We're at the dermatologist's office for Aydin's trunk / extremities rash that could either be due to a food allergy, a change in the weather, or no reason whatsoever. I ask a very stupid question I already know the answer to, just to trick the doctor into examining my leg. A very ugly rash has been breaking out all over my body for approximately eight months. It's behind my knees, on the tops of my feet, covering both shoulders and down each arm, even circling the wrists. The rash is made up of small circles and ovals of varying degrees of redness; where they have itched (and I have scratched) they are scabbed and blistered-looking. It covers approximately 75-80% of my body. Only my face, fingers, palms, toes, soles of feet, and vaginal folds have been spared.
I am embarrassed immensely by these lesions. I don't wear short-sleeve shirts anymore. I haven't worn a skirt in almost a year. I won't go to the gym because an increased body temperature causes the fainter spots to flare up and look inflamed. I'm also afraid that people might be grossed out by me and won't want to use the gym equipment after me, even if I make a big show of spraying the disinfectant when I'm done. But then, making a big show of using the spray will make it seem like there really is something wrong with me, something nasty and contagious, maybe herpes or HIV or something.
I am angry because I have been suffering physically from one thing or another since Aydin was born and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of feeling bad. I want to feel healthy and whole again.
The year of my pregnancy was characterized by months of physical therapy attempting to fix a complex of problems relating to my right piriformis muscle, which was so tight it pulled my sacrum out of alignment, then causing all sorts of other muscletoskeletal aches. I had to discontinue therapy a month before I went into labor because United Healthcare decided it no longer wanted to partner with the physical therapy studio I went to; I couldn't afford to pay upwards of $200 a visit, two times a week. Because of the sciatic pain in my backside, I had hoped to avoid laboring on my back. But, due to a colossal amount of incompetence at NYU Medical Center, I was ignored by nurses and doctors alike for over eight hours, refusing to admit me to the hospital. Denying me a room of my own caused me so much stress that the labor stopped progressing and I lost confidence in my ability to have a natural childbirth. So, I ended up caving in and accepting an epidural, whereupon the doctor immediately showed up and decided we needed to speed things up by breaking my water. Then came the pitocin. Then my little one descended very quickly down the birth canal, more quickly than body had time to prepare for, (what the heck was it doing the previous 64 hours when I started having regular contractions?), so I tore.
Not just a little bit, a whole heck of a lot. And it hurts still, after all this time. I've been checked out by the doctor twice and they admire the stitch-up job Dr. Flagg did. I'm sure it's a thing of beauty. But that doesn't help me much. It still hurts to sit certain ways. Sex is out of the question. I have something horrendously shameful-feeling, called "bowel incontinence." No matter how many Kegels I do, it doesn't seem to help.
Only about 4 percent of women suffer third degree lacerations during vaginal childbirth. I was one of them. A third-degree laceration is a tear in the vaginal tissue, perineal skin, and perineal muscles that extends into the anal sphincter. Any more and I would have ripped open all the way. It took almost an hour to stitch me up. I lost a lot of blood. I had to be on an IV all night. I was given serious pain medication (once; after that it was up to me to request medicine from the nurses and keep up with my dosage and hours on my own) and had to request a refill once I came home from the hospital. Two days after getting home, I couldn't stand up straight or even walk. The idea that a blow-up doughnut-shaped cushion could somehow alleviate my pain seemed like such a farce. And yet, it seemed like I was supposed to act like it was no big deal. I mean, I didn't get a C-section, now did I?
The baby has woken up. I have to go.
Long story short: I'm afraid. The dermatologist took a biopsy. What if it's something worse than anything I could have thought? Like, involving radiation or chemotherapy?
