surgery

For the past month I have been experience pain. Sharp stabbing pain in my lower right side. I noticed that most of the pain was when I ate food. Mostly meat. So I went vegetarian for about 2 weeks hoping the pain would go away. It did briefly. I saw some improvement but then the pain came back. I went to the doctor where he ordered an ultrasound of my upper abdomen. I assumed he was thinking it was gall bladder, liver or intestinal. The ultrasound came back negative and he still didn't have a clue what was causing my pain. So off to a cat scan I went. That is an interesting experience...the contrast iv they give you makes your body all hot and makes you feel like you have to pee. The cat scan showed a 5inch mass in my lower abdomen. I was freaking out a bit. Who wants to hear they have a mass in their tummy. I received that phone call on Friday at 6pm and heard from the dr, not the nurse. Ick. They told me they would call me on Monday to let me know that they were going to schedule another ultrasound concentrating more in my reproduction area.

I woke up Saturday feeling slightly odd. I just didn't feel good and the feeling got worse as the moring progressed. I asked my SIL to watch the girls and took myself off to the ER. I called Hubby to let him know what was going on. At the ER I spent quite a bit of time explaining that my pain was an 8 and that I all I knew was that I had a mass in my lower right side. They did blood work and an ultrasound where they discovered I had a "dirty blood" cyst on my right ovary. Now my ovary was twice the size it should be and the cyst was 5 times the size of that. No wonder I had such massive pain. I big honking tennis ball lodged against my insides. They told me that my cyst would have to come out and that they were going to send my blood off on a ca125 test. Oh great, not only do I have a cyst...but i might have cancer.

I made an appointment to see my dr to discuss my options and discovered good news. I didn't have cancer. Most ca125 scans come back as "cancerous" They use this test not really to discover the cancer but more like a marker in figuring out how to treat the type of cancer you have. I still had a cyst to remove. I talked with my surgeon and scheduled the surgery for this morning. I was told that due to the size of the cyst and the way it closed around the ovary, both would have to come out. My surgery didn't go as planned. The ovary had fused to the uterus and made it impossible to remove. I also have a severe case of endometriosis. I am glad to find out this information because it explains why I hurt so much during my monthlies. The bad news is that I am most likely going to have to have a hysterectomy.

The thought that I will no longer be able to bear children makes me slightly sad. I am so grateful for my 2 beautiful girls and I know that having Hubby fixed mostly solved the problem of having any more kids. I like the idea that I won't have a period anymore but I don't like the idea of hitting menopause at 32 years of age. I told Hubby that I am going to get a personal trainer so that my body is in the best shape I can make it before the surgery and I plan on doing it after the surgery as well. That way I would only have to deal with crazy hormones:) One can hope anyway.