The silence tells stories.

First, it was quiet here because I was busy. My mother was in Florida for two weeks & so we did some touristy things. And some local exploring. And she came for dinner. I just didn't have the energy to make myself sort out thoughts & photos into neat little blog posts.

But then it got quiet because Something Happened. And when Something Happens, I tend to clam up. I'm the introspective sort, and I turn inward when I have to work through Something That Happens. I process internally, and then, bit by bit, I begin revealing the Something to my most trusted confidantes.

I'm in a better frame of mind now, thanks in no small part to My People. I had posted, as my status on Facebook, a week ago: "...has without a solitary doubt, the *best* support system on the planet. The speed & precision with which they organize & circle the wagons when I need them amazes & humbles me. I am richly blessed with people who love me." This could not be more true.

Let me say it again: This could not be more true.

My People rally around me. They mobilize & they form a wall of protection before I even know what it is I really need. They say & do the most incredible things, all the right things, the things I most need to hear or to have done for me, things which I hold dear to my heart like treasures & they are too precious to share out loud. You know how people so often say, under difficult circumstances, that they don't know what to do or say? Well, not My People. Whether they are conscious of it or otherwise, I couldn't have laid out a plan in black & white for them to follow that would have topped the way they came through for me.

I have debated whether or not I would share this story of myself. I am intensely private & this is... very personal. Had it not been for My People, I can assure you I would likely not be sharing this chapter at all. But they have made it ok. They have bolstered my strength when I faltered. And they continue to go above & beyond. If anything validates my faith, it is having My People come through for me. It is by no accident that each of them are part of my world, of this I am certain. They are each gifts and a very certain component of the promise that all that I need will be provided for me.

I have what is called a fibroid. If you don't know what that is, I will leave you to exercise the power of Google or whatever your search engine of choice may be. For those of you not interested in looking it up, I will just leave it as "it isn't life-threatening nor does it have the inclination to turn into anything more ominous." It is, for all intents & purposes, a nuisance. My doctor discovered this fibroid back in March. He decided to keep an eye on it & we scheduled a follow-up ultrasound for last week. At which point, my doctor determined that the fibroid had increased in size enough that it should be removed.

This was all fine & dandy. Ok, well, maybe not fine & dandy, per se, but it was not cause for any great alarm or distress on my part. While I was, of course, hoping for the best case scenario, I was fully prepared to hear that I would need surgery. I'd even mentally prepared myself for the fact that I might not be a good candidate for laparoscopic surgery & that an open incision might be the way to go. So when he told me that it would need to come out, I would say that I handled the news fairly well. (Further substantiated by the fact that his exact response was "Wow, you took that very well.") Even the fact that he ruled out the much less invasive laparoscopic surgery.

What I was *not* prepared for was what came next. The part when he told me the chances were high, given all the delicate & necessary parts & functions all around the location of the fibroid, that he would need to work to save those at the likely expense of my (optional) uterus. (Yes, he said optional. Which, yeah, it is...but STILL.)

I can't say I was very strong at that point. Oh, I was a wall of steel on the outside. I nodded my head & listened to what he had to say. My voice didn't crack. There wasn't even a tear to blink back, much less shed. But the second I was home, it hit me. I think I felt every emotion on the spectrum. I am not even 34 yet. I am healthy--even despite this nuisance who has taken up residence in my abdominal area, I have *zero* symptoms, and had I not seen the ultrasound images with my own eyes, might be inclined to think my doctor had lost his mind. How could he possibly be telling me that the odds were decidedly *not* in my favor of ever carrying a child? Sure, that possibility exists until it is actually said & done but this is far more definitive, and how did I go from realistically optimistic to utterly hopeless in under an hour about something I had not even considered?

As it turns out, as I let My People in one by one, each of them offering support in their own way, I began to sort my emotions into piles. I slowly voiced my fears & my concerns & the jumble of thought fragments whirling through my mind, and together we began to untangle them for me.

The final consensus is that I won't be taking my doctor's word for it this time. He is a good doctor at what he does, but I'm going to place this in the hands of a doctor or doctors who are more familiar with my specific issues. Specialists with knowledge of alternative options & the latest treatments, with skills & tools & years' worth of experience. Doctors with the ability to form a plan that increases my chances of coming through this with all my original parts intact, regardless of how much cutting needs to be done to my person.

Why am I opening up about such a personal matter here on the internet, which, let's be honest, is *way* beyond my comfort zone? (Ha. So far beyond that my usual comfort zone is that dot in the distance at the edge of the horizon when you have a window seat on an airplane & you're squinting to see the furthest possible point where the sky & the earth meet.) Because I've learned a valuable lesson: Do not just take someone's word for it. We want to believe our doctors know exactly what is best for us. But they are humans. They cannot know everything about everything. So while they may know what's best for us within the realm of their knowledge, there may come a point when they have exhausted their knowledge base & it's time to seek out a second opinion--and it is the rare gem (I'm lucky enough to know one) that will admit when it's time to call in someone else. It's time to ask questions, to educate yourself, to advocate for your body & your health. I could have been a bobblehead about this. I could have numbly allowed myself to be carried along the current. And I could have been left with a lot of regrets & what-ifs. Except that My People got me sorted out & reminded me that we don't just make drastic changes without a whole lot of consideration.

I don't know what the outcome will be at this point. It could play out precisely the way my doctor described in that room a week ago tomorrow. But if it does, I can now rest assured that this decision was informed, that it was made by someone with extensive knowledge & skills because it truly was in my best interests, and not because perhaps I allowed someone with only the vaguest old-school understanding of my situation to perform a surgery I am not convinced he had much confidence in doing to begin with.

I have to believe that while I go quiet when I'm working through the thoughts, and that's ok, it's how I do it, that there comes a time when the silence does more harm than good. The silence has its place, but sometimes, so does telling the story.