabelle being dragged by forceps (sorry, 'dragged' is the only word that can be used to describe what happened (see pic below for Isabelle's war wounds)) out of my papaya.. which subsequently had to be 'patched up', shall we say...

Shortly after Isabelle was delivered, the patching hadn't worked, so I had to go back to the delivery suite for more patching.... repeat that again a couple of hours later... (are you keeping up with the patching so far?). Fast forward to 5 days later and severe papaya pain, I got taken back into hospital for one final papaya patching up (or, as I liked to call it, designer vajuju #1).

The months following her birth I had lots of papaya physio (that in itself is an experience) but it became clear that I had a prolapsed bladder. Not surprising really, but because I hadn't finished having a family, the only option was to keep up with the pelvic floor exercises and manage it because they won't repair something for you to have another baby later down the line and undo the work.

Friends knew I had this problem (mainly because as previously said, I'm an open book..).
I get asked things like 'how do you know you have a prolapse? what does it feel like?' and comments like, 'I think something isn't right down there but I'm not sure'.

For me, the way I saw it in my head, was that there was a rock (but a soft rock) blocking the papaya cave, a bit like Ali Baba's cave... you know, where Ali said 'OPEN SESAME' and the rock moves away.... no?  Just me then?

It is different for a lot of women though and it doesn't just affect women that have babies and is actually quite common.... I know, as if we didn't have enough stuff to deal with being a woman already, then they throw this into the mix too.

I can try and explain in more details but I will add this link here with NHS blurb. Not as funny as the way I'd describe it but if you want to ask me about it away from this blog feel free. Happy to describe Ali Baba's papaya cave in more detail.

Phew - so moving on. 2012, I fall pregnant with the little monkey that is Adam. When I find out I'm pregnant the fear of wrecking my designer vajuju fill me with dread and I was advised by the professionals to opt for a C-section because of the previous issues. I mulled this over and after a lot of thought, I decided to go against the C-section option.

Why? Well, for me, I didn't fancy major surgery (which people often forget that it is), and the thought of being restricted (can't drive, lift etc) when I had a two year old at home already didn't really appeal. The way I saw it was that I can try and go natural and if it ends up being a c-section then so be it.

I also thought in my head, surely,  nothing can be as bad as the first birth....

My gamble paid off and in half the time, leaving half, well, actually, probably three quarters less damage, Adam came into the world. Minor papaya fixing this time, but obviously, it didn't help the prolapse.

For me, living with a prolapse wasn't great. It didn't hurt, but it affected different aspects of my life in ways that I didn't want to live with. A couple of examples are stress incontinence, which I have to say, does improve as you become more active and your muscles get stronger. Also, when the bitch that is mother nature appeared, I couldn't wear tampax which being as active as I am, wasn't great.

So in 2014 I decided to have the prolapse surgery. I was booked in to have it in October 2014. As the operation date neared, I changed my mind and moved it to October 2015. The reason for this change was because of the recovery, which (very similar to a c-section) includes enforced rest and not lifting anything heavier than 6lb for six weeks minimum. Adam at that time was one and a half years old and I didn't think it was a) possible or b) fair on him that mummy wouldn't be able to pick him up when he was so young, so I cancelled.

2015.... *groan*...that's another story in itself... which I'll fill you in on tomorrow...

Hugs x

#papaya
#sharingiscaring

A knee operation with a twist....

I love a good blog and I love writing them, some people will remember my transformation blog that I did when a good friend of mine had a career change to a personal trainer and wanted a 'subject' to transform.... that subject being me, not long after giving birth to Adam. 

It was an amazing journey and I know the blog had a massive impact on people (which makes me so happy). Esther's business is thriving, my friend Vicki quit her teaching job and started work in fitness too and there are a lot of mummy's out there who are fit and healthy as a result.   

Since that blog I returned to work and never had time to write. I wanted to but there is no way I could fit it in..... but now... now I am being forced to lay up to recover from an operation (more on that in a min) so I thought, what better way to fill the boredom than get writing again... so here we are... 

Most people who know me, know that I am very much open book. I don't hide much (sometimes much to my husbands dismay). What!? Sharing's caring isn't it.... I love social media, mainly Facebook and Instagram ( I imagine my children looking back over Instagram when I'm no longer here and seeing how much I love them (and clouds) and how slightly crazy their mother was). 

However, on this one occasion I didn't share (at first) and I started to think about the reasons why and again this was a reason I wanted to write again...

So here is what has happened this week and the 'operation' that I've had.. (no it wasn't my knee contrary to popular belief).

I've had (and I am copying this from my discharge notes).. 

Hysteroscopy & endometrial biopsy, vaginal (*shudder*, hate that word) hysterectomy & pelvic floor repair.... quite a list.. 

I will go into more details in another post about how this came about as that is another story in itself, but the reason people didn't know (including some close friends) is because I was embarrassed and actually felt like this was something people would judge me about... I know, crazy right. And that's why I want to write about my experience and tell you (if you want to know) about what happened and what led to this massive op. 

Like cancer (and I am no way comparing my experience to that horrid disease) and other scary/embarrassing/personal problems, we need to start speaking up about things and not hiding from them. Well, we don't need to, but I think it helps. Sharing is caring, honest...

I'm a women, I have lady bits (don't want to keep using the 'v' word, just because its a rubbish word for such an amazing piece of kit, why wasn't it called a papaya or another word that was nice to say) and things happen (in my case as a result of producing two beautiful children) and we shouldn't hide our experiences. I bet you, a lot of women out there are having similar problems to what I've had but just won't speak up or go to the doctors.. Well tune in to the next post and I'll share all... 

Oh and I promise this blog wont just be about papaya's.. I've got a whole load of waffle to unleash on you about lots of different things.... come on, it's me... #nevershutsup 

Big hugs

Kx

#sharingiscaring

#papaya