Selena Gasbarro

Warning - graphic detailed information going forward - stop reading if you don't want to know "too much." So picture this, a 37 year old woman walks into a bar  hospital, but would have preferred a bar. She thought she was going in for a quick in and out partial hysterectomy and 3.5 hours later wakes up to discover it was actually a radical hysterectomy and a whole lot more and then she pushed that pain med button and drifted back off LaLaLand. Surprise, that 37 year old was me and this is no joke! I knew I was in pain, I knew I was piling on the pounds, I knew my emotions were all over the place, but I attributed a lot of it to "life." In November I was standing at after school pickup and something felt funny, so I looked down and there I was in an elementary school cafeteria standing in a puddle of my own blood. This was a few weeks after I stood up at the end of a work meeting and wasn't sure what was going on, so I ran to the restroom and when I pull

Have you seen the newish HomePod commercial? I've seen it, didn't pay much attention to is. It's black and white and the letters bounce around. A few weeks ago I was forced to watch it a little closer when I heard this screaming in the living room. There she was, Adelaide screaming "just put it together" at the tv because the bouncing letters were driving her crazy. Today, Adelaide had a season end basketball party at 5:30 which meant that I needed to pick them up at their after school program no later than 5:20 in order to get there on time. I arrived at 5:15 and their care taker looked absolutely defeated which is unlike him. I knew it was one of my children when he was high stepping it to talk to me. Yep, it was my A that was his source of pain over the last few hours. Apparently she was so excited about her party that she began anxiously asking what time it was every few minutes and begging to call me. Adelaide has to have a plan and she has to stick with

Let me start by saying how shocked, amazed and supported I have felt since my last post about getting a hysterectomy. I received so many private messages that it was overwhelming. What amazed me is how many of you reading this right now have gone through exactly what I am going through. Maybe amazed isn't the right word, I should probably use the word shocked. Have you seen the show Handmaids Tale? If you haven't, you must binge on Hulu. The premise is that women are kept as reproductive servants because of a declining population. The ruling class of men believe that women have focused too much on being independent, career focuses and sexually active that they now longer can bare children. I know it sounds bizarre, but trust me, you must watch this. Why am I bringing this up? This freaking show and the amount of young women receiving hysterectomies and having reproductive issues has given me the tv freak out. It's just like when you watch a scary movie and you just know

I've been MIA, but I swear there is a reason that I abandoned my not so anonymous rantings. I've been completely distracted with my own thoughts, self loathing, anxiety, fear, you name it and it's probably crossed my mind in the last few months. Ironically today, the day that I was supposed to start a 8 week leave of absence from work to get my guts cut out, is the day that I finally have the urge to put my words down.  So here is the breakdown of the last few months. I've not been feeling well, I'm going to save you all of the gory details, but they involved me walking around very uncomfortably and looking 8 months pregnant and there was also a lot of blood involved. After months of dealing with this I finally went to the doctor and much to my surprise he sat me down after my exam and yep, he used the C word. So what does everyone do when their doctor says that they have to come back for a biopsy to rule out uterine cancer, they go to work to try to completely f

Our hearts are heavy today as we mourn the loss of Grant's grandmother, Bubba. He is hurting and there isn't anything that I can do to fix it. It's uncharted territory for me not to be able to fix something broken. At work if there is a problem, I fix it. Faucet at home is dripping, I fix it. The girls break something, I fix it. This however, I can not fix. I sent extra texts today, I took him to lunch in which we had no appetite, I picked the girls up early to tell them about Bubba, we distracted ourselves with lots of outside activities, I made dinner, but I still can't fix it. I've learned in the past few years that I'm not the emotionally supportive one in the family and with my friends, I am the doer. I am the person you can count on to do your errands, pick up and entertain your kiddos, I'll even clean up after you when your water breaks (no names listed), but somehow over the years I have stopped being the emotionally strong one. I don't know

Just this week one of the associates who works on my team looked at me after a stressful day and she said, I was so wrong - how do you make all of this look easy. I wasn't exactly sure what my face looked like because on the inside I was torn between bursting in laughter or falling into a puddle of "you have got to be kidding me." In this situation we were talking about work and I'm a Sr Manager so my job is to protect my associates from knowing exactly what happens long before a project or decision ever gets to them and it's also my job to keep moral up so I don't want them to know how not easy some of my days are. I wish life was as easy as "check your personal business at the door." It's not, in fact I find it personally impossible. I was ecstatic to hear that my team hadn't picked up on all of the things running through my head as I hit that door by 7:30am. Am I the only one who has all of these feelings inside and are scared that peo