Same Song, Second Verse...

Early 2010
So my husband takes the day off work for my polypectomy. We pack up Little Z, with her entourage of toys and snacks and diapers, and go to the special surgery center at the hospital. I'm starving, since I'm not supposed to have eaten for 12 hours or whatever, and since this is a lunch-time operation, the last opportunity I had to eat was the middle of the night. I had woken up for my last opportunity to drink water though.

So we're sitting in the lobby, filling out forms. My daughter is eating blueberries. Omnomnom. She pulls out a half-masticated berry and feeds it to me. I absentmindedly eat it, and continue talking to my husband and signing forms.

Then we're called back to the desk to turn in our forms and answer more questions and cough up insurance cards, etc. The lady is coming back from Xeroxing our insurance card when she catches my daughter popping another half-chewed blueberry into my mouth.

"Oops! No food, remember! Close call!" Ummm.... Shit. I spit that one out... but I had still eaten the first one!

We debate whether or not to come clean with the docs... and we finally do, when our special waiting room nurse asks me if I've eaten anything in the last umpety-ump hours. Yeah. Just one blueberry though. 

So my doctor comes in and tells us the risks involved. Any food could come up and get inhaled and kill me, worst-case scenario. Plus I suffer from acid reflux, which I don't even tell her. Which increases my risk of something like this happening. She gives us a few minutes to decide. 

I'm mortified, and don't want to have wasted everyone's time. DH doesn't want to risk anything happening to me over something so stupid. We kind of decide to go ahead, when the doc comes in and says "You decided not to risk it right?" Weeeeeeell. "I talked to the anesthesiologist, and we both feel like the risks aren't worth it. We still have time for lunch, so our time wasn't wasted, and I'd never forgive myself if something happened." Fine. Twist my arm.

A frickin' blueberry.

So I go back on my BCP and we reschedule for the next available opening. This time, my husband doesn't feed Little Z if I'm even in the room. And no blueberries!

My daughter (around 20 months-old) is thrilled that the nurse uses the pulse machine thing on her finger after checking mine. ("White finger pinch" she calls it. Now she asks for it at every doctor visit.) She is sad that they don't have a BP cuff small enough to fit her, but the nurse humors her and pretends.

No hitches. I go into the OR, get hooked up with an IV... by the anesthesiologist's assistant. Ugh. He has to try a few times, which is not cool when you suffer from needle phobia, like I do, but I got lots of practice coping during all my tummy jabs with the IVF meds. But still. Jeez. I also tend to get chilled easily. If you're feeling quite comfortable, I'm a bit cold. If I'm feeling just right, it's a little warm for you. That kind of thing. But they had nice, warm, toasty blankets all over me. Mmmmmmm! And air pump leg massagers. Ahhh. This is the life... except for the needles, and scary medical procedures and such!

"Okay. Count down from ten for me..." 10.. 9... 8.... "Hi there! How are you feeling? We'll just wait a few minutes until the doctor is done talking to your husband, then we'll bring your family in to see you. Would you like some juice or some crackers?" 

Oh, hells yeah! And keep 'em coming!

So it all went well. She got all the polyps, etc etc etc.

And this time, we got before and after pictures! Ewww.

Scrubs

So after being told the 'good news' that my tubes weren't blocked, but that they had found polyps in my uterus, I went back to my Ob/Gyn. Uterine polyps are just extra growths in the uterine lining. Like skin tags, but all up inside. But they can interfere with the egg's ability to implant, and can also lead to irregular cycles.

He wanted to do a polypectomy and D&C. Sure. Whatever. It was scheduled for my husband's birthday. Sorry honey.

The polypectomy is really part of the D&C process, purely by default. A D&C, which stands for "dilation and curettage," used to be done as part of an abortion, but is now mostly used after a miscarriage, or for irregular bleeding. It's where they dilate the cervix and go inside with a curette, and scrape off the uterine lining (endometrium.) Since the polyps are growths in the uterine lining, it's pretty much two birds with one stone on this one.

I was admitted to the hospital, dressed up in threadbare [ie: freezing] cloth gowns with ties, and questioned not once, not twice, but three times by various medical professionals. "Your name? Date of birth? Any allergies? Did you eat anything in the last 12 hours?" Etc. They set me up with an IV. Now, normally needles make me feel dizzy and nauseous. [I found out years later that it's called a vasovagal reaction.] So when they first hooked me up, and I didn't immediately feel wonky, I stupidly sent the guy away with his precious anti-nausea and anti-anxiety meds. Then my dizzy kicked in. Cold sweats. Shakes. Desperate need to lie down and... howthehelldoImakethisliedown?Whywon'tthisfuckingbedlayback?!  Finally my husband was able to rescue me and make the bed lie flat until I felt better. Then, a thousand freezing years later, the nurse came back with some prophylactic IV antibiotics just in case. The nurse warned me that sometimes these antibiotics itch a little going in, so to buzz her if there was some discomfort. Itch, my ass. It burned. It felt like a swarm of bees flying through my veins. After much crying and screaming (on my part) and the return of the nurse, who thought I was totally over-reacting, [bitch] the numbing agent she added did the trick.
Wave goodbye to my loving husband, and get wheeled into OR, where they have massaging air booties and warm blankets to drape all over me. Ahhh. Now we're talkin'! Okay, count backwards from ten... 10... 9... 8...

Wake up back in room with loving husband. Hooray! I didn't die or something. And feelin' no pain!

They gave me a prescription for some Vicodins, which I didn't end up using, since I felt okay. I got a lot of World of Warcraft time in, the rest of that day and the next.

Then back to business as usual. We tried a few rounds of Clomid (to stimulate egg production) and I started feeling sore in my ovaries. The doc was worried that my ovaries were developing cysts, since they were getting big when I was ovulating, and they hurt. After many months of drive-by pelvic exams and ultrasounds, we stopped using the Clomid and he sent me on to fertility specialists.

I call them 'drive-by pelvic exams' because he'd leave the room for me to change, come back in, flip the switch to signal for a nurse to come in and observe, and start without her, and be in-and-out before she'd even arrived! It took me longer to take off my socks than it would for his exam!
I figured out over a year later that he did these perfunctory exams in order to bill my insurance for a pelvic. Easy money!
And I also figured out, after years of trial-and-error, pelvics, vaginal ultrasounds, etc, that any time anyone had anything all up in my junk, my ovaries would hurt for a few days. So what we thought were follicular cysts on my ovaries, were really just big juicy egg-makers. But he'd poke around to see if my ovaries felt too big, which would make them hurt for a few days. Then the ultrasound wand would knock them around. And they'd hurt for a few days. Then he'd feel them again. Hurt. U/S. Hurt. Wash, rinse, repeat. There were never any more signs of follicular cysts, or over-stimulated ovaries.