With Crohn's Disease, there are some issues and complications that come with it that are pretty obvious, particularly if you've been keeping up with my blog: pain, fatigue, nausea, bleeding, diarrhea, general gastronomic distress, to name a few. Then, there are a few less obvious ones: issues with my skin, depression/anxiety, eye inflammation, minor infections, fistulas, higher predisposition to certain cancers, and all kinds of other minor annoyances. However, there are a few other factors that are less obvious still and I want to address one that I've hedged around for a while.
Every time that any woman goes into a procedure, whether it's an MRI, major surgery, or most anything else, she will meet with a particular set of questions. Sometimes, they might ask whether I had a hysterectomy first, but then comes the question that will always be asked, in some form or another: "Are you pregnant or is there any chance you might be pregnant?" This is often followed by "When was the date of your last menstral period?" And if I've not had my menstral cycle recently enough, I end up peeing in a cup anyway so they can double-check before proceeding further, sometimes meaning that I get to be hangry for another hour or two while we wait for the lab.
I've got to be mindful of that. Potentially getting pregnant, now, when everything is still terribly unpredictable, when I need different tests and different medications, I cannot afford to have anything stop my care. Without being in remission, Andy and I could not and cannot afford to get pregnant--we haven't been in a place to consider when or if we want to start a family. As such, I've made sure to be cautious, to watch and make sure that I didn't get pregnant. This has turned into a fair share of anxiety.
And then there's the tension of what this means about intimacy in my relationship with my husband. When I'm too tired to make dinner or too nauseous to bother putting my clothes away before curling into a sad ball on the bed, there's also not a lot of energy or any kind of want to have sex. With the rather inflamed and scarred rectum being so close to the vagina, even when I am feeling up to something we have to proceed carefully. This gets disheartening for both of us.
When I realized that I was not absorbing my birth control medication well taking it orally (since I wasn't absorbing anything well), I switched to another method. I've counted and obsessed. And I know they're going to ask me again in 57 days and probably a couple of times before in pre-testing. As I'm thinking through the preparations, Andy and I have had the conversation that maybe I should stop taking my birth control. Here's why: taking birth control increases my chances for blood clots, which I'd like to mitigate post surgery; additionally, with everything inflamed with the Seton drains, my Nuvaring has been uncomfortable, painful even, at times; and the kicker on top, I have actively been draining additional fistula gunk through the vagina, which has been more uncomfortable still.
I was talking this over with Andy, my anxiety around getting pregnant, my thoughts about being off of the medication temporarily, and a lot of overall frustration. Then, Andy said something that truly surprised me: "Well, what if I did something?"
I hadn't even thought of it as a possibility. There are new medications for male birth control or if we wanted to go something a little stronger, vasectomies can be reversible. He's going to talk to his doctor to see what our options are. Andy offered to take that responsibility off of my shoulders. Andy offered to give me one less to worry about. I've been so very touched by his gesture. To me, it was a moment where I knew that Andy understood that my health is something that we bear together.
Yeah, I think I'll keep him.
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