More Reasons to Love Being a Woman

I've been fighting with whether or not to post about what's going on with me health wise. On one hand, blogging about it will probably help sort out some of the emotions that I have running through my head. And help me keep everything straight. But on the other hand, I'm not exactly sure who reads this, and I know that there may be a couple people who read this that I really don't want to know what is going on. But, I have to keep reminding myself that this is my blog and I originally started it for me. And my family. And my friends. So, I'm going to go ahead and post about it.

Do you remember me posting here about me going to the doctor? I went to the doctor because of those sharp stomach pains that I was experiencing. Here is where I talked about my trip to the ob/gyn. I never posted after that, but they called me and I had an abnormal pap come back. They want me to have a colposcopy. I put it off because we were going to North Carolina, and from the reading that I did, it can screw up my cycle. I did NOT want that to happen with us going on vacation. Especially since I get those pains during my period.

So, I got those pains in May, which made me to the doctor. Then again in June. And again in July. July almost killed me. I always get the pains on the second day of my period. That just so happened to be a Friday. I have no idea how I made it through work with the pain that I was in. Thank God for Amy who basically let me sign off my drawer and sit on a chair and focus on not passing out. I even called Drew to drive me home. That Saturday sucked too, but somehow I made it.

After that ordeal, I decided that I could no longer deal with the pain I was in, and I scheduled another doctor's appointment. They decided that they wanted to do a 5th day ultrasound to see what is going on with my uterus to cause me such pain. August period came and I scheduled the appointment for the ultrasound. I felt so nauseous and sick this cycle. For about a week. It was horrible.

I went in for the ultrasound on Wednesday. Boy, am I excited to get pregnant so I can do that again! (Please note the extreme amount of sarcasm in that statement.) After the ultrasound, Drew and I met with the doctor. And here we go....

I have a Dermoid cyst in my right ovary. A dermoid cyst is made up of different kinds of tissue from other parts of the body, such as skin, hair, fat, and teeth. Sounds pretty nasty! My right fallopian tube is blocked. Both of these could be contributing to the pain that I'm experiencing. Since I have the cyst, she wanted to draw blood (::bug eyes!!!:: I didn't sign up for that when I made the appointment. You already got to shove crap inside me and now you want to poke me and take my blood too!!!) to see if the cyst is cancerous.

She called me today to let me know the results of the blood draw. It came back with a 45. If it was 35 or under, the cyst was nothing to worry about and would probably go away on its own. If it was 145 say, that would mean that it was cancerous. 45 means that it could go either way really. She said that it could be elevated because of the blocked tube or the possible endometriosis. So, she said that she wants to send me for a second opinion to the gyn. cancer doctors at either Madison or Northwestern.

I talked to my mom and have come up with some questions that we want to ask the doctor. When we met with her on Wednesday, she said that most likely I'm going to have to have a Laparoscopy. This is a surgery that (hopefully) alleviate some of the problems that I've been experiencing. The problem right now is that nothing is really certain. You can never tell how bad (or good) something is until you get in there to look at it. She said that the surgery would probably be used to remove the cyst, possibly remove my fallopian tube, and figure out what the situation is with the possible endometriosis. (You can't know for certain if you have endometriosis unless you have surgery.) If I'm going to end up having the surgery anyways, my mom and I feel that it would be best to forgo the second opinion and just get the ball rolling on the surgery. I'm scared to death of this, so I'd rather just get it done and over with if I'm going to have to. I'm going to call and talk to her about it tomorrow.

Right now, I have an appointment on Friday to have the colposcopy done.

So, that's the update. I will keep posting here as I get more answers.