Since the procedure on Monday there has been a significant amount of re-acquainting and heart-felt bonding time. With my belly button.
Let's start at the very beginning (and try not to burst into iconic song), when Clif, my parents and I all woke up well before the sun to check in at the hospital for my appointment. While I was ecstatic to have been bumped up to the early appointment, Clif was significantly less thrilled as he'd been busy teaching and not sleeping hardly at all since the end of last week. The fact that he was obviously working hard to get dressed and mobile was made much less worrisome by the support of my parents who made the early morning haul from Arlington to be with us both. I was glad to have them there for my personal support, but in some ways even more glad they would be there with and for Clif. Besides, as Mom has said before, doctors can spout off news so fast it's nice to have multiple pairs of ears listening to increase the chance of actually understanding what was said.
We were pretty much the only people in the building aside from the tech who checked me in and a security officer, which equated to next to no wait time before I was called back. Clif was allowed with me and kept me company/napped as each of the people who'd be taking care of me through various stages of the process stopped by to introduce themselves and ask me the same questions the one before had, though I didn't mind the procedure of repetition. Then there were IVs, fluids, antibiotics, backless gowns, crazy pressure thigh-highs, a princess band aid, non-stick socks, and some killer premeds that made me all dizzy and trippy in roughly 0.3 seconds. I vaguely remember asking the nurse if she had medicated me and her chuckled response, rolling down the hall while breathing through the subsequent wooziness and valiantly counting the number of people in the room 4 times to make sure I would remember when I woke up. There were 10 (!) and I have no idea what more than half of them were in there for. I remember getting wheeled up to the operating table and having enough mental capacity to tell the nurse that she should have someone stand opposite me since last time I had to scoot myself over I almost pitched off the other side. At least I'm pretty sure that's what I said... if you've not experienced it yourself those premeds are not entirely unlike a reaaaaaallllly successful 21st birthday bash, if you get my drift, and if you still don't just help yourself to a bottle of champagne and you should be close. Regardless I somehow managed to get on the table and the nurse stuck a pillow behind my head just as it hit the table...
I woke up much faster and feeling more clear-headed from this procedure than the "twilight" sedation I had for the D&C. While it was still difficult to wake up I didn't feel as much pressure to hurry the process, besides they had me on a nasal cannula with oxygen and were monitoring me carefully until my blood pressure came down (it was pretty high) so I had time to chill. I remember trying to be honest, rather than stoic, with the nurse about my pain level and let her know I thought it might be getting a little bit more intense but was still under 5 on the 1-10 scale. She gave some IV pain meds since it was still placed and I was as good to go as I was going to get. I managed to get dressed without falling over, a challenge, I assure you, and made it into the wheelchair for transport to the car.
On the way home the family caught me up on the news: the doctor confirmed and then easily corrected the uterine septum and removed the small growth she suspected she would find. They got to see the pictures, I am looking forward to seeing them myself at my post-op visit in a couple of weeks. I managed to make it to Panera so Clif and Dad could pick up lunch, but not the 2-3 minutes longer it would have taken to get home before being sick. Yay anesthesia side effects! Luckily after two rapid fire open doored roll-throughs at the side of the curb in the busy right hand turn lane I felt much better. At home I forced down a couple bites of soup, passed out in spectacular nap-jerk fashion (sorry for the arm flailing, Mom) and woke up to practically inhale the rest of my lunch that the doctor had ordered my family to make sure I ate.
The abdominal pain I had been expecting has been more discomfort and ache akin to muscle exhaustion from too much working out than anything else. The pain I was not adequately expecting was in my right neck and shoulder from breathing off the remaining COs from the laporoscopy. I knew to expect it but I didn't appreciate the amount of pain and discomfort it would be. Luckily an experienced friend told me to heat it which helped immeasurably. I've also been studying my belly button, trying to figure out what exactly happened there. So far as best as I can figure they must have gone in then super glued their way back out as I can't find any sign of suture or closure strip. I have definitely spent more deep, emotional time with my belly button in the past two days than I have in a very, VERY long time. In fact, I may not ever have spent as much emotional time with it and I'm sure it appreciates my efforts.
Today I feel... off. Like things aren't exactly where or how they should be and my muscles can't decide if they want to be completely relaxed or militantly engaged and it's very confusing to my brain. Also like my belly button was glued closed, which is unnerving. I'll be taking it easy the rest of the week, doctor's orders, then should expect at least a month to heal completely. I have a bunch more questions but they are fairly minor compared to what they have been. What I'm the most excited about is the very big answer we have received, the big problem we have fixed and, most importantly, the success we can now hopefully have as a result.
Fingers are crossed and prayers are flying but we are well on our way.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Just Keep Swimming
I'm one step and a whole basket full of frustrations closer to being done with this accidental effort to rack up frequent flier miles at the hospital and doctor's office.
My pre-op appointment with my doctor was on Tuesday and I found out upon arrival it would be a "here's your paper thin lap sheet" kind of visit. By now I am embarrassingly good at these. It was also a thorough set of stats kind of day, so naturally I wore boots and socks over tight jeans I had to get into and out of multiple times for accurate height, weight and previously mentioned lap sheet time. For my surgery I'm wearing flip flops, watch me.
The doctor explained in more detail exactly what would happen with the surgical procedure. I would be fully anesthetized and positioned on the table (this surprised me a bit as she explained for my D&C I'd been mildly sedated, corrected to more significantly sedated so they could maintain my airway with an object I surely would have objected to otherwise. I was knocked completely out, is what I'm saying, and I can't fathom how this surgery will feel any different than that one...). They would start by making a very small incision in the lowest part of my belly button to fill me with gas to allow space and room to maneuver. They would then increase the incision size a little bit to fit the laparoscope, **at which point she would be able to determine my uterus shape and be able to decide if she would go to cut back the septum or if there is a significant, over-pronounced heart shape, in which case she would abandon the efforts for septum correction. I would then be dilated to allow one of two devices for the cutting; the scissors are smaller but take a little bit longer to cut, the curly looking thing (pretty close to how she described it) was a little bit bigger but made for a quicker procedure. Since the sepate tissue should be fairly lacking in blood vessels there should be little to no bleeding so no suturing of any variety needed. She would try to release as much of the gas as possible and close my belly button incision with one dissolving suture. The rest of the gas she said I would breath off throughout the rest of the day and I may experience some neck and shoulder pain as a result. I should also expect some abdominal pain or discomfort and cramping and need to avoid strenuous activity for a week and allow about a month for healing, at which point, I am already dreading, we will do a second HSG (because the fist one was so much fun) to confirm the correction.
I told my doctor that I would be going to the hospital right after my appointment as they told me the night before they needed to do an EKG. She was surprised they wanted to do one, given my age and relative health history, but because my height and weight put me in a certain portion of the BMI chart I was automatically required to have one. In addition the hospital said they needed a beta pregnancy test (blood test), despite having been on birth control for a month and my doctor confirming the start of my new cycle. I hedged with her twice that I really hoped to avoid the additional testing but she didn't pick up on it and I had a headache, felt vaguely unwell and didn't have it in me to try to refuse the tests, if I even knew who else to talk to about trying to argue my case for not needing one.
I've gotten pretty good at checking in at the hospital and it went fairly quickly. I found my way down the hall to an incredibly nondescript lab door and luckily bumped into a technician right inside who told me what to do with the file folder I'd been given, then sat to wait. A woman came out to ask me if my doctor had done my EKG, to which I blinked in sufficiently baffled manner and finally stuttered that the EKG was the reason I was even there. A few more minutes later she called me back and spent just about 5 minutes with me, 30 seconds of which comprised the actual EKG test, about a minute to hook up the leads, 30 seconds or so to rip them back off, the rest of the time she lamented not knowing when she would be given a day off. I was then ushered to the technician who would draw blood for the completely unnecessary pregnancy test and who, upon being told I was somewhat needle phobic, decided to hit a far more uncomfortable vein location more towards the top of my arm at my elbow, the most bizarre blood draw location I've yet to experience. Kudos, dude.
By the time I was finished with the run around I felt angry, frustrated and defeated. Angry at myself for giving in and just going along with everything rather than taking more of a stand for myself, frustrated at the history of irresponsible, sue-happy idiots who have helped shape the legal insanity we all have to deal with and defeated in the face of the big picture of illogical craziness.
All that said I'm thankful to have health insurance that gives us the chance to have these procedures, without which we might not ever be successful. I'm glad that we've come so far and thrilled that it's almost over (I hope!). My daily prayer is for continued faith that we are in the midst of a plan for us and that years down the road we'll be able to look back on this time and see how we wouldn't have gotten there without going through these challenging steps. One day we'll suddenly see how it was all worth it, in the meantime we'll just keep swimming...
**There is still some question as to which state my uterus is in. All of these terms have been tossed around and used somewhat interchangably, so this is described as best as I understand:
1) Septate uterus - there may be minimal heart shaping (the top wall of the uterus should be fairly straight and look like the base of an upside down triangle, mine may look more like the top of a Valentine heart) and a septum, or wall of useless tissue, chillin' in the middle. This can cause a significant increase of miscarriages as the pregnancy may implant on the septate tissue that does not provide blood or nutrients, which would result in loss of the fetus.
2) Heart-shaped/bicornate - the Valentine heart shaping is very pronounced or there are almost two separate compartments of the uterus. This is actually a slightly better case as even though there is a dip in the wall, all walls available for implanting are sufficiently blood supplied to feed the pregnancy. The downfall to this situation is we will be back to the drawing board for a reason I seem to be having difficulty keeping it.
My pre-op appointment with my doctor was on Tuesday and I found out upon arrival it would be a "here's your paper thin lap sheet" kind of visit. By now I am embarrassingly good at these. It was also a thorough set of stats kind of day, so naturally I wore boots and socks over tight jeans I had to get into and out of multiple times for accurate height, weight and previously mentioned lap sheet time. For my surgery I'm wearing flip flops, watch me.
The doctor explained in more detail exactly what would happen with the surgical procedure. I would be fully anesthetized and positioned on the table (this surprised me a bit as she explained for my D&C I'd been mildly sedated, corrected to more significantly sedated so they could maintain my airway with an object I surely would have objected to otherwise. I was knocked completely out, is what I'm saying, and I can't fathom how this surgery will feel any different than that one...). They would start by making a very small incision in the lowest part of my belly button to fill me with gas to allow space and room to maneuver. They would then increase the incision size a little bit to fit the laparoscope, **at which point she would be able to determine my uterus shape and be able to decide if she would go to cut back the septum or if there is a significant, over-pronounced heart shape, in which case she would abandon the efforts for septum correction. I would then be dilated to allow one of two devices for the cutting; the scissors are smaller but take a little bit longer to cut, the curly looking thing (pretty close to how she described it) was a little bit bigger but made for a quicker procedure. Since the sepate tissue should be fairly lacking in blood vessels there should be little to no bleeding so no suturing of any variety needed. She would try to release as much of the gas as possible and close my belly button incision with one dissolving suture. The rest of the gas she said I would breath off throughout the rest of the day and I may experience some neck and shoulder pain as a result. I should also expect some abdominal pain or discomfort and cramping and need to avoid strenuous activity for a week and allow about a month for healing, at which point, I am already dreading, we will do a second HSG (because the fist one was so much fun) to confirm the correction.
I told my doctor that I would be going to the hospital right after my appointment as they told me the night before they needed to do an EKG. She was surprised they wanted to do one, given my age and relative health history, but because my height and weight put me in a certain portion of the BMI chart I was automatically required to have one. In addition the hospital said they needed a beta pregnancy test (blood test), despite having been on birth control for a month and my doctor confirming the start of my new cycle. I hedged with her twice that I really hoped to avoid the additional testing but she didn't pick up on it and I had a headache, felt vaguely unwell and didn't have it in me to try to refuse the tests, if I even knew who else to talk to about trying to argue my case for not needing one.
I've gotten pretty good at checking in at the hospital and it went fairly quickly. I found my way down the hall to an incredibly nondescript lab door and luckily bumped into a technician right inside who told me what to do with the file folder I'd been given, then sat to wait. A woman came out to ask me if my doctor had done my EKG, to which I blinked in sufficiently baffled manner and finally stuttered that the EKG was the reason I was even there. A few more minutes later she called me back and spent just about 5 minutes with me, 30 seconds of which comprised the actual EKG test, about a minute to hook up the leads, 30 seconds or so to rip them back off, the rest of the time she lamented not knowing when she would be given a day off. I was then ushered to the technician who would draw blood for the completely unnecessary pregnancy test and who, upon being told I was somewhat needle phobic, decided to hit a far more uncomfortable vein location more towards the top of my arm at my elbow, the most bizarre blood draw location I've yet to experience. Kudos, dude.
By the time I was finished with the run around I felt angry, frustrated and defeated. Angry at myself for giving in and just going along with everything rather than taking more of a stand for myself, frustrated at the history of irresponsible, sue-happy idiots who have helped shape the legal insanity we all have to deal with and defeated in the face of the big picture of illogical craziness.
All that said I'm thankful to have health insurance that gives us the chance to have these procedures, without which we might not ever be successful. I'm glad that we've come so far and thrilled that it's almost over (I hope!). My daily prayer is for continued faith that we are in the midst of a plan for us and that years down the road we'll be able to look back on this time and see how we wouldn't have gotten there without going through these challenging steps. One day we'll suddenly see how it was all worth it, in the meantime we'll just keep swimming...
**There is still some question as to which state my uterus is in. All of these terms have been tossed around and used somewhat interchangably, so this is described as best as I understand:
1) Septate uterus - there may be minimal heart shaping (the top wall of the uterus should be fairly straight and look like the base of an upside down triangle, mine may look more like the top of a Valentine heart) and a septum, or wall of useless tissue, chillin' in the middle. This can cause a significant increase of miscarriages as the pregnancy may implant on the septate tissue that does not provide blood or nutrients, which would result in loss of the fetus.
2) Heart-shaped/bicornate - the Valentine heart shaping is very pronounced or there are almost two separate compartments of the uterus. This is actually a slightly better case as even though there is a dip in the wall, all walls available for implanting are sufficiently blood supplied to feed the pregnancy. The downfall to this situation is we will be back to the drawing board for a reason I seem to be having difficulty keeping it.
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