it does suck to be a girl, PART 2

posted by sometrouble @ 3:03 PM | Test Category Two | Sunday, June 03, 2007

iris at the detroit zooHere it is, finally Part 2! Part 1 can be found here.

From where we left off, we jump ahead three weeks. I start having the exact same type of pain all over again. I have been taking the medication the doctor gave me, and can't figure out what is going on. As the evening goes on, it gets worse, until I can't do anything but sit and not move. My sister said she could tell the pain was bad because I was somewhat unresponsive and was definitely having trouble focusing on her questions. She called my doctor's answering service and asked the doctor to call us. My doctor's partner called and told me if it was that bad, I should go to the ER.

Chad was finishing up some work in the basement, so my sister and her boyfriend drove me to the hospital, and Chad followed a little later. It was torture to sit in the waiting room. I planted myself right in front of the front desk, so they would hopefully fast-track me in when they saw how much pain I was in. I didn't care how long they made me wait once I was in a bed. It seemed to be working, they braceleted me pretty quickly, and told me it would be soon. Then a guy walked in shaking and trembling. His hand was wrapped in a towel soaked with blood. They rushed him right back, and I had to wait again. I found out later from a friend who was the police officer handling the guy's case, that he found a stray Pitt Bull and decided to walk it with his dog. The dogs started fighting, and he shoved his hand in between to try to break them up. Got his thumb bitten damn near off. Dumb ass.

Anyway, they got me back there, and put an IV in. I was already feeling chilly, and that made me so cold that I shook uncontrollably, which did not help with the pain. They piled about 5 heated blankets on me. The doctor decided he wanted to do a CT scan. The offered me some Morphine and I readily agreed. They made me drink some horrible tasting stuff for the scan to provide contrast. (It may have been barium sulfate, but I'm not sure). After a while, while waiting for the drugs, I managed to get to sleep for about an hour, and awoke when the radiologist arrived to take me for the scan.

He injected me with iodine through my IV line, and boy did that feel strange. It was like I was suddenly aware of all my veins and capillaries. As it moved through, I felt a weird warm sensation. The scan only took a few minutes. I had to hold my breath for several short intervals and hold my arms over my head while lying down which was a bit uncomfortable with the pain. My sister and husband got to see my insides on the screen in the monitoring room. My sister told me she could see my ovaries. My husband told me with a grin that he saw my boobs.

I went back to my curtained cubicle, and they finally gave me the Morphine, while I waited for the results to be read. They told me they could see quite a bit of fluid from a ruptured ovarian cyst, and that it looked like there were several more. I got a prescription for Vicodin, which I didn't fill, because I'd rather not take them because they make me very nauseated and throw up a lot. I thought that would be worse than just suffering through the pain. I did take a lot of Motrin, though.

I was told later that I was singing the children's song, "I'm a little tea-pot" while drugged up in the ER. I also started singing something else, which my sister couldn't remember what it was, and exclaimed that it was the same tune as "I'm a little tea-pot" (even though it wasn't).

Oh yea, and boy was I safe while there, I had police guards on either side of me. Just kidding, it was just a coincidence that both patients next to me were under police watch. I don't know if that made me safer or not.

So, after I was feeling better, I decided that I needed a new doctor for this problem. My general doctor always handled all routine care of my girl parts...but now I figured a specialist would be a good idea. This opened up a whole new problem. I wasn't counting on choosing a OB/GYN for at least a couple years, and I wanted to pick a good one for when I have children and one that works through a hospital I want to deliver at. My mom is a labor and delivery nurse, so she helped me a lot in choosing someone who will do a good job, and seems to prioritize the things that are important to me when I have a baby.

I called the office to make an appointment, and they told me it would be about three months before the doctor could see a new patient. I was so frustrated. I was scared, wanted to know why I was having these cysts, and I had gone off my birth control pill since the second one, and wanted to get back on a new pill better suited for preventing cysts. My mom called the office and got me in to see their Nurse practitioner the next day. YAY for inside influence!

She ordered another ultrasound of my ovaries and uterus, because she said the lining looked really thick in the CT report, and it should have hardly been there at all at that point. She started me on Loestrin 24, which is amazing! I highly recommend it to any women. Any of the hormonal crankiness I had on other pills is 100x better now. Not to mention, shorter period, less cramps, improved libido, etc.

That's pretty much where I'm at now. Except for a week ago, when I missed my pill Wednesday night, and felt like I had had a small cyst rupture Thursday afternoon while I was at work and couldn't get to my pills to take the missed one. So now it's back to normal life, hoping I don't have any more rupturing ovarian cysts. I don't know if this pill will prevent them or not. I just have to wait and see.

7 Comments:

At June 03, 2007 7:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know two people who've had the same problem recently. I wonder what causes it to happen...

 
At June 03, 2007 8:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am happy to hear that things are going better with the switch in Pills. Maybe after this baby is born I should ask for that Pill. I hope things continue to go better.

 
At June 03, 2007 10:27 PM, Blogger Allie said...

Wow sounds like you have been through a lot. I remember when the fist cyst you ever had ruptured and how much pain you were in. Sorry you had to go through that again!

Hope that you are feeling better these days and that the new doc can shed some light on what is happening.

 
At June 04, 2007 3:56 PM, Blogger Melanie Marie said...

Wow. How do you not go back to that first doctor and scream "I TOLD YOU SO!!!"??

arggghhhh. That is outrageous!

 
At June 05, 2007 2:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do not like the idea of cysts, nor rupturing cysts, inside one's girly parts. I'm so sorry that you have to experience this pain. I hope that you can find a combination of good solutions to keep the pain away.

 
At June 05, 2007 9:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hope that things are starting to clear up and that youre feeling better!

Talk to you later.

 
At June 30, 2007 5:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

your husband decided to finish some work in the basement before joining his wife in the ER while she's in horrible pain? wow. i'd recommend marriage counseling.

 

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