Prelude to a Hysterectomy, Part I

So some of you know that I’m having surgery on Monday.  To those that don’t, well….surprise! I’m having surgery on Monday. I’m having an abdominal hysterectomy.

Now obviously this is not a surgery that you just rush right into.  And obviously there are many possible treatments out there for things like endometriosis.  I’ve had several very concerned (and I am so grateful that they are) friends that are worried it’s a little overkill.  So I thought I would set the record straight as to what I’m doing and why. 

WARNING: I’m going to be talking about my inside girly parts and their workings.  If this makes you squeamish, turn away now!

Part I: The Build up

I’ve had ovarian cysts for years.  Sometimes they’re just painful enough to be annoying.  Other times, I’ve ended up in the hospital with doctors convinced I had appendicitis.   I always had painful cramps and yucky periods, but didn’t think much of it because, hey we’re girls and cramps hurt and periods are yucky, right?  It was just the way my body worked.  So I ignored it and went on with my life.   I was on birth control for a little while to help treat some of the symptoms.

Then I got married, and I wanted babies.  Who doesn’t want babies?  I knew because of stuff that Steve had going on with his body, the chances that we would get pregnant were very very slim.  Like less than 3% slim. But miracles happen, right?  I wanted to do anything I could to increase those odds.  So I haven’t been on birth control for the past three years (which I believe has contributed to some of my current issues) and as you know, nothing happened.  No babies.  Anytime I mentioned this to my GYN, he asked if I wanted to run some tests, look at fertility drugs, etc and I always shrugged it off saying “Oh maybe sometime down the road”…just kind of ignoring the obvious. 

So about a year ago, I started having crazy, and I mean CRAZY emotional mood swings, and they got worse with each month.  They were awful, and they total reminded me of those crazy emotional frenzies I used to fly into when I was a teenager.  There was no doubt in my mind that they were hormonally driven. 

But everything was fine, right?  “Right”, I convinced myself.  “Everything is fine.  You’re just imagining it. Or maybe you’re just getting older and this is what happens in your 30s.  You go nuts like you did at 16.”  Totally normal.

Then there was the spotting in between periods.  That’s normal right?  Everyone has that at some point or another, right? “Right” I convinced myself again.  “Everything is totally normal”.  At my annual in May 2012, the GYN said he could run some tests if I was really concerned, but I waved him off.  I was fine.  I was normal!

I was back in his office a few months later complaining of cystic pain in my left side.  I was also anemic for the first time in my life (this was the first clue that something was very wrong. I’m never anemic. EVER.) I took some iron pills and felt magically better- so much less tired!  I had been draaaaaaggggging for months now.

They did an ultrasound and found that I had a quarter size normal cyst on my left ovary and a baseball sized hemorrhagic cyst (that means ‘filled with blood’) on my right ovary.  Okay, I’m not fine.  This is not fine or normal at all!  But, these cysts go away on their own.  So we decided do some “watchful waiting” and see if they would shrink over a couple of months.  At my GYN’s recommendation, I went back onto birth control, just to normalize everything.   And for several months I regularly marched into his office every month to get rescanned.  Finally, we got to the point where he said, “Lexie, there’s no change.  If you come back in here next month at the same size, we’re going in to take it out.”  Okay, I agreed.  And went on with life.

Two weeks later, on Monday morning I woke up with a really sore throat and fever.  I went into my regular doctor’s office convinced that I had strep throat.  They did the full workup: flu, strep, CBC blood count, etc.  I tested positive for strep, and my white blood cell count was up.  Anything above 10 is abnormal, and mine was at a 12 (but that’s totally normal for strep).  I got the strep shot, a steroid shot, and a prescription for a serious hospital grade antibiotic. 

Tuesday morning, I was at home recovering when I had severe abdominal pain.  The pain in my throat was nothing like the pain in my lower stomach.  I couldn’t even unfold all the way.  I figured it was just the antibiotic messing with my digestive system and muddled through, watching all the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” reruns.

Wednesday morning, I woke up at 4:30 am in so much pain that I knew it wasn’t the antibiotics.  And I had a fever.  I went back to my regular doctor thinking it was appendicitis (again, given my past history I probably should have just gone straight to by GYN, but I wasn’t thinking, ok?).  They did another CBC on me and my White Blood Cell count had shot up to 21 in two days on TWO different antibiotics.  This is most definitely NOT NORMAL.  She sent me for an abdominal ultrasound and general surgeon consult.  The abdominal ultrasound was inconclusive, but the blood cell count was so screwy that the surgeon was still worried about appendicitis.  So he started poking around on my stomach.  He hit one spot to the right of my belly button that hurt so bad my leg flew off of the table and my knee missed his nose by mere inches.  “Yep, I think it’s appendicitis,” he proclaimed.  “Let’s get a CT Scan.”  So off I went to the hospital for a scan.  I had to drink the nasty barium milkshakes and get the contrast and all that fun stuff. 

Finally after a few hours they did the scan. I went back to my room to wait for the radiologist and surgeon to consult over the results.  10 minutes later, the radiologist came to find me.  He said “The surgeon wants to talk to you”.   I was taken back into the radiologist’s booth where I could see the cross sections of my abdomen.  I’m trying to listen to my surgeon talk to me on the phone, but I’m looking at my CT scan and all I can think is “What is that giant blob in the middle of my lower stomach?  It’s got tentacles or something.”  I finally tune back into the surgeon and he’s saying, “...not appendicitis, but a very enlarged ovarian cyst.  Can you call your GYN tonight?”  I looked at the clock and laughed. “No.  It’s like 7:30pm.  His office is totally closed.”  The surgeon replied back completely seriously, “Then call him first thing in the morning.  Send him these scans.  He needs to see them as soon as possible.”  I agreed that I would, and went home. 

Thursday morning, I went in to the GYN’s office.  They looked at the CT Scans and confirmed what the surgeon had said: that giant blob with tentacles was the cyst and it was very very angry.  So my Dr. sent me back in to get another ultrasound just to compare it to the previous ultrasounds. 

Now, something I’ve learned about ultrasound techs: they will not tell you ANYTHING about what they see.  I’ve asked them repeatedly and they’re just not allowed to do it.  So alarm bells went off when the tech asked me, “Now honey, is this cyst on your right ovary or your left?”  Me: “Uh….right…..I think….”  Tech: “Well, I just can’t really tell because it’s so big it's touching both.”  Awesome.   I immediately name the cyst The Hulk because it’s soooo big, and soooo angry.

I walk back to the consult room and the GYN tells me, “We’ve got to take it out. We’re going to book you for a laparoscopy as soon as possible.”  The nurses start running around and booking the OR.  The soonest they could find OR space was the following Tuesday, which is normally my GYN’s day off, but he said he would come in to do the surgery (which I thought was really nice of him). 

So I limp through the weekend and make it to Tuesday.  I’ve read everything I can about Laparoscopic cystectomies.  I watch videos.  I learn about the different kinds of cysts.  I read about the recovery and what makes it easier and better.  I had done my research (like the librarian I am) and I was prepped.  We roll into the hospital and the staff got me ready for surgery.    Before I got all woozy, Steve and I had a very serious conversation that went something like this.

Me: “You know **** ( a very good friend of the family- name kept confidential) went into a surgery like this in her 30s and midway through the surgery they decided she needed a hysterectomy.”
Steve: “Really?  What happened?”
Me: “I’m not sure entirely.  I think there were tumors or something.  Anyways, at that point she didn’t have any living family, so my mom was her Power of Attorney.  So the surgeon comes out midsurgery and tells my mom, ‘We need to do a hysterectomy, do we have your permission to do so?’  And my mom had to decide this poor woman’s reproductive fate in a split second.”

Steve: “Whoa.”
Me: “I know, right?  I just want you to know that if they come out and say the same thing to you, go ahead and say yes.  I won’t be mad.  Your priorities are my health #1 and everything else #2, k?”
Steve nodded: “Okay, got it.” 

And with that we were ready.

 Sidenote: For those you who know me well, you know I don’t drink- like at all, ever.  So Steve thought it was hilarious to watch them give me loopy drugs.  Apparently I was dancing in my bed and yelling things like “Whoo hoo!  Now, this is the good stuff!  PAR-TAY!” while the nurses just shook their heads.   Totally embarrassing.  I have no memory of this at all.

I wake up about an hour or so later, completely feisty and hungry (that’s how I always wake up from surgery- I pretty much turn into a belligerent cavewoman).  The nurse started feeding me cup after cup of ice chips and finally let me have a Sprite.  Meanwhile, I’m blasting her about why doesn’t she have a Library Card and how she really should get a Library Card, and she really needs to read the Sookie Stackhouse series.  I think she was very glad to drop me off into my recovery room where Steve was waiting for me. 

They roll me in and I ask Steve, “So how’d it go?”   And that’s when everything changed.

(Story continued in Part II: http://kingdomoflala.blogspot.com/2013/05/prelude-to-hysterectomy-part-ii.html)