Sunday, November 02, 2008

The Hysteroscopy

Last Monday I had my hysteroscopy. Surgery doesn't worry me any. I'm not too worried about things going wrong. I know the possibility is always there but chances are pretty good that things will be fine. I look on the bright side. I get to lay around in comfy paper-like clothing. Some nice person puts me into a deep sleep. When I wake up I usually get to see at least one good looking male doctor. Then I have the post-op mini meal. After leaving the hospital everyone is nice and pampers me and I get to lay around and watch anything I want to watch on TV.

The surgery started late but that's ok. I was busy watching HGTV in my pre-op room and I got to go to the bathroom and pee alone before the surgery so that they didn't have to put in a catheter. The anesthesiologist gave me some Valium as I was wheeled to the OR. I remember the OR being amazingly cold and making a joke to myself in my head that it was probably good to make the room a freezer because if someone dies on the table you want to keep that body cold. I know, sick joke, but I kept it to myself. A team of people was prepping me. They were sticking those round sticky things to my chest, other people were putting some padding around my lower legs and ankles and then the anesthesiologist gave me something that knocked me right out. Next thing I know I am awake but my eyes are still closed and I hear Doc Major telling the other doc from the clinic that was there with him to watch the surgery that he didn't expect to find so much in there. I instantly felt bummed out because I knew that he had to do more than simply pluck the polyp out and that meant that we weren't going to move right into the IVF cycle. Then I heard someone say "I'm going to start wheeling her to the recovery room". I few moments later Doc Major asked how I was feeling. I told him I felt good. He told me that things went well and that he was going to have me start my birth control again. Then he told me he was going to talk to Howie and then he'd be back to check up on me. A little while later he came back to see me and told me that Howie was going to treat me like a princess for the rest of the day. I was still a bit groggy but I remember someone asking if I had any cramping and I said yes. They asked what the pain was like on a scale from 1 to 10 and I said a 4 or 5. That pain went away quickly because they put something wonderful into my IV or something. After about 15 minutes (I think) they wheeled me into the recovery area where I could be fed and Howie could join me. I asked for a turkey sandwich with mayo and an apple juice. It was sooooo gooooooooooooooooooood. I was already half way through my sandwich when they brought Howie in. I don't remember how much longer I was there but I was feeling pretty good when we left. I was craving some BBQ chicken so Howie stopped at the grocery store to pick some up and then we went to CVS to get my pain meds. I was still feeling kinda wacky when we got home. Aislinn was so excited to see us when we got home. Howie kept telling me to rest but I wanted to play with Aislinn. I wasn't doing anything strenuous, but I just wanted to be up instead of laying down. I felt good all night and didn't feel like I needed any of the Oxycontin.

Tuesday was good too. I was a bit tired, but no pain. Then Wednesday rolled around. I felt a little bit of cramping and there was just a tiny bit of spotting. Thursday the cramping was a bit worse but it only hurt for a few hours after I woke up and again there was a little bit of spotting but by 11:00 am all of that was over. On Friday the cramping lasted until about 1:00 pm but I just ignored it because it was a busy day. I had to meet with my nutritionist at 10:00 am, then Aislinn and I had to drive another 20 minutes to meet her friends for a Halloween party. Then I had to get her home and put her down for a nap. During her nap I had to run a load of laundry to wash her costume for trick or treating that night. I also had to clean up the house. When she woke up I fed her dinner and then got her back into her costume. When Howie got home I had to shower and then get into my vampire/devil costume. We left a giant bowl of candy on our front steps and met up with our neighbors for trick or treating. After the kids filled their bags we had a little party at the neighbor's house with apple pie, cupcakes and apple cider. It was fun. Saturday morning I was in enough pain the I took 800 mg of ibuprofen. That worked fine and we all went on with our day.

This morning I woke up with a new level of pain. I went to Aislinn's room to get her out of bed. I wanted to let Howie sleep in but in the middle of changing Aislinn I realized the pain was so bad that I had to call Howie in to finish changing her. I went to the bathroom and found that I wasn't just spotting. It was more like light bleeding now. The cramps were also more than cramps. It felt almost like I had gas, but it hurt in my uterus and (excuse me if this is TMI) my vagina actually hurt. Howie had brought Aislinn downstairs so I went down to lay on the couch. I curled up on my side hoping that the pain would get better but it got worse really fast. It almost felt like I was about to give birth to my insides. That's the only way I can describe it. It felt like something was going to come out of me, like I was about to give birth, no joke. I started to get really scared and the pain was so bad that I had to start to scream a little. Howie gave me one of the Oxycontin to help relieve the pain and then plugged in a heating pad for me. It didn't seem to take too long for the Oxycontin to kick in and then I fell asleep. I don't know what the hell that was, but I know I'm going to call Doc Major in the morning and figure out what we can do about it.

Oh, I never explained what Doc Major found in my uterus. He found more growth in my uterus than he expected. He cleaned it all out while he was in there but decided that I should take another month of birth control and then we'd move into an IVF cycle. He showed the pictures of my uterus to Howie after the hysteroscopy. I haven't seen them yet but I hear that they are very exciting.

I was going to post cute Halloween pics of Aislinn but I'm high on Oxycontin at the moment and I'm feeling like I might fall asleep. I'll post the pics next time, I promise.