Health | Coffee with Cheryl

An important question…

Okay, first of all, I have no idea what happened to the fonts on here…they’re acting funky, and I just don’t have time to try to figure it out, so bear with me, okay?

Secondly, a paper I’m writing for my philosophy class got me thinking about all of you, my lovely readers. Our assigned subject is assisted suicide. Not a pleasant subject, I know, but how many times have we seen stories in the paper about how a person becomes incapacitated to the point of being a vegetable and the family is left trying to figure out what the person would want them to do?

Both times I went into the hospital to give birth, I was asked if I wanted to fill out a living will. For those of you who aren’t aware, a living will is a legal document that tells your family what to do should you become incapacitated…from temporarily being unable to make decisions, to the worst case scenario – whether to keep trying to resuscitate you should you have medical emergencies. It allows you to choose someone to be in charge, saving possible bad feelings and power struggles between family members, and they HAVE to do what you say in the document. For example, I wouldn’t want my family to be subjected to the costs and stress of caring for me if I were to be incapacitated to the point of them not even being able to tell if I am even really “there”. My living will states that should this happen, I want them to allow me to die and not take extraordinary measures to keep me alive. This is far from assisted suicide, but it’s something everyone should think about, especially when there are spouses and children involved.

If you’re interested in filling out a living will because you’ve got a medical situation coming up, ask the hospital staff if you can have one. If you just want to fill one out in general, write out your wishes and have it notarized with witnesses present, and make sure you give copies to all the parties involved.

Personally, I hope I nor anyone close to me ever needs to fulfill the wishes of a living will, but I take comfort in knowing that my family won’t have to endure any undue stress or burden should the circumstances ever arise.

Technorati Tags: emergency, Family, family health, incapacitated, living will

The Worst Pain

February 20, 2012 2 Comments

Since I’ve been far too busy with my course work (damned research papers…HATE!), taking care of the boys, and holidays and birthdays that just keep blind-siding me to be super-creative with my posts, I’ve decided to take advantage of a little thing Bloggy Moms came up with…the 2012 Blog Dare! I know I’m late starting, and I may need to double-post some days, but what a great way to make blogging a habit! They supply you with writing prompts for every day of the year! If you’d like an invite to join Bloggy Moms Network, just leave me a comment asking for one, and I’ll send you one. (Just make sure you use the e-mail you want the invite sent to!)

Today’s prompt is the worst pain. I could get all existential and talk about Spiritual or even emotional pain, but that would just take all the fun out of talking about pain in general. Warning: if you are weak of constitution, faint of heart, and/or queasy about body stuff, you may want to stop reading HERE. I’m notoriously an over-sharer, especially when it comes to stuff like this.

After having 2 sons, I can honestly say that childbirth is FAR from the worst pain I have experienced. Yes, it hurt like hell, but even un-medicated (my 2nd son was born long before my epidural kicked in), childbirth doesn’t compare to experiencing the rupture of an ovarian cyst.

It happened when I was around 26 or so. I had gone in for my annual pap smear and check-up, and was told to meet my doc (who I miss terribly since we moved!) in his office after I got dressed. Naturally, this was a bit unusual, so I was VERY nervous.

He sat me down and explained that the bad news was I had a cyst approximately the size of a grapefruit on my right ovary. The good news was that it was a macroscopic (small incision) procedure and wouldn’t effect my ability to have children. I’m sure you’ve all seen a grapefruit before. If you haven’t – they sure as hell aren’t small. The amazing part of this is that sure, I’d been feeling bloated, but not enough to think there was something the size of a grapefruit in my lower abdomen! Apparently, our insides are squishy enough that they just kind of move over and make room for stuff of significant size – like, say, a person incubating or a very large cyst. He scheduled surgery for the following week.

The day before my surgery, I was going about my day as usual, and had cream of wheat for breakfast, went to work, made dinner…yada, yada, yada. Suddenly, around 9pm, I started having what I thought was the worst case of killer, painful diarrhea I had ever experienced. I chalked it up to the cream of wheat since I hadn’t eaten that in a very long time, and proceeded to hang in the bathroom with a book, waiting for it to pass. And waiting. And getting the sweats and shaking and WAITING. It didn’t pass, but I sure did…right out on the floor. I woke up there in the morning, assumed I had just fallen asleep, and went in to the hospital for surgery.

When I woke up, I was informed that I had made the surgery extremely easy for them because my cyst had burst and all they did was basically go in and clean up the mess. AHA! I told Doc what had happened the night before, and he informed me that I hadn’t fallen asleep, I’d passed out from pain.

Well, it’s now 14 years and 2 children later, and I can honestly say it was the worst pain I’ve had in my life. For those of you who gripe and whine about childbirth – with or without medication – you guys are a bunch of lightweights! Childbirth was a piece of cake compared to this experience, and not just because I knew it would end. This felt like I had swallowed and was digesting glass.

The happy side of the story? I have since had no more cysts, have two beautiful, healthy boys, and also know that when it comes down to it, I’ll keep going until my body doesn’t let me anymore, which is a pretty awesome thing.

Technorati Tags: Blog Dare 2012, cyst, ovarian cyst, pain, surgery, worst pain