Things are sinking in.
So.
Friday afternoon around 3:30ish I started having what I thought were annoying gas pains. They didn't go away with OTC medicine and got worse over the course of the evening. Saturday morning Nicolas drove me to the Urgent Care department at Kaiser Sunset - by this time I was throwing up from the pain.
After what seemed like several years of ultrasounds and doctors scratching their heads at me, they determined that I did not have an inflamed appendix (no fever, pain was on the wrong side) nor an ectopic pregnancy (preg test came back negative). However, I did have what they called a "large, complex mass" on my left ovary.
Given the amount of pain I was in and the fact that even with the ultrasounds they couldn't quite figure out where the mass was or what was going on with it, they recommended that I undergo exploratory laproscopic surgery - 3 small cuts, cameras go in there and check it out, they do microsurgery and take out the bad parts, and I'm fine.
So at 7 last night I went in to have the laproscopy, but it turned out that the growth was larger and different in texture from what they anticipated. Normally an ovarian cyst will be able to just be punctured and easily removed; this one was not puncturable, it was too solid and about 4 inches long, so they wound up needing to do a standard incision as well in order to get it out. Also, when they were done taking the mass out, there was so little of my ovary left that they wound up removing that as well. (I remember the surgeon saying something about taking part of my fallopian tube, too; Nico doesn't, so we don't know for sure about that part.) The surgeon said that when she got the growth out it just broke apart in her hand, which has never happened before to her.
They will be sending the growth/cyst/thing in to the pathology lab. Due to the holiday season, it'll probably be a week or 10 days before we know whether it is/was malignant or not.
They released me from the hospital about 24 hours after I went under the knife; or, about two and a half hours ago. I have vicodin, and heavy duty ibuprofen, and various other medications. I also have 4 incisions in my stomach wall, which makes changing position or walking very painful.
And, of course, one remaining ovary. And a whole new sense of uncertainty for the future.
Friday afternoon around 3:30ish I started having what I thought were annoying gas pains. They didn't go away with OTC medicine and got worse over the course of the evening. Saturday morning Nicolas drove me to the Urgent Care department at Kaiser Sunset - by this time I was throwing up from the pain.
After what seemed like several years of ultrasounds and doctors scratching their heads at me, they determined that I did not have an inflamed appendix (no fever, pain was on the wrong side) nor an ectopic pregnancy (preg test came back negative). However, I did have what they called a "large, complex mass" on my left ovary.
Given the amount of pain I was in and the fact that even with the ultrasounds they couldn't quite figure out where the mass was or what was going on with it, they recommended that I undergo exploratory laproscopic surgery - 3 small cuts, cameras go in there and check it out, they do microsurgery and take out the bad parts, and I'm fine.
So at 7 last night I went in to have the laproscopy, but it turned out that the growth was larger and different in texture from what they anticipated. Normally an ovarian cyst will be able to just be punctured and easily removed; this one was not puncturable, it was too solid and about 4 inches long, so they wound up needing to do a standard incision as well in order to get it out. Also, when they were done taking the mass out, there was so little of my ovary left that they wound up removing that as well. (I remember the surgeon saying something about taking part of my fallopian tube, too; Nico doesn't, so we don't know for sure about that part.) The surgeon said that when she got the growth out it just broke apart in her hand, which has never happened before to her.
They will be sending the growth/cyst/thing in to the pathology lab. Due to the holiday season, it'll probably be a week or 10 days before we know whether it is/was malignant or not.
They released me from the hospital about 24 hours after I went under the knife; or, about two and a half hours ago. I have vicodin, and heavy duty ibuprofen, and various other medications. I also have 4 incisions in my stomach wall, which makes changing position or walking very painful.
And, of course, one remaining ovary. And a whole new sense of uncertainty for the future.