Nobody puts baillee in the corner

I’ve been 26 for 11 days, and let me tell you, my birthday week was a tease. I met Tonya Harding. I sang a crowd-pleasing rendition of “You Oughta Know.” I ate fudge, courtesy of my favorite Joyalty couple. It was wild.

However, that was when I was young, naive, and barely 26. Now that I’m seasoned, things have taken a turn, and Taylor looked at me today in the car and said, “You need to blog about this,” and she’s right. Here goes, my dear readers.

To give you some context, appendicitis is one of my greatest fears. I have been terrified for years of that fateful ER visit. Currently, I yearn to say, “Get your Baillee doll today! Now with detachable appendix!” But that’s not the case. My appendix is fine, but my ovaries have decided to grab some hitchhikers along the way.

If you haven’t been following the saga on Facebook, I was admitted to St. David’s on Monday around 2PM for what we initially thought was early onset appendicitis. I was absolutely terrified because this was my greatest fear come to fruition. After 10 hours, a blood test, a CTscan, and a complete pelvic/vaginal ultrasound (if you ever want to skip yoga, please get one because you have to use your thighs to lift up your pelvis while making dirty jokes to your technician who is the spitting image of Lucy Liu, and you’re waiting for my girl Drew and Cameron D to appear), I was told I had a cyst on each ovary (at least it’s a matching set), but they weren’t twisting, my stomach pain was probably just a virus, and I should probably just make sure everything was cool and go to an OBG-YN in the next few days. But something still felt off.

I scheduled an OBG-YN appointment for today, shelled out $128.53, and expected the worst news. You see, I’ve always wanted children. I’ve had my daughter’s name, Lola Jane (she’ll go by LJ), for years. I’ve dreamed of being even half the mother KP is. I haven’t planned my wedding, but by God, I’ve known my future daughter my whole life. So I went into today mortified. Shaking. Freaking scared.

As soon as the nurse called for me from the waiting room, I knew, deep down, something wasn’t right. She wasn’t jovial. She immediately asked me to have a seat. She gave me some of the worst news of my life. She explained the cysts were far larger than initially thought. They weren’t twisting, but they had to come out of me. All the color left my face, and I choked back tears. She told me the doctor would explain, but she wanted to prepare me because surgery was the only thing on the table, like I was soon to be.

The next five minutes consisted of mass text messages and a lot of pretending. Pretending I was fine. Pretending my entire world wasn’t crashing down. Pretending I didn’t have a new greatest fear. As soon as the doctor entered, and I saw her somber yet compassionate face, I knew, and my heart sank.

She explained the cysts were so large and uncommon for my age (like everything about me, honestly). She said they had to be removed. I asked the hardest question of my life, “Will this cause fertility issues?” She sighed and said, “Only if we don’t get these out.” She explained if they rupture, they are so large that they would probably have to take the ovary with the ruptured cyst, if not both. She said one of them was “the size of a baby’s head,” and the comparison stung hard. She discussed my ovaries had to be plucked from my body like dandelions on a summer’s day, except I didn’t get to blow the seeds away to make my one wish. I have no choice. I have to either have these cysts removed, or Lola Jane will forever be a figment of my imagination.

I can’t fully describe to you what I felt in that moment. I can’t begin to tell you what it’s like to not have any control. I can’t start to write the words you hear echoing in your head while you’re lying back on an examination table. All I can tell you is a payment estimation will snap you back to reality and stomp on all those Dandelion seeds.

“Your insurance won’t cover the $1601 needed for the surgery,” she explained. I was choking my tears. I not only had no choice but no money. The tech grabbed my hand and looked at me knowingly. “Just give us a call and let us know what you decide, honey.”

I grabbed my backpack and made it to the bathroom. I sunk into the floor. Again, I can’t tell you exactly what I was feeling, but hopelessness is a close estimation.

Zach picked me up, and with shaking hands, I lit a cigarette. He asked me how I was, and I said, “I’ve been better.” He said, “You don’t have to front with me.” That’s when I lost control. I cried for me. I cried for LJ. I cried for all those dead Dandelions.

So fast forward past a day with the most supportive people I can ask for. My friends. My family. My coworkers. I am in awe of their love and support. I don’t know if I would be here to write this without them.

Now, I have to tackle another fear of mine: asking for help. I have to ask for help coming up with money for my surgery. I can’t do this alone. That deposit is a paycheck and a half for me, but the thought of not being able to have children is the most devastating thing I think of.

I don’t ask for things until I am desperate, and I am begging people from the bottom of my heart. I need help. The thought of potentially not being able to have children is haunting me. Please help however you can. I am just beside myself because of the outpouring of support, and I am sick that I have to ask for more. Here’s the link Katie so graciously created: https://gogetfunding.com/baillee-needs-acystance/. Even if you can only do $1, that’s a $1 closer to me being able to get a surgery that I need. I’m not trying to pander, but I’ve always been honest here, and I’m not going to stop now.

I’ll leave all of you with this. Women’s health is nothing to be shrugged off. It’s nothing to be labeled a “drama queen” for. Remember that, especially in today’s climate.

BP out.