Can't a girl catch a break?!

Last night I had emergency surgery to remove an ovarian cyst I didn't know I had. What's worse is I am smack in the middle of my orientation for a new internship program I have started.

Saturday night D and I were celebrating his grandfather's birthday with his whole family. I was having weird discomfort all night but I thought it was a GI issue - - maybe I ate too much or had gas or something. Trying to go to the bathroom didn't help though.

I made it through all of Sunday (yesterday) feeling perfectly fine as usual. Then, around 10 or 10:30 PM I started developing a bit of an abdominal pain that started spreading and becoming more and more painful and violent. Before I knew it I was crying in excrutiating pain (and I actually have a really high pain tolerance!). I was pretty sure it must have something to do with my new IUD. If not, then it had to be GI-related or maybe a UTI.

We called my OB/GYN since the IUD was my first thought. She was concerned I could be pregnant despite the IUD, or have ruptured a cyst. She advised us to go to the hospital she is affiliated with so that she could come take care of me if my condition warranted a visit from her.

While trying to put on some clothes to wear to the hospital, I ended up sprawled on my bedroom floor in pain. Something was definitely wrong.

At the hospital, once we finally were given a bed in the ER, my doctor's team, a resident and a PA, came to see me. After a pregnancy test turned out negative, they explained they were concerned I had a cyst and did an ultrasound to look for one. Sure enough, I had a moderate to large cyst (5 x 7 cm) on one of my ovaries. They explained how a cyst can cut off the blood flow to an ovary so you have to remove a big threatening cyst like that or you can lose your ovary. They were pretty sure I was going to have to go immediately into emergency surgery, but were waiting for my doctor for the final word.

When my doctor came she basically confirmed everything they said except that she didn't think the blood flow to the ovary was being cut off. That said, it was a large cyst and I was in a lot of pain, so there was no room to send me home "under observation" - - I was definitely going into surgery ASAP. I would not be going back home without having surgery first.

By the time I was being wheeled into surgery it was probably around 4AM this (Monday) morning. As they pushed me to the OR in a wheelchair, all I could think was "I can't believe I'm about to have another surgery!" It just didn't seem real. It didn't seem possible!

Before the surgery my doctor had explained that depending what kinds of incisions she had to make and what she found once inside, I could be in the hospital anywhere from just that day, to three days, to up to a week. Fortunately, I ended up with the most ideal situation: she was able to do the surgery laparoscopically, with just a slit above either hipbone, and the ovary was not cut off from its blood source and did not have to be removed. I could leave the same day. (Since coming home I found out from D that the cyst actually ruptured sometime between the ultrasound and the surgery.)

I spent the whole morning recovering in the PACU. I was allowed to eat but my mouth was so dry and no amount of ice chips, water, tea, cranberry juice or losenges was helping. So I felt like I was choking on the eggs that my brother-in-law brought back for me. When D brought sugary croissants it was exactly what I needed to get the salivary juices flowing! I also finally managed to pee too. I had a lot of discomfort but as soon as my CBC results came back normal, I could go home!

I was given some basic discharge instructions and a presription for percocet, which I had already had at home from my last surgery. At home I took some drugs and then we snacked and napped. As soon as the 6 hours of drug effectiveness was up, I felt a sharp pain shoot through my abdomen. I took more drugs and we ate dinner. Now, I am still walking funny and sitting up straight is a challenge, but the drugs help enough that I am going to try to make it back to school tomorrow. Wish me luck!

What a night.

A Farewell to Boobs (as I know them anyway)

Tomorrow is my reconstruction surgery. As I write this I'm sitting in a cafe awaiting a plate of brioche french toast & strawberries. (It's about 130PM - - I specifically searched in advance for a place, close to my hair salon, that sells french toast all day.) I'm trying to fill myself up because last time I did a poor job of eating enough before the midnight deadline. I feel like a Gremlin with this "nothing after midnight" rule. Not being able to eat the morning of my mastectomy made me super cranky. And then I didn't eat for nearly 36 hours because I was "NPO" (non per os aka nothing by mouth) until the morning AFTER my surgery! Even then it was just a collection of disgusting orange flavored "clears" like jello and italian ice. My surgery is at 730AM and I have to be there at 6AM, which means we have to leave by 5AM and up even earlier. Yeesh! Yesterday I decided that if I needed to be ready for surgery and in bed so early in the evening then I wanted the whole day off from work today. I scrambled to get all my work done for the week. This morning I slept late before coming into the city for my hair blow-out (so I don't have to worry about lifting my arms to style my hair while I'm recovering). I visited D at his job before running an errand for him and now I'm sitting here just trying to relax and get into some sort of calm, positive mindset before heading into surgery.

Meanwhile, since my last post I have had my IUD (intrauterine device) implanted. Yowza! I was expecting a pinch during the procedure and maybe some cramping for a few hours after. My doctor told us it would be a "walk in the park" compared to what I've been through recently. I have no idea what she was talking about. It was BAD. As the doctor warned that "now you'll feel some pressure and like a bad cramp," an intense pain spread through my abdomen and before I knew it I was climbing up the wall. I think I squeezed all the blood right out of D's hand. The doctor asked me if I could please try to relax my butt cheeks. Fortunately, the whole procedure lasted just a couple minutes. Unfortunately, the rest of the night was even worse than the procedure itself. In the doc's office they gave me four Advil and I took them all. Almost immediately, severe cramping set in. The train ride home was excrutiating. Thank goodness D was with me. At home I was uncomfortable all night. I could hardly enjoy my dinner. By bedtime the pain was so bad I couldn't get comfortable at all and was really anxious. I had to be up early the next morning for some pre-surgical testing and a final appointment with the plastic surgeon. I couldn't get to sleep. As much as I hate the drug, I ended up taking a Valium in order to get to sleep. Somehow, the Valium neither knocked me out nor made the pain go away but it did make this feeling of calm come over me that allowed me to get to sleep. It was like the first drug the anesthesiologist gave me before my mastectomy. His words were "first I'm going to give you something that's going to make life a little easier," and boy did it! The Valium did the same thing the night of the terrible IUD cramps. Today is two weeks since getting the IUD implanted and believe it or not the bad cramps only started to subside in the past 24-36 hours. They didn't stick around all day every day. They would come and go and get worse at night. But they were definitely there. I called the doctor Monday and she said it is actually normal and my body is getting used to having some foreign object lodged in my uterus. I guess that makes sense.

The next day at our appointment with the plastic surgeon I asked so many questions that I think I drove the doctor crazy. I also think I insulted him on some personal level when I said I wasn't interested in getting a fake nipple, which he highly recommends. In order to end the conversation I told him I was willing to be open-minded and allow myself to change my mind later if my feelings changed. (I don't see myself changing my mind later.) Regardless, in the end I felt I aired out all my concerns and now I feel like I can go into surgery completely confident that he will do what he deems best but also keep my concerns in mind at the same time. Wish me luck!