How am I doin?

This is a check in... Last year I went in to the Dr because I had numerous health issues going on. I had gained alot of weight recently. I was tired all the time. I had acid reflux all day everyday. It was so severe it would wake me out of my sleep. :/ I was bloated all the time. Had various aches and pains in my back, stomache, hands joints etc. I hadnt had a menstrual cycle in 9 months. (no I was not pregnant! That was not even a possibility) And so many other miscellaneous symptoms. Was not sure if they were all related or just random.

So I started with my family Dr. All my blood work came back normal. My thyroid checked out ok. My blood Pressure was a little high but Drs make me have panic attacks so it was ok. I was not diabetic. Nothing strange in my labs.

Next stop, oby-gyn for the usual stuff and to have my first mammogram and first pap in over a decade. :O Yeah I know! I had gone in for one when my daughter was born and the Dr made a statement about "precancerous cells" and I chickened out and never went back. That was STUPID!

Breast cancer, cervical cancer and colon cancer run in my family. So i figured we will start here at the girly stuff. The mammogram, altho not as terrible as it had always been described to me, was not fun. Some strange lady grabbin my stuff and man handling it so to speak, was NOT my idea of fun. It didnt take very long thank God. However, then I was told "the Dr wants to do an ultrasound because we see a spot". *GASP* WHA?!

So they do an ultrasound. Im very modest and this was stranger number 2 with their hands all over my boob :O then the tech leaves and im left waiting. No info. :/ After 10 minutes (which seemed like eternity) the Dr and the tech return. What I get is "well this is your first mammogram so we have nothing to compare it to. We think its a lymph node and you should be ok." really?! You "think" and i " should"? Um ok? No not really. That did NOT leave me feeling confident that it was nothing to worry about.

Well whatever. Now im off to have a pap. Yay. I cant wait. Another stranger touchin my junk. Those visits are always awkward. She says everything looks ok. I should have results at the end of the week. The results come back clear. Everything looks good except we dont know why you are not having your period. So they put me on steriods to force a cycle. :/ i finally started after 10 days of the meds. And it hurt! I had terrible cramps. But next month...no period. :(

Still something was wrong! Still crazy symptoms. I had heard a commercial on the radio about ovarian cancer and how it is the most missed cancer because symptoms mimic other things. So naturally i GOOGLED it! :) of course most every dadgum symptom i had was a symptom of ovarian cancer. :O
So I called the Dr back and told her to recheck my junk. Dig a lil deeper (no pun intended). Maybe I am being paranoid, but just check!

So she ordered an ultrasound of my ovaries. More fun stuff. Same tech...now hes seein another side of me (literally!) :/ cuz naturally my ovaries cant cooperate and the cant do a regular ultrasound. During the procedure, the tech is pushin thru to my spine it seems. He says "be right back" AGAIN! So again I wait for eternity...he comes back in with the radiologist. So as he is trying to find something...shes standing behind him with her head cocked sideways lookin at the monitor...I hear him say "uh what now?" and she keeps saying "uh Hmmm" then "mmHmmm" WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN????

So then I am told that they arent seeing my right ovary. :/ huh? So then they decide to do a transvaginal ultrasound....yay me :( So after some more awkward poking and proding by a strange man :/ I finally hear, "we see a cyst on your right ovary that has a shadow on it that concerns us, so we want to schedule you for an abdominal CT".



So now I had to drink two 16 oz barium "smoothies" I believe, for this CT scan. One vanilla and one mocha, which I am not a coffee drinker so mocha wasnt a good choice (the clerk chose it). however even the vanilla one tasted like vanilla flavored glue. That was the NASTIEST stuff ever!
Then to add insult to injury I STILL have to have IV contrast I have triggered panic attacks and needles are one of my triggers.

so many pokes and prods and awkward invasions of my privacy later, we still have gotten nowhere.

I get a call from the Dr the next week telling me that they want to take my ovary out. This small town hospital scares me...so I go to Baylor and find a Dr for a second opinion and maybe to find answers to other stuff the others havent found yet. Found a great one by the way, OB/GYN. Anyways, she does a battery of her own tests: labs, urine, ultrasound, pelvic :/ They were able to tell that the thing on my ovary was most likely a teratoma and that yes it should come out. Well my choice as to whether the cyst/teratoma or the whole ovary. Which listening to the facts, I chose just to rip the whole thing out. It was going to shave almost 45 minutes off the surgery. My kids are grown and I still have another if I am spacey enough to have more kids. (I love the ones I have...but after 2 Bipolar kids...Im good!)

Surgery came in April. She ripped out the whole ovary, everything else looks good and I even got souvenir pictures of my insides! She told me if pathology comes back benign that the teratoma wouldnt be causing my symptoms, so if thats the case we are back to square one. If its malignant, then its extremely possible that it was causing them.

Pathology came back benign! :D

But now Im still back at square one...   :(




-----To Be Continued......