So...my surgery last month went great, at least, as great as I guess these things can go. Long story short, it's over.
My mom came up the day before, and we scoped out the day surgery center and the best route to get there. The day of, we got there about 6 am, checked in, waited a long time...and finally got in. I'm such a lightweight - the Ativan alone knocked me out. I remember about a minute and a half after the nurse gave it to me, and nothing thereafter. Also, I hate general anesthesia. A lot. I don't like the foggy "what's going on??" feeling that comes afterward, and it always makes me nauseous.
Interesting note, though: I told the anesthesiologist that I always get sick after general, and his first question was, "Do you get carsick, too?" Well, golly gee, yes I do. I'm the only person I know who can get carsick while driving, in fact. (Only my parents' car, that they are about to get rid of, thank goodness. But still.) Also, side note: when I was on chemo, the worst drug they gave me, adriamyacin, always made me sick, but "carsick". I remember that it wasn't straight-up nausea, I really did feel motion-sick, to the point that I couldn't even read because that just made it worse. Huh. Brain chemistry = weird.
Nevertheless, I was under for less than an hour, and afterwards, I managed to avoid taking vicodin or anything else wonky for pain, just a strict regimen of ibuprofen for several days. I came home and slept the rest of the day, most of Saturday, and a decent portion of Sunday. I have a couple totally fantastic friends who came over to keep me company, bring me coffee, and help me stay up late so I could sleep better. Friends are the best.
By Monday, I was even (mostly) ready to go bridesmaid dress shopping, so my mom and I traipsed all over town doing that. (Long story, more later.)
Upshot of the surgery is: they burned off "seven or eight" spots of endo, and everything else looks really good. So that's good. Of course, I was terrified that they were going to tell me my whole body was encased in this crap and there was nothing they could do and I would never have babies blah blah blah. And, of course, none of that happened.
So, for the time being, I'm just chilling out and seeing what happens. My doc said to let him know if I want to take Lupron. I don't. So, we'll see what's next. At least some symptoms do indeed seem to be better already, so praise God for that!
Showing posts with label surgery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surgery. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Monday, December 12, 2011
Health Update
Surgery scheduled for January 27th. Yay!
I mean...who wants to have surgery, right? But...BC is clearly not an option for me, and the opposite of that, Lupron (take away ALL your hormones for 3-6 months and then slowly add them back in) sounds like an even worse idea.
So, general anesthesia, dive right in there and take a look at the stuff (since it doesn't show up on ultrasound, MR, or CT). Laser off what is possible. And go from there.
My mom's coming to take care of me - excellent, totally what moms are for - and I've managed to schedule it when I still have another 10 days or so off from class before spring semester starts.
Not super exciting, but at this point, if it gets rid of this pain, then I'm all for it. Let's go. 45 days and counting.
I mean...who wants to have surgery, right? But...BC is clearly not an option for me, and the opposite of that, Lupron (take away ALL your hormones for 3-6 months and then slowly add them back in) sounds like an even worse idea.
So, general anesthesia, dive right in there and take a look at the stuff (since it doesn't show up on ultrasound, MR, or CT). Laser off what is possible. And go from there.
My mom's coming to take care of me - excellent, totally what moms are for - and I've managed to schedule it when I still have another 10 days or so off from class before spring semester starts.
Not super exciting, but at this point, if it gets rid of this pain, then I'm all for it. Let's go. 45 days and counting.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Catching Up
Well, it seems that a gentle nudge from a good friend has reminded me that I haven't written much here lately, and what I have written has been largely emotionally overwrought and crazy. So it's time to catch up a bit on what's been going on, a task that I am looking forward to, loving writing as I do.
As I sit here and type, I've got Christmas music on in the background. Pandora was not really rocking the 80's music very well today, so I switched to the Macy's Holiday channel, which makes me very happy.
First of all, I should note that the Great Birth Control Experiment is OVER. Completed. Finished. No more. From the time I started taking it at the end of May, I just felt..."off"...I described here before some of the physical stuff, but the part you can't really put into words is the part where I just didn't feel like myself. I don't know if some of that was mental/psychological (I wouldn't doubt it), but I also think some of it was legit. Then, last week, I ended up in the ER at midnight, getting a CT scan to check for blood clots in my lungs. Thankfully, everything came back negative, but it was enough to scare me. As much as I knew that something "just wasn't right", I was trying so hard to be the "obedient patient" that I just kept taking it, even though my body was telling me STOP STOP STOP. So I did. It's been a week and a half since I took the last one, and I feel SO much better. I just feel more...engaged in the world, I feel like myself. I've started eating a little more, which I figure is good. As I think I mentioned earlier, I had completely lost my appetite while taking BC. After a while, I started feeling so out-of-whack that I thought I was going to end up in the hospital for malnutrition or something. I eventually bought Gatorade (which I hate) just to try to keep my body somewhat balanced. It got to the point where I could objectively know that I needed to eat, and somehow find the motivation to cook something, and then I would eat 3 or 4 bites and just stare at the rest of it, completely uninterested. And I am not a person who is uninterested in food. Clothes are falling off me, and my doc asked if I was intending to lose so much weight. So, although I definitely don't mind the fact that I fit into a smaller jeans size now, it feels good to have somewhat of an appetite again. And it also just feels good to know that I'm not poisoning every cell in my body to maybe-sorta-control the few that are causing me problems.
Which leads me to the next piece: I've been (unofficially) diagnosed with endometriosis. Technically, it's a disease that can only be diagnosed by surgery (it can't be seen on ultrasound, CT, or MR, and won't show up in bloodwork), but apparently if you're a gynecologist who has seen enough cases, you can make a pretty good guess off symptoms alone. It's good to have a diagnosis (that even happens to agree with my own self-diagnosis based on obsessive late-night symptom Googling), but it's a little disheartening because there's no real clear path forward. The disease is so ... random, almost, and there's no real cure, per se, that treating it becomes an exercise in throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks. Clearly BC, which apparently works for some people, isn't an option for me. Others have tried a drug called Lupron, which rather than adding hormones (BC), takes them all away for a few months, and then slowly adds them back in. This does not sound like a good plan. At all. While on the BC, most of the craziness was confined to my own head, which is torturous enough. I'd hate to do screw around with my hormones so much that the craziness starts to leak out and impact the people around me. That would be even worse. Two other options are surgery or physical therapy. I'm thinking eventually it will come to the combination of those two. Just based on a little bit of work I've done myself (again, with the Googling), I've found that I think the PT could be helpful. It's more natural, it can be done at home, it's got to be cheaper, etc... But, I'm moving in 3 and half weeks (insert "Holy Crap" here). Fortunately, I've got a couple referrals for MDs in the Cities, so I'm just postponing dealing with this anymore until I get settled back in at school.
And with that said, cue "next post on getting ready to move."
As I sit here and type, I've got Christmas music on in the background. Pandora was not really rocking the 80's music very well today, so I switched to the Macy's Holiday channel, which makes me very happy.
First of all, I should note that the Great Birth Control Experiment is OVER. Completed. Finished. No more. From the time I started taking it at the end of May, I just felt..."off"...I described here before some of the physical stuff, but the part you can't really put into words is the part where I just didn't feel like myself. I don't know if some of that was mental/psychological (I wouldn't doubt it), but I also think some of it was legit. Then, last week, I ended up in the ER at midnight, getting a CT scan to check for blood clots in my lungs. Thankfully, everything came back negative, but it was enough to scare me. As much as I knew that something "just wasn't right", I was trying so hard to be the "obedient patient" that I just kept taking it, even though my body was telling me STOP STOP STOP. So I did. It's been a week and a half since I took the last one, and I feel SO much better. I just feel more...engaged in the world, I feel like myself. I've started eating a little more, which I figure is good. As I think I mentioned earlier, I had completely lost my appetite while taking BC. After a while, I started feeling so out-of-whack that I thought I was going to end up in the hospital for malnutrition or something. I eventually bought Gatorade (which I hate) just to try to keep my body somewhat balanced. It got to the point where I could objectively know that I needed to eat, and somehow find the motivation to cook something, and then I would eat 3 or 4 bites and just stare at the rest of it, completely uninterested. And I am not a person who is uninterested in food. Clothes are falling off me, and my doc asked if I was intending to lose so much weight. So, although I definitely don't mind the fact that I fit into a smaller jeans size now, it feels good to have somewhat of an appetite again. And it also just feels good to know that I'm not poisoning every cell in my body to maybe-sorta-control the few that are causing me problems.
Which leads me to the next piece: I've been (unofficially) diagnosed with endometriosis. Technically, it's a disease that can only be diagnosed by surgery (it can't be seen on ultrasound, CT, or MR, and won't show up in bloodwork), but apparently if you're a gynecologist who has seen enough cases, you can make a pretty good guess off symptoms alone. It's good to have a diagnosis (that even happens to agree with my own self-diagnosis based on obsessive late-night symptom Googling), but it's a little disheartening because there's no real clear path forward. The disease is so ... random, almost, and there's no real cure, per se, that treating it becomes an exercise in throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks. Clearly BC, which apparently works for some people, isn't an option for me. Others have tried a drug called Lupron, which rather than adding hormones (BC), takes them all away for a few months, and then slowly adds them back in. This does not sound like a good plan. At all. While on the BC, most of the craziness was confined to my own head, which is torturous enough. I'd hate to do screw around with my hormones so much that the craziness starts to leak out and impact the people around me. That would be even worse. Two other options are surgery or physical therapy. I'm thinking eventually it will come to the combination of those two. Just based on a little bit of work I've done myself (again, with the Googling), I've found that I think the PT could be helpful. It's more natural, it can be done at home, it's got to be cheaper, etc... But, I'm moving in 3 and half weeks (insert "Holy Crap" here). Fortunately, I've got a couple referrals for MDs in the Cities, so I'm just postponing dealing with this anymore until I get settled back in at school.
And with that said, cue "next post on getting ready to move."