Medical Issues

This week has really sucked. There is a lot going one this week. My English class is ending and I have a paper due and a final. I have court today. I had one appointment with my Doctor, it turned into three. Bug has a cold and I think she is getting some molars in or something and has been up the majority of the past two nights screaming "Ow". Yesterday, I think I had gotten a total of about four hours of sleep and last night, my husband got up with her first, which allowed me to get about six hours of sleep. Right now a lot of you are saying "Megs, you have a one year old. If you are getting six straight hours of sleep, you're doing pretty good." But I'm just not that kind of girl. I like to sleep. I usually sleep for about eight to ten hours a night. Four is tough to live off of when you are used to ten blissful hours of sleep.

I have been trying to decide these last couple of days, how much of what is happening I really want to post on the Internet for everyone to see. But it's not truly a blog about my life if I don't post important things about my life when they happen.

In 2003, when I was eighteen years old, I thought I was pregnant. I had quite a few of the symptoms including a three week late period. Even though I was getting negative tests, without my period I still was thinking I was pregnant. In the third week of my late period, I woke up to excruciating pain. I have always had very bad periods and I assumed that I was finally starting my period. Then pretty suddenly, I threw up a nasty yellow-brown color and the floor tilted beneath me and the room started to spin and I knew something wasn't right. We went to the ER where I was poked, prodded, stuck with needles and everything else they could think of for sixteen hours before they came to the conclusion they didn't know what was happening and they needed to do surgery. I was given vicodin for the pain but not allowed to eat or drink all day and by the time they put me under I really could have cared less what they were doing, as long as it would relieve some of my pain. When I woke up, except for feeling like I had just been drugged, I felt a lot better. They told me I had ovarian cysts on each side. Your ovaries are normally 3mm. One of them was 8mm and the other was 10mm. The left side, the 8mm cyst, moved around and turned itself facing backwards and caused a torsion of my fallopian tube. A torsion is what happens when your blood flow is cut off to s certain part of your body. It is extremely painful and if not treated quickly can cause major damage to whatever organ has torsed. In my case, in cut off circulation to the ovary and essentially killed it. They removed my ovary and the cyst from the other side in the surgery. After my surgery at my follow up visit with the doctor she explained to me that long term use of estrogen based birth control can help lead to ovarian cysts. She said it was a side effect and that it is written on the packaging, that everyone ignores. After she told me this I stopped taking birth control pills. I felt lied to. I was eighteen and now only had one ovary because no one ever said "Hey, if you feel weird cramps on either side of your body, while taking this pill, just make an appt to have it checked out." Everyone has cysts. They are formed during ovulation to help release the egg. In most people, they release the egg and then they disappear. Well I'm not like most people anyways, why should my body be?

After the surgery, I was off of birth control for a long time. When I tried to get back on the pill, they gave me an estrogen free pill because I have migraines. Within three weeks, I had another cyst and I stopped the pill as soon as I noticed it and haven't had a problem since. I was told the ovary I have would take over for the lack of the other one. It took us a while to concieve Bug, but they assured me that was not the ovary, just the timing. After I had her, I was really leary of being on birth control again. My doctor and I talked for a long time about what my options were and we decided Mirena was the best way to go. Low hormones since it sits in your uterus and it can be removed quickly if there is ever a problem. As much as I didn't want to deal with birth control again, I didn't want to have another baby right then either. I had the Mirena put in in Dec and have had no problems with it.

Two weeks ago, I started feeling... not right. I have been extremely tired, weird cramping, nauseous and bloated, particularly after my riding lessons and just plain moody. There is no other way to describe the moody but as a royal bitch. For three days I talked myself into why a baby right now wouldn't be so bad, and when I thought that I would be happy about it, I took a pregnancy test and was actually disappointed to see a negative result. So I made a doctor's appointment for a regular physical. There were quite a few things I wanted to discuss with her and I figured it was the Mirena causing the symptoms. J and I talked and decided to just get it out of there, anyways. She didn't have time at that appointment on Monday to do a pelvic exam and made an appt for me to go back on Tues. That appt was rescheduled for the end of next week after she called in sick. Wednesday, I had an ultrasound. The funny thing about ultrasounds is they don't allow the techs to tell you anything because they aren't doctors. I get that, I really do. But if they see something, they see something and should be allowed to tell you. She did a great job and laying there talking to a complete stranger with an U/S stick shoved in my woo hoo was only slightly uncomfortable because she was so nice. The first thing out of her mouth was, "What is going on, on your right side girl?!" Then because she couldn't say much, she told me that if I have any pain at all, from what she saw, she would like me to go straight to the ER. She couldn't say whether it was cyst but she hinted to the fact that things were growing in there that shouldn't be. She even told me that if it was her, she would stay off the horses until the issue was solved. SHe also told me she wasn't trying to freak me out and not to let me imagination go crazy because if it was really bad, I would be waiting for the radiologist to look at the u/s and then going straight to GYN for surgery. Some how that didn't really make me feel better.

I'm not done having kids. I'm not. We want a son ((I already put in my order)). Maybe another after him. I'm almost 26, I'm a little young to rule out the possibility of having anymore children. So today, on top of EVERYTHING else that is going on, I am waiting for a call from my PCP to tell me what we are going to do about whatever the F is going on, on the only ovary I have left. Maybe its the lack of sleep, but I'm freakin out here people! Even something as "simple" as surgery to remove the cyst could be potentially dangerous to the possibility of future children.

I really wanted to share this because I think a lot of people ignore or play down things that are going on with their bodies, because that is what our doctor's do. If you have something that is going on, like cramps that are different from period cramps, or whatever the case may be, if it is not normal to you, call your doctor. This was the last thing I was expecting, I figured it was just the Mirena and she would yank it out and it would be over. Now all I can do is wait for the call from my doctor and find out what the next step is and hold my baby and pray everything will be fine and I will be able to have more.