27w, 4d
I decided maybe Thursday that the horrible pain I have been feeling was certainly the cause of that stupid multi cystic ovary of mine. I discovered that most of the time I could avoid the worst of the pain overtaking me if I was able to lay down immediately upon feeling the pain begin to worsen from its normal dull annoying ache into something that puts me down for the count and makes me refrain from screaming only in the hopes that my children won't be completely scarred for life. In theory, this laying down when I feel the pain coming on thing isn't a big deal. Doesn't work out so good when I do have two small kids that sometimes I do have to take care of because no one else is here to do it and I am rather certain one of my children has ADHD and can't be trusted not to be under complete watch at all times.
My mom rather screwed me over in her ability to watch my kids on Friday without much warning. I did have about 2 hours in the morning where both kids were gone and I could feel the pain worsening and just stuck to my bed. I was going to wait until Monday to call my dr if things didn't get better, but I was just plain sick of having to lay in bed because of pain that I would think could be controlled. So I decided to call my dr. Of course by the time I called, the pain was pretty much gone and hasn't returned since. Really all I wanted to know was if there was something that could be done at this point (draining the cysts on the ovary, surgery, high doses of narcotics that my babies could become addicted to, magical spells, etc.) so I could just concentrate on growing babies from here on out. I had a question. I don't think I plan on having any more questions ever again.
Instead of answering my question, my dr office decided I needed to come in. I really am going to attempt to keep this short because the entire day was ridiculously long and filled with incompetent people and I could rant about the day for hours and hours. I drove myself into the city because, as I mentioned before, I was not in pain anymore. I tried to play it up like I was in pain while in the dr office because I wanted people to take me seriously and answer my damn question. Two hours were spent in the dr office and no one answered my question but instead started to freak out that I had torsion of my ovary (it twisted on itself and the blood supply was cut off and it was dying, since the pain I described was pretty much exactly what would be expected of that). So instead of telling me if they could fix my ovary or even cut the damn thing out, they decided to send me up to u/s. Oh, they also thought maybe it could be appendicitis which I knew it wasn't because this is my damn body and I have experienced this pain before and it had nothing to do with my appendix but no one was listening to a word I was saying. Damn drs and their liability fears.
The u/s unit there sucks. It is not uncommon to sit there for 2 hours. I got up there around 5 o'clock and people leaving from their appts were saying that they were scheduled to be seen at 2:00. I considered just going home. Then the lady registering people called someone who signed in after I did and I politely asked if I should have been next and she flipped out on me and told me I was wrong, that I wasn't next and I just need to get out of the way and sit down. So I did. I might have cried a little. It had nothing to do with the lady being a complete bitch to me and accusing me of being wrong when she was, it was just that I felt it was so stupid that I was even there. It didn't help that she told the lady who she took before me that they were about 2 hours behind. Finally I got called and was told that it wouldn't be long of a wait for me since I was an emergency. Apparently when there is an emergency and one of your body parts might be quickly dieing while you sit in a giant medical facility, this means you only have to wait 45 minutes to be seen. Grr... and I was going to try to make this short.
U/S showed both babies were doing just fine, head down, not that I have any idea why they spent so much time checking out the babies when they weren't part of the problem at all. My ovary measured at about 11.5 cm across, which I think at its largest was around 16.5 cm, so this was good. There are lots of cysts, but two really big ones that were almost 5 cm each. Lots of good blood flow in that there ovary too. (I swear I could become a u/s tech with little to no training at this point since I have had so many of the things.) Then a dr came in to take a look. She said she still couldn't rule out the fact that my ovary might be partially twisted and therefore still have blood flow but not be in a good position and getting ready to die. Also, she wasn't going to check out my appendix because they only do ob/gyn type u/s there and I would have to go to radiology for my appendix to be looked at. She called a dr from my practice who was on call in triage of the birthing center and they decided that I should go up to triage immediately. Yay!
I was hungry so I went and got a sandwich instead.
Then I went to triage. The registering nurse asked me why I was there and I said I really didn't know. I explained everything to her and she just looked at her form dumbfounded and said, "I have no idea what to even write here." It was about 7:00 when I got changed into a lovely hospital gown and settled into the most uncomfortable "bed" ever created. A nurse came in and worked forever attempting to get fetal heart rate monitors on my babies and ended up really unsuccessful. I waited. I am usually not overly patient but I act patiently when I know there is really nothing I can do but wait. Not last night. After an hour and a half I buzzed the nurse and asked if my dr was going to see me soon. She said she would be there shortly and she actually was. It was a resident and I really liked her. She finally answered my question. They try to avoid draining ovarian cysts just on the off chance that the ovary could be cancerous (which she had absolutely no reason to think mine was) and having the cysts burst and release cancerous material into the rest of my body would be a bad thing. They can do laproscopic surgery but unless it is really needed at this point, they prefer to put that off until after the pregnancy so they aren't dealing with the risk of operating on a pregnant woman. (Personally, I would rather take the risk of surgery now than wait until 3 months after I give birth like she suggested to have surgery to remove the cysts and/or ovary. Can you even imagine? Two young kids plus 3 month old twins and I am recovering from surgery? No thank you.) I think I understood that they they could take a look at the ovary if I have a c-section and maybe do something about it at that point. Then the dr did an exam, one of the most painful exams I have ever had, just to make sure that none of the pain I was experiencing was a result of preterm labor. My cervix is still closed and nothing else indicated that I am in preterm labor. They took some blood. I was told it would be about 30-45 minutes until those results were back.
An hour and a half later I buzzed the nurse again and asked if there was any news on my test results. She said as soon as one of the drs finished with a delivery, they would be in. So, two drs came in shortly after that. Nothing indicated an infection or anything else that might point towards appendicitis or really anything causing the pain other than the ovary. They preferred to keep me overnight but I made it very clear to them that I thought it was ridiculous that I was there in the first place and would not be staying. Unlike earlier in the day when I was trying to make sure they all understood the amount of pain I was in, I said over and over again how I wasn't in pain AT ALL because I was tired of them paying attention to me. The dr said that she couldn't let me go in good conscious until she was able to get a good fetal heart rate reading for 20 minutes. It took about 30 minutes of lots of fiddling around and some sort of handheld u/s device to finally get the monitors on right to pick up the heart rates. I was laying flat on my back, a position that just doesn't work for me, and was instructed not to move. If it meant getting the hell out of there, I was going to make it work. I stared at the monitor reading. A couple times the monitor stopped picking up anything and I started to panic and fiddled with the monitor myself until it picked something up. After 30 minutes I buzzed the nurse. "Any chance I could get out of here yet?" Someone came in and disconnected me. I got my discharge papers. I discovered the protocol for getting out of the hospital after hours. I got home at 1:30am.
I slept in today.
I also managed to smack myself in the head with a chaise lounge today. I'm awesome like that.
My mom rather screwed me over in her ability to watch my kids on Friday without much warning. I did have about 2 hours in the morning where both kids were gone and I could feel the pain worsening and just stuck to my bed. I was going to wait until Monday to call my dr if things didn't get better, but I was just plain sick of having to lay in bed because of pain that I would think could be controlled. So I decided to call my dr. Of course by the time I called, the pain was pretty much gone and hasn't returned since. Really all I wanted to know was if there was something that could be done at this point (draining the cysts on the ovary, surgery, high doses of narcotics that my babies could become addicted to, magical spells, etc.) so I could just concentrate on growing babies from here on out. I had a question. I don't think I plan on having any more questions ever again.
Instead of answering my question, my dr office decided I needed to come in. I really am going to attempt to keep this short because the entire day was ridiculously long and filled with incompetent people and I could rant about the day for hours and hours. I drove myself into the city because, as I mentioned before, I was not in pain anymore. I tried to play it up like I was in pain while in the dr office because I wanted people to take me seriously and answer my damn question. Two hours were spent in the dr office and no one answered my question but instead started to freak out that I had torsion of my ovary (it twisted on itself and the blood supply was cut off and it was dying, since the pain I described was pretty much exactly what would be expected of that). So instead of telling me if they could fix my ovary or even cut the damn thing out, they decided to send me up to u/s. Oh, they also thought maybe it could be appendicitis which I knew it wasn't because this is my damn body and I have experienced this pain before and it had nothing to do with my appendix but no one was listening to a word I was saying. Damn drs and their liability fears.
The u/s unit there sucks. It is not uncommon to sit there for 2 hours. I got up there around 5 o'clock and people leaving from their appts were saying that they were scheduled to be seen at 2:00. I considered just going home. Then the lady registering people called someone who signed in after I did and I politely asked if I should have been next and she flipped out on me and told me I was wrong, that I wasn't next and I just need to get out of the way and sit down. So I did. I might have cried a little. It had nothing to do with the lady being a complete bitch to me and accusing me of being wrong when she was, it was just that I felt it was so stupid that I was even there. It didn't help that she told the lady who she took before me that they were about 2 hours behind. Finally I got called and was told that it wouldn't be long of a wait for me since I was an emergency. Apparently when there is an emergency and one of your body parts might be quickly dieing while you sit in a giant medical facility, this means you only have to wait 45 minutes to be seen. Grr... and I was going to try to make this short.
U/S showed both babies were doing just fine, head down, not that I have any idea why they spent so much time checking out the babies when they weren't part of the problem at all. My ovary measured at about 11.5 cm across, which I think at its largest was around 16.5 cm, so this was good. There are lots of cysts, but two really big ones that were almost 5 cm each. Lots of good blood flow in that there ovary too. (I swear I could become a u/s tech with little to no training at this point since I have had so many of the things.) Then a dr came in to take a look. She said she still couldn't rule out the fact that my ovary might be partially twisted and therefore still have blood flow but not be in a good position and getting ready to die. Also, she wasn't going to check out my appendix because they only do ob/gyn type u/s there and I would have to go to radiology for my appendix to be looked at. She called a dr from my practice who was on call in triage of the birthing center and they decided that I should go up to triage immediately. Yay!
I was hungry so I went and got a sandwich instead.
Then I went to triage. The registering nurse asked me why I was there and I said I really didn't know. I explained everything to her and she just looked at her form dumbfounded and said, "I have no idea what to even write here." It was about 7:00 when I got changed into a lovely hospital gown and settled into the most uncomfortable "bed" ever created. A nurse came in and worked forever attempting to get fetal heart rate monitors on my babies and ended up really unsuccessful. I waited. I am usually not overly patient but I act patiently when I know there is really nothing I can do but wait. Not last night. After an hour and a half I buzzed the nurse and asked if my dr was going to see me soon. She said she would be there shortly and she actually was. It was a resident and I really liked her. She finally answered my question. They try to avoid draining ovarian cysts just on the off chance that the ovary could be cancerous (which she had absolutely no reason to think mine was) and having the cysts burst and release cancerous material into the rest of my body would be a bad thing. They can do laproscopic surgery but unless it is really needed at this point, they prefer to put that off until after the pregnancy so they aren't dealing with the risk of operating on a pregnant woman. (Personally, I would rather take the risk of surgery now than wait until 3 months after I give birth like she suggested to have surgery to remove the cysts and/or ovary. Can you even imagine? Two young kids plus 3 month old twins and I am recovering from surgery? No thank you.) I think I understood that they they could take a look at the ovary if I have a c-section and maybe do something about it at that point. Then the dr did an exam, one of the most painful exams I have ever had, just to make sure that none of the pain I was experiencing was a result of preterm labor. My cervix is still closed and nothing else indicated that I am in preterm labor. They took some blood. I was told it would be about 30-45 minutes until those results were back.
An hour and a half later I buzzed the nurse again and asked if there was any news on my test results. She said as soon as one of the drs finished with a delivery, they would be in. So, two drs came in shortly after that. Nothing indicated an infection or anything else that might point towards appendicitis or really anything causing the pain other than the ovary. They preferred to keep me overnight but I made it very clear to them that I thought it was ridiculous that I was there in the first place and would not be staying. Unlike earlier in the day when I was trying to make sure they all understood the amount of pain I was in, I said over and over again how I wasn't in pain AT ALL because I was tired of them paying attention to me. The dr said that she couldn't let me go in good conscious until she was able to get a good fetal heart rate reading for 20 minutes. It took about 30 minutes of lots of fiddling around and some sort of handheld u/s device to finally get the monitors on right to pick up the heart rates. I was laying flat on my back, a position that just doesn't work for me, and was instructed not to move. If it meant getting the hell out of there, I was going to make it work. I stared at the monitor reading. A couple times the monitor stopped picking up anything and I started to panic and fiddled with the monitor myself until it picked something up. After 30 minutes I buzzed the nurse. "Any chance I could get out of here yet?" Someone came in and disconnected me. I got my discharge papers. I discovered the protocol for getting out of the hospital after hours. I got home at 1:30am.
I slept in today.
I also managed to smack myself in the head with a chaise lounge today. I'm awesome like that.
posted by AM | 5:41 PM
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