#newbeginnings

Six years ago, at this same time- 10:33pm, I was groggy, hooked up on saline and blood drips, my abdomen was heavily bandaged. And I was starting a new life.

And a new life it has been. No periods. For six years now.

When I look back at the kind of life I led, I wonder how I even made it through those years.

I think it all started when I was still in my teens. Dysmenorrhea, cramps in the tummy and legs, headaches and a general feeling of unease during those three “red” days of the month. But after a day of rest and a dose of Panadol, which was never completed anyway, life was back to normal until the next period.

I had my son quite early. I still got the cramps but now I started taking Indocid. Two at a time, till my body felt completely numb. That was how bad it was. My first major scare was when I was returning home from university one holiday I nearly collapsed in the taxi in which I was travelling. Suddenly I felt a great weight pushing down on my abdomen. And when I got up there was a sudden heavy gush of blood that soiled my clothes and then a huge mass popped out.

I started to get really worried around 2003 when these gushes became more frequent. One weekend as I was preparing to travel with a group of friends I noticed that I had a smelly discolored discharge.

But I did not even have the money to see a doctor and so I let it pass and tried to enjoy the weekend.
Another time, on a cold Saturday night, I was out again with a group of friends. Then disaster struck, and I was in white pants. Whenever I remember that incident, I get shivers down my spine. Out of nowhere, the gush happened. I was not padded. I didn’t know where the loo was. It was raining heavily. I was so ashamed, I could not tell anyone about these sudden flows and so I just sat on a chair and bled away. Luckily, one my friends had lent me his black leather jacket and when the opportune moment came, I got up from the chair, leaving a red flood and fled into the dark.

When we got back to the hotel, I told him what had happened. He made fun of me, but was very helpful and made me feel comfortable but insisted I should see a doctor. Still I didn’t. I had no money for such “luxuries”.

Fast forward to 2005. On a three-week trip to America, the unthinkable happened. Much as it was traumatizing, it made me rethink the whole trip to the doctor aversion. This time the periods- I called them flash floods- were heavier and were now lasting about six days.

I was now getting scared. I thought about the worst. That I would bleed to death one day and leave my children motherless. And I have always had this embarrassment about periods. I was not told about them when growing up and had to improvise using toilet paper and many a time got stains on my dress because nobody bought me any sanitary pads.

I had a workmate at the office, who I started to tell about my problem. Not everything though. One thing I wanted was someone to listen. She was sympathetic but her advice was--- I should see a doctor. By then, the situation was seven to eight days of bleeding at a time and the periods were erratic. The pain was also growing worse each time and I was taking two Indocid capsules after every three hours. Also, I suspected I was developing ulcers and was becoming anaemic.

By then my wardrobe consisted of only black bottoms. Skirts, jeans, trousers. No light hues just waiting for a disaster to happen.

I gathered up all my guts and decided to go and see a doctor. She was my aunt, my mum’s younger sister. I did not tell her my fears. My courage was drawn from the fact that I was tired of this suffering and wanted to get well, even if it meant that I had a terminal disease. She sent me for a scan which returned after two hours. When she looked at the results, she laughed out loud, which gave me some relief. So it was not cancer. Fibroids. Because you young girls are having children late, or none at all. Because of your lifestyle. The food you eat.

She sent me downstairs to another gynecologist who inserted a cold machine that she wound up to peer into my insides. God, it was uncomfortable. She gave me a prescription and asked me to return in two weeks. I did not.

I told my two close friends and Mum about the diagnosis. But I did not go back to the hospital. By then I was dating but life was not easy. And when Mum suggested going to see a local doctor- like I was bewitched- I was mortified. We didn’t talk for three months.

A few months later- sometime in 2007- I was struck with intense pain and heavy bleeding, my legs lost all feeling and I could not go to work. Luckily, I had started paying medical insurance and gathered my strength to stagger to a doctor. I had never felt lonelier in my life. Here I was struggling with a problem I was so embarrassed about. But he was kind. He sent me to do a scan at a bigger hospital and gave me a few days off work.

I did the scan the next day. I even got assigned a gynecologist. The scan showed a huge mass in my abdomen. And I was asked to do a pregnancy test. The doctor said I could be about two to three months gone. Unbelievable. But I did the test, which turned out negative. But he told me I had a forced abortion- God knows what that means- and gave me some more days off work.
Some of the things that made me feel so alone-I found out that my boyfriend was sneaking behind my back, because I was always sick and yet he wanted to sow his oats. I left him that holiday. I just couldn’t take it any more.

I continued to see the gynecologist in 2008 but there was not much he could do. He was a kind young man, with a nice soothing voice, but he insisted that he needed to operate. The costs were high, he said. But he was willing to do it at another hospital at a cheaper cost if I could raise the money.
But anyway, he booked me for an operation. I told Mum. She was ballistic. She didn’t believe in having part of my body removed. She suggested traditional herbs. We got some from my uncle’s girlfriend. I honestly do not know if they worked. I just wanted to get well. My relationship with Mum returned to its frosty state.

Because I was the one suffering here, I talked to the doctor again. He booked me for an operation at a major hospital in two days but then told me the costs were rather high and it would be a long process. However, the hospital called me later that night asking if I was booked in for surgery at 7 the next morning. I wasn’t.

The next time I tried to get an operation, the same doctor had offered to do it free, but at another facility. He asked me to collect about 800,000 shillings which I could use for a comfortable room at the hospital, where I would be admitted for about five days. I was back in the relationship, and my boyfriend gave me the money. This venture also failed as the medical personnel failed to provide answers and the doctor cancelled the appointment.

Feeling too ashamed, I decided I had had it with doctors and hospitals and needles and white gowns and boring receptionists who all knew my name and my ailment. I decided I was going to bleed to death but I needed to prepare for my children. I also abandoned the herbal treatments- they were too bitter to drink anyway. And whenever my family asked, I just lied to them that I felt better, when in actual fact, the situation was even worse.

By 2010, I was going through nearly four packets of sanitary pads every period, and the bleeding would last 10-12 days. My hair was breaking. I was anaemic. I felt lifeless, always in pain and the ulcer in my stomach was acting up. Also, it was becoming hard for me to concentrate at work because I was always worried about the constant gushes. I would sleep badly at night, having nightmares that were coming true during the day.

I cannot recall how many times between 2010 and 2011, that I would get up from my seat and my skirt or dress would be wet, the chair soiled. Other terrifying incidents were when the blood just went down my legs. Another time, I bled on the office floor. Then there were the huge clots. I could always sense when they were about to emerge and run to the toilets. And I had started wearing two pads at a time.

My social life started to go downhill. I started having quarrels with boyfriend again. I could not handle telling him that we could not have a normal life because of my condition. There were so many other normal girls. Finally, I found out that after feeling ignored, he had had an affair with one of his friends and when he denied it, I left him.

I was now all alone. My children would return from school and notice I was depressed but poor boys, all I could tell them was that Mama was unwell, but would get better. My boss started to get short with me, I was underperforming, she said. I moved house to a quieter place out of town. My children went to stay with my sister. I would come home from work and weep myself to sleep. And some of my workmates treated me really bad because they imagined I was pretending to be unwell. I was now constantly padding myself, month in month out. It was hell. But in reality, I had started to give up on life. But still I did not tell a living soul. I told God.

One day in June 2011, I decided that it was either going to be life or death. I had been gathering courage to ask my friend to escort me to the hospital for the last time because I was so fed up. But God said he would give me a push. So I went. I also wanted to get a few days off work, so I decided to malinger. Luckily, I found a nice lady doctor. I pretended that I had stress and a headache, just to test her. She said I was fine. Then I broke down and told her the reason I was there. That I wanted her to listen to me. Just remembering the way she looked at me brings tears to my eyes. She listened! That mattered so much to me. She wrote me a prescription, called a gynecologist, and set an appointment for me. Then she called me back to the room and checked my tummy. She said the fibroids were really huge and said I should go to see the gynecologist immediately.

So started a long process. I went to the gynecologist. He asked me to undress. Then he asked his assistant to get a very bright torch and shine it in my insides, while he got that cold machine and checked. It was horrible. When he was done, he asked me to dress up, smiled at me and told me that I was going to be with him ‘for a very long time’. Oh, God. It’s cancer, I thought. I am finished. My children.

He gave me three options. This was after informing me that there was a  fibroid that was causing a life-threatening situation and was a great risk to my health. He could either operate and remove that swelling, which he drew on a piece of paper for me to see for myself, the direness of the situation. Two, he could operate to remove that one and other problematic fibroids. Or he could just remove my womb- hysterectomy- and save me further danger. Not easy!

I asked about the costs. Between two and three million shillings. Problem. So I was just going to die like that. Where in the world was I going to “steal” this colossal amount? I told him about the medical insurance and because God was working through him, he said he would try to work something out, but repeated urgently he needed to operate almost immediately otherwise…

So he sent me with a chit to the main hospital. It was a hot afternoon but I did not feel the heat. That is what hope does to you. After many bends and turns and stairs and many inquiries about directions, I handed the chit to a lady, who handed the chit over to one of my life-savers. And she read the chit and signed it without a moment’s hesitation!

Back to the gynecologist I went. On a boda boda. I handed the chit back to the doctor and a date was set for the operation. I decided on a hysterectomy. I was so done with periods, and pads, and clots, and nightmares. I called Mum. I asked her to listen to me for once and not push me out. She said to take some time and talk to Dad. Then she called me back. With her blessing.

Something I forgot. One of the questions I encountered from the doctors was if I had children. But anyway, I could not get pregnant with that mass in my womb. Actually, this last doctor said it was the size of a four and a half months’ old fetus.

So after some changes in dates, I packed my suitcase, not even sure whether I would return home. I went to visit my children in school. But I did not tell them because I did not want to scare them. And on that Sunday evening, my younger sister picked me up and off to the hospital I went. With Mum.

The doctor had told me that my last meal was to be Sunday lunch. I wondered why. I got checked when I arrived. I asked about injections and what to expect. But all doctors tell you that you will be fine. The blood check took about an hour to process, and the results did not even come back that day. Then the hospital’s accountant informed us that we were not on the insurance list that allowed operations and it was another hour before we could be cleared. When I was finally tagged, we wheeled our luggage up to the ward where I was to be admitted and got a bed.

There was a nurse waiting for us. She was watching one of the Spanish soaps. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an askari ordered us to take our mattress and blanket out of the ward. He demanded to know who had given us permission to bring it in anyway. We tried to explain that no-one spelt out the rules and regulations to us. But he took them anyway. It just hurt me to know that my mother had nowhere to sleep, but I put it at the back of my mind and tried to sleep.

I tossed and turned the whole night not knowing what to expect. Would the hospital cancel? Would there be pain? Would I be able to smile again? And the hard question- would I die? Finally at 6am, when I could not handle the pressure any more, I sat up in bed and told Mum my worries. I could tell she was also worried but could not show me, and she assured me that I would be fine.

At 8am, a nurse came to dress me up. Catheter. Pain. Hospital gown. Needles in my arm. More pain. Bed laid. Get on the bed. Tucked in. Bed lowered. Meanwhile, the catheter was terribly uncomfortable. I remember seeing the nurse smiling at me and telling me I’d be fine. Saying bye to Mum. Being wheeled down into the operating area. Parking. Figures in green. My hair being covered. My gown being changed. Being wheeled into the operating room. On to the operating table. Seeing the surgeon. Him being so happy to see me. I didn’t even remember signing my certificate. There was a radio station playing. I was not even scared anymore because I was so scared. The table was cold and made of steel. Or is it the other way round? The anesthetist sitting behind me. Telling me his name and where he was from. Vincent from Makindye. The surgeon dressed in white. Even white gumboots. Then he was walking away from me. His face masked. God, I was dead!

I came to hours later, with the surgeon asking me how I was, and assuring me that he was going to give me most peaceful, and best sleep I had ever had. My tummy felt heavy. Like someone was sitting on me. I don’t even remember being wheeled back.

But from what I heard later, Mummy was so worried that something bad (read: died) had happened to me, and she was frantic. Her relief at seeing me, even though I couldn’t see or hear her, was indescribable. There had been so many messages and calls that had come through, words of encouragement, others wanting to know if I was fine, some praying that I went through the ordeal. And she took all of them. I just wonder what was going through her mind.

That night I flitted between consciousness and unconsciousness, my arms both fixed to a drip, the catheter I couldn’t even feel. I remember the kind nurse, a Kenyan lady with long painted nails, who rushed to my aid whenever I threw up. And there was nothing in my tummy. Remember, my last meal was Sunday morning, or lunch. But I got through the night. I pitied Mum, lying on a mat on the floor, head covered from the mosquitoes. The next day I just slept most of the time. My sisters and some friends came to see me. Even workmates. Later I got out of bed to listen to someone tell me about his problems with his girlfriend. What the hell was HE thinking????

I left the hospital on my birthday. To start a new life.

And have I  lived it!