After waiting ten minutes to get a parking space, I finally found my way down the aisle at my local CVS to the area marked “feminine hygiene,” only to gasp at the empty shelves where the Playtex Super Plus and Ultra tampons should be.  This was the third drugstore in one day that I had visited, in hopes of finding this prized item I so desperately needed.  I tried to STIFLE my scream as I headed back to my car empty-handed.  Hardly any drugstores in the entire LA area seemed to keep these tampons in stock, and I could not understand why.  Considering how they flew off the shelf whenever any drugstore actually carried them, clearly I was not alone in my need for heavy protection. My anemia was zapping all my energy, so running all over town in search of huge tampons was definitely not an ideal activity in my current state.

I finally managed to track down some Super Plus tampons at the Rite Aid near my apartment, but when I finally got home, another problem surfaced.  Last month, I met a guy while scuba diving, and after a few dates, he was really starting to look promising.  We had a lot in common, he was unbelievably cute, had a good job, was close to his mom and sister; in other words, the type of guy that is nearly impossible to meet in Los Angeles.  That night, he called me and asked me if I would come to his place for dinner the following night.  “Sure!” I found myself saying, “I look forward to it!”

But the second I hung up, I realized my mistake.  I had started my period on Monday, the date was on Wednesday, and I was going to be gushing blood.  Considering how early on into dating we were, avoiding sex with the guy was not a problem, but going to his apartment definitely could be.  What if he didn’t have a trash can in his bathroom?  What if he did, and I put a tampon in it, wrapped up in tissue paper, but it seeped through and he saw it later, and it grossed him out and put him off dating me?

For many lucky women, these things would never be an issue, but for one who suffers with uterine fibroids, these are the disgusting, annoying and embarrassing things we are faced with on a daily basis.

I found myself wondering about my future with this guy.  Even if I got past the worry and embarrassment of how to hide my heavy period from him on this one occasion, I would probably have to tell him about my issues at some point, if things between us got more serious.  I had already been treated with MRI Guided Focused Ultrasound the previous year, and while it helped ease my pelvic pressure, my heavy bleeding issues have continued, and I was about to get the procedure done a second time in a couple of weeks.  If the second treatment eased my symptoms, then I could put off telling the guy about any of my troubles.

But even so, if things worked out between us, say a year or so down the road, I would probably have to level with him and tell him that for me, fertility could be an issue.  I knew that many men want to have biological children of their own, so what if he was one of them, and didn’t want to be with me because of this?  What if the fact that I had uterine issues at all made him think of me as old and sick and made him find me less attractive?

I hung up the phone and tried to push away all my anxieties, and just “go with the flow“, which was definitely a challenge for me, after having suffered with my fibroid for the last four years, and having been single for the last seven.  I would have to work on getting this guy to fall in love with me, to get him to appreciate the untarnished parts of my body, before he learned of its flaws.

My date is tonight, and I am still trying to tell myself these things, so that I don’t get psyched out and just call it off.  I am full of that spring fever-like feeling you get when you meet someone new who you really like and who takes your breath away.  It’s a simultaneously wonderful, awful feeling, and I’m just trying to embrace it, and to stop worrying so much! I’m trying to be hopeful about this new love, and about my upcoming focused ultrasound treatment.  I’m hoping this is a new and better chapter in my life that will lead to good things in my future.

I am hopeful.

In the spirit of hope, I will post one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems, for your enjoyment.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.