So,
You may be wondering what the title of this post is about Well, my surgeon recommended that I take four baths a day to help my stitches heal. It's 6pm and I just got out of my 3rd bath of the day. I've got to tell you, I'm getting sick of baths! And, I'm usually a 2 bath a day kind of girl. But, the surgeon said it will help me heal and I will do whatever it takes to help me heal.
I'm actually doing a lot better today. I have only taken one Tylenol 3 and 4 aspirin. That is considerably less than what I was taking before. And, I've had a lot less bleeding in the past few days.
I was thinking earlier that I haven't really given you a lot of background information on why it took me so long to get the surgery. Well, here goes:
I was 13 years old when I started my period. I tried to insert a tampon and it hurt so much that I was not able to get it in. After that, I tried repeatedly to insert tampons, but was never able to. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about this. I thought I was just being a baby.
When I was 17 I was in love with my then boyfriend, now husband and we tried to have sex. We were not successful. It hurt too much. We tried again and again. Once again, I was too embarrassed to figure out the problem.
I thought it may have something to do with my religious background. I thought maybe once we got engaged I would be able to. When I was 18, we got engaged. We were still unsuccessful. So, I told myself I would be able to when we got married. When I was 19, we got married. However, we were still not successful.
Not long after we got married I started doing my research and discovered vaginismus. I knew this is what I had. So, I ordered the books and dilators that promised to cure my vaginimus. I spent months doing the exercises and trying the dilators. I was never able to insert the dilators. I was heartbroken. I just knew I was a freak of nature and would never be cured. So, I put it off.
Finally after two years of being married and trying unsuccessfully to have sex and trying unsuccessfully to insert the dilators. I found a sex therapist four hours away who would treat me.
She asked if I had ever had a pap smear. I told her I tried once and left the office in tears because the doctor told me, "It will all work itself out after you get married." Well obviously, it didn't. Within minutes of seeing the nurse practitioner the sex therapist recommended, she had discovered my hymen was still intact. She introduced me to the surgeon who would perform the surgery that day. A few days later, I had scheduled the surgery. Two weeks later I was having the surgery preformed.
Today, it has been four days since the surgery. I am healing nicely. I am very optimistic about the future.
I'm not writing this blog for the average reader. Believe me, if I weren't going through these problems then I wouldn't want to read about them. And, I have a degree in journalism. For hours I searched online for first hand accounts from women like me. Women who felt so desperately alone. Women who could give me hope. Women who had been where I was and had made it through. There weren't many. And,honestly the ones that were out there tended to gloss over the gory details. I won't do that. I will tell you everything. From the bleeding, to the healing, the sadness to the joy. I promise to write the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
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