8/24/2016 0 Comments Surgery Set: Moving ForwardEarly Monday morning, 12 days after my last Provera pill and after a 57 day cycle, I finally started my period. I had no idea I would literally rejoice when I saw blood in the toilet. I actually screamed out to my husband from the bathroom, “There’s blood on my toilet paper!” He has really been my rock. I usually hate when people say that because it’s so cliché. But seriously, I tell him all kinds of gross things and sad things and he never flinches. He just says, “We are in this together.” I can’t imagine going through this with anyone less than my husband.
So, let me just say that I have never really had cramping with periods before. For the last 20 some days I have been having some cramping. On Thursday, I started having what I thought was bad cramps that lasted a few days. On Monday, I was almost brought to tears from the pain I experienced in my uterus. The pain from my cramps was absolutely on par with the kidney stone I had earlier this year. I frequently felt like the air was being sucked from my lungs. My organs felt like they were being twisted and pulled. I did not sleep at all. I kept waking up groaning in pain. I woke up freezing to the bone even though our room was not cold. It was one of the most unbearable situations I have ever experienced. With all the medicines I’ve been putting in my body I really don’t want to take more medicine than I have to. But, at 4:30am I caved and took a handful of Ibuprofen. Okay…so it was more like 3 or 4. Before I went to work I took another 800mg. It was much more bearable after that. I have so much respect for all you ladies that deal with that regularly. I cannot imagine going to work like that monthly. We finally had our Pre-Op appointment yesterday. Shortly after I arrived there was a young and happy couple that came in. She was very bubbly and even made eye contact with me and smiled and said “Hello.” No one ever makes eye contact in the fertility clinic. It must’ve been their first appointment because their demeanor was markedly different when they left. The fertility clinic has a tendency to suck the life out of you. An HOUR after our scheduled 4:00 appointment, we finally got called to go back to the doctor’s office. I’m not a patient person. You would think this process would make you more patient, but that is not the case. I was very nervous they were going to ask us to reschedule because they close at 5:00. At 4:45 I asked the receptionist if they were going to make us reschedule and she (reluctantly) said no. I was nervous the doctor would rush us out. However, he exceeded my expectations. He explained more about our HSG results than our primary doctor ever did. Apparently there were some indicators of something called SIN (I’ll never remember the actual name). Our primary doctor had just mentioned this in passing and said it was really rare and probably not our problem. That was the entire explanation he gave us. Our surgeon explained that it’s a really rare disease of the fallopian tubes that they believe is caused by an autoimmune disorder. It causes the tubes to pucker at site where they attach to the uterus. It can trap and kill or damage the sperm before it ever meets the egg. It’s rare enough that no matter how much googling you do there is very little that you can read about it. If this is our problem, it is not fixable and IVF is our only option. He talked to us about endometriosis and showed us what endometriosis looks like. He patiently answered all of our questions. I was nervous they were going to reschedule since my cycle is out of whack and the surgery has to take place prior to ovulation. He gave us a prescription for birth control and told me to start within the next day or two and everything would be fine. He also gave me a prescription for Percocet and told us to fill that before the surgery. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious about the surgery. The side effects of anesthesia are really enough to make anyone nervous I would think. They have to use a breathing tube. That’s pretty terrifying. One of the more likely to happen side effects from the surgery is damage to the bowel or bladder. Definitely don’t want that. I could also have permanent lingering pain. Don’t want that either. There were a whole host of other potential side effects I purposefully blocked from my memory. I have no idea how many days I’ll have to take off of work. I have no idea what I’m going to feel like afterward. I also have no idea what the results are going to be. It’s a lot to take in. So here we are. Waiting. Again. Surgery is scheduled for September 9th. So there’s absolutely nothing we can do between now and then. Time has been at a complete stand still since our IUI. I know I shouldn’t wish my life away, but I wouldn’t hate it if the next two weeks disappeared. A quote from one of my favorite books, Panic, “She knew that this day, this feeling, couldn't last forever. Everything passed; that was partly why it was so beautiful. Things would get difficult again. But that was okay too. The bravery was in moving forward, no matter what.”
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Heather Joyce
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