In which I give you entirely TMI about my uterus, and wonder about modern life’s impact on health.
When I’m feeling shitty, I often compare myself to an imaginary peasant ancestress to give myself some perspective. I think about the crap she’d have had to suffer through in her life, all without days off or medical care. She wouldn’t have had the wealth of free time that I have to dwell on things.
If she had the kind of period I’m having right now, she’d have just sucked it up and gone to do whatever it is that imaginary peasant ancestresses did. Milk cows and work in fields, I suppose. She wouldn’t have had Pamprin or modern feminine hygiene products; she’d be stuck with herbs and cloths. She wouldn’t have a brain full of basically unnecessary facts gleaned from the Internet that had her freaking out when she woke up in the morning, rolled over, and flooded a maxi pad in forty seconds with a frighteningly huge gush of blood. [Basically, I slept in one position all night. When I rolled over this morning, ten hours worth of blood came out at once. Sorry if that’s way TMI, but it happens.]
She wouldn’t have thought, “I read that if you don’t stop bleeding by yourself, they have to do surgery to take out your uterus.” And she wouldn’t have worked herself into a panic by the time the bleeding leveled off minutes later. Hell, she probably wouldn’t have even known about “panic,” since that’s something of a modern symptom.
I’m thinking about her because I’m having a period from hell. I’m not in pain this month, which is a blessing, but I’m bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and after my last miscarriage any heavy bleeding utterly freaks me out. I think that she wouldn’t have worried and panicked and obsessed that maybe something was wrong with her; if she passed out, then she’d know something was wrong and that would have been that. She’d have been walking, too, not sitting in her climate controlled car like I was this morning. She just wouldn’t have the time to freak like I do.
In other words, I know I’m not bleeding to death. So there’s nothing to freak out about. But knowing this doesn’t seem to stop me from freaking. My hormones are whack. I’m really moody and freaked and tired and tense. And if all that wasn’t enough, my right eye was stuck shut when I woke up. So there I am, half blind, bleeding like a stuck pig, and feeling very much like the world is coming to an abrupt and total fucking halt even though in truth I’m warm and comfortable in my Sleep Number bed and I’m well-fed and sleek and I’ve got so many blessings it would probably take an entire day to count them so who the hell am I to be feeling so sorry for myself? Where’s my freaking perspective? I’m not even in pain, fer chrissakes. My idea of what’s tolerable seems to be utterly out of whack because, well, nothing really truly bad ever happens to me. (Knock on wood.)
When I think about my imaginary peasant ancestress and compare her life to mine, I see that she was truly poor and I’m loaded by comparison, but I wonder about the real effects of so much rich food, leisure time, and lack of heavy labor. The human animal has only been living like this for a very brief while; we’re optimized for a completely different lifestyle than the ones we’re actually leading.
Which may be why we’re all fat and crazy.
The result of this rapid change seems to be a variety of physical and mental imbalances… so many people are on meds for depression or anxiety. So many of us just feel bad much more than I think we should.
Sometimes I wonder if my imaginary peasant ancestress might not have had it better than I do, at least in terms of peace of mind. She wouldn’t have had the time to dwell on the minutiae of how she felt; she’d have been working to live. And she wouldn’t have thought of it as work, it would have been life. The conceptual division of ‘work’ and ‘free time’ is a relatively new one. Perhaps the lack of that artificial differentiation would have kept her from feeling as resentful as I sometimes do; I have my mind set up to ‘enjoy’ my leisure activities and ‘dislike’ my chores, but the truth is it’s all simply stuff to do — there really isn’t that much qualitative difference, in terms of comfort or interest, between doing the laundry and knitting a fucking slipper, both are easy and climate-controlled and simple, it’s just that I like knitting and I don’t like laundry.
It strikes me as being utterly arbitrary that I make these distinctions, but I can’t help doing it. I imagine her distinctions would have been harsher: hurts, doesn’t hurt. Is dangerous, isn’t so dangerous. Can kill you, probably won’t kill you. The little shit comes out in the wash, when your life is harsher.
My imaginary peasant ancestress might even have been healthier than I am, too, barring accident or congenital defects. She’d be hauling around less fat than I am, she’d be in better cardio-vascular shape. She wouldn’t have spent even a fraction of the time I have, sitting on my ass in front of a computer digesting twice the calories I need for the day.
I realize it’s sloppy hippy-type thinking to idealize the past; there were no good old days of perfect peace and health. My imaginary peasant ancestress would have been to many, many more funerals than I have. All of her women friends would have lost children. There were no sulpha drugs, no modern dentistry, no contact lenses. No central HVAC. No warm, cozy vehicles. I’m not idealizing the past. I’d hate to have fleas or bed bugs or to see babies die from malnutrition or the measles. But I do believe that the rapid changes our species has encountered in the past few hundred years are really showing up in our headspace and drug intake. So many of us are only mildly uncomfortable but we react to it as if it’s the end of the damned world. I’m doing it myself, right now, because I have the time to do so.
Our bodies want us to live differently than we do, and there appears to be a price for all this wealth and ease. Maybe poverty and strife is actually a better way to live… providing you’re one of the lucky ones who survive, that is.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Woa, Mama. You got it bad. Take a handful of advil, a pint of Ben and Jerrys, a box of Tampax Super Abs, an afghan, trash TV and blog us in the morning!
Yes, doctor! -m
the first time i read this, i read “imaginary pleasant ancestress.” haha.
feel better! *smooch*
Hmm. I never even wondered if she was pleasant. -m
The ancestor would have merely attributed everything to religion, and things must have been terrifying. However, I think even she would have been impressed by your uber-period.
Uber-period. Hah! (You know what they say. Never trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.) -m
Your imaginary ancestress is a peasant? Mine’s a hunter-gatherer. Forget that agrarian age nonsense!
Oh, good point. Either way, she didn’t make a distinction between work and leisure, and she definitely moved around more physically than I do, so my thesis holds. -m
I’m not surprised that your thoughts parallel mine in regards to your ancestors but I do have a suggestion that your distant ancestors couldn’t accomplish.
Have your uterus removed. I’ll help pay for it. Better off without it than with…OR, to ask the question I should ask before offering to help…why are you keeping it?
Because when they take the uterus, they take the ovaries too. And the ovaries? do all kinds of hormonal stuff. All kinds. They have a regular conversation going on with the brain, don’t you know, and I don’t want to lose that. Nor do I want to be on hormone replacement therapy. However, I do want to lose the Cycle From Hellâ„¢. I’m gonna see my gyno professionals — both my midwife and my gynocologist — as soon as I can afford it and find out what the odds are of things ever balancing out on their own, or if they’re likely to get worse or what. -m
*if* your ancestress managed to get through infancy, she would have been working, most probably from the time she was 2 or 3 years old. by the time she was a 20 year old, chances are good she’d have had at least 3-4 children, if she managed to survive childbirth. by the time she got to your old age, she’d be bent over from hard labour, quite probably arthritic and most probably not have any teeth left. she’d still be working hard labour. it’s also possible, that were she alive in the 7th to 16th century she would have been burned at the stake or seen friends and relatives burned for being witches. so yes, our lives are much easier than they were back then. however, we don’t live back then, we live now and i’ll bloody complain if i want to 😀
True, true, true, true, true, true, and true. But she probably would have been in better cardio shape than I am; well, until she dropped dead that is. -m
Perhaps this should be a private email to you, but you shared as you say “TMI” with us.
Your symptoms sound so much like my mother’s before she had her hysterectomy due to endomitriosis(sp?). I don’t know how important having a child is to you, but to be out of the desperate pain that you have, perhaps this is a solution. Mom suffered much longer than she had to. Somehow, even with her tubes tied, the lack of a uterus made her less of a woman in her own eyes.
This is probably a subject that I have no business broaching with you, having different plumbing and all, but I really mean it with the greatest concern.
Hope you feel better soon, Mush.
I don’t think I have endo, and neither did my midwife the last time I discussed it with her. But unlike the last time I thought about it, I now find I have nearly all of the symptoms including cramps, heavy bleeding, spotting, occassional IBS-like symptoms, and infertility. So perhaps I should investigate it again. Lacking a uterus wouldn’t make me feel like less of a woman, not intellectually anyway (perhaps physically, depending on what it’s like to not have the estrogen/progesterone tide every month). And please, you’re human, you have every business sharing. And thanks. 😉 -m
It ain’t for everyone, but I’ll put it out there for your consideration. I’ve seriously considered getting back on the Pill, despite not needing it for BC, and doing something called continual birth control, or menstrual suppression. I know there are risks to hormones. I was on different ones for years. But the fact that I get one good week out of every 3 is no longer acceptable to me. I’m still researching it, but here’s a starter site on the subject. I know for some women, the very thought would be anathema, and that’s fine. Everyone needs to do what she needs to do. But there are options. My ma had periods like yours, and mine get worse the older I get. It may not be ideal, but neither is a hysterectomy at 40, plunging you into ridiculously early menopause. Submitted for your consideration.
No periods. Sounds hot, yeah? Except I go utterly crazy batshit out-of-my-head nuts when I’m preggo or on the pill… I don’t get along well with being pregnant, or even playing it on television. (I’ve seen ads for BC that only causes three periods a year. Some patch or implant, I think.) -m
I’m no expert but I be damned if I haven’t heard from several women, from their 30’s to their 50’s, who, when they finally went through with it, were estatic that they were finally free of the pain of menstration and yo-yo effects of ‘natural’ hormones. I’ve never met a women that regretted having it done, but have met some who were afraid of what I’d think about their feminimity (not an issue for me). Not a true statistical sampling for sure but at least you know where I’M coming from…but it isn’t my body either.
My M-I-L told me just the other day it was great, no more hassles or worries. -m
This is a little off track from the gist of your other comments… but WOW, Mush. I think this is my favorite post of yours EVER. Talk about a f*cking wake up call; there’s a whole lot of little things in there to think about, pore over and obsess on, which I’m going to do starting NOW.
**And I do hope that all is good/will be good with you** Hugs.
Thank you! I didn’t think anyone had noticed. 😉 -m
Cootera said it right. I have a lot to think about now. Especially since I freaked out this morning over having to walk 15 blocks work so as not to be late (like they’re gonna fire me? I’m done in 9 days!) bc the truck overheated!
My peasant ancestors are prolly laughing their asses off at me right now.
Hope you feel better soon 🙂 Hugs.
Damn truck! Damn amused ancestors! -m
As much as pregnancy is getting uncomfortable, and I kind of can’t wait for it to be over, I am NOT looking forward to getting back to this crap… UGH. I agree with Cootera–so much to think about in this post. Thanks!
Crap. Exactly what it is. Ugh. -m
The biggest steps are always those that start with the words “What if?”.
You totally made that up, dude. -m