Hoopla at the Hoohah

WARNING: This post is chock full of TMI of the female reproductive system type. Read on at your own risk. Just sayin’.

Tuesday dawned bright and cold. Okay, maybe it wasn’t too bright. Actually, it was pretty overcast, but somehow the blanket of snow that Ma Nature laid down the night before made things seem pretty bright. Also slick apparently because virtually all of the schools in the area were closed for the day.

Being the lucky girl that I am, I had planned a day off of work for Tuesday. I scheduled a couple of appointments for that day and thought I’d also get some errands crossed off the to do list. Surely, we wouldn’t be blanketed with snow and ice, left to battle icy winds, on my day off. Umm. . . yeah, actually we would. . . because that’s the kind of lucky girl I am.

(I know, no TMI yet. You still have time to retreat before the graphic gore begins. It is coming soon. Run while there’s still time!)

In preparation for the day’s first appointment I had taken meds the night before and again in the morning. The meds were to soften my cervix to make insertion of my brand new IUD (because, really, don’t get the used ones) easier for the Dr. and for me. They had two lovely side effects – abdominal cramps and diarrhea – that hit me like a ton of bricks. I haven’t shit so much since the night before my colonoscopy a few weeks back. Also, these meds are used sometimes to jumpstart labor. Apparently, my uterus thought that’s what we were going for here and tried it’s best to have contractions. So, you know, I was just in a really good mood as I bundled up to fight the slick roads to head off to the clinic.

I arrived at the Dr.’s office a few minutes early because I had allowed extra drive time due to the road conditions. I sat in the waiting room with all the young women with protruding bellies that heralded happier reasons for being there than I had. Eventually I was called into the office (and of course they called me by the wrong name; of course; please do not saddle your offspring with unusual and difficult to pronounce names even if the name is absolutely beautiful; please for the love of God if you learn nothing else by reading this blog learn that) where I got the bright spot of my day during the weigh in. I’ve lost seven pounds since Christmas. Woohoo!

Then came the actual procedure, the one where the Dr. was going to place the IUD. . . if only she could find the canal through which it must enter the uterus. After a small amount of difficulty (and just the smallest agony on my part resulting in sounds emitting from my voice that no person should ever hear) she inserted the probe to measure the uterus to make sure the IUD would fit. At the time I didn’t realize that was all that was happening. I thought that she was placing the IUD. I held on for dear life through the pain trying with all my might to hang in there until it was over. I breathed a deep sigh of relief when she removed her instrument of torture from my tender womb. That’s when she announced that all was ready for the IUD insertion. Are you kidding me? All that just to prepare for it? I took a deep breath and stoically prepared myself for the next onslaught on my nether regions.

After a few unsuccessful attempts she called in her nurse and asked her to bring in the ultrasound machine. Her thought was that it might be easier to locate the canal that way. It didn’t. Eventually, the Dr. gave up. It was an incredible relief at that point. I hurt about as much or more than I thought I could ever handle.

The Dr. gave me a few options. I could have her keep trying, she could call one of the other OBs in to see if they had better luck, or we could schedule an outpatient surgery for her to do a hysteroscopy along with the IUD insertion. I asked her if she thought another OB would have any better chance than she had. She said no, it would just be a matter of luck if anyone could locate the canal at that point. I chose surgery. The Dr. praised me for how well I had handled it all and assured me that I was not a wimp in any way. She left me to get dressed and regain some of my dignity.

With that she turned me over to her nurse to get me all scheduled for surgery. I signed forms and answered questions and eventually we had me scheduled for surgery next Monday at an unspecified time. (They don’t tell you the time of your surgery until the afternoon of the business day before the surgery. Seems weird to me, but then what do I know?) In the meantime, I must go through a pre-op consultation with the anesthesiologist and get a full pelvic ultrasound. Well, since I was already off work yesterday and since the lab could fit me in for the ultrasound that afternoon I took the appointment.

Of course I had to do the whole drink way too much water and then don’t pee routine for the ultrasound. Fortunately, they didn’t make me wait long for my appointment (a few years ago I had to wait over 20 minutes for a pelvic ultrasound and might’ve waited longer had I not threatened to pee on the carpet in the waiting room if they didn’t hustle up) so it wasn’t too uncomfortable. I had the pleasure of having a student perform the external part of the ultrasound. I would have suspected she was a student even if she hadn’t told me and asked my consent for her to do the procedure. Why? Well, aside from the rather large “Student” printed on her nametag, she didn’t press very hard when she was doing the ultrasound. Several times the actual tech who was supervising her had to help her and get her to push harder. I’m sure that’s how a lot of people are when they start. After all, they probably go into a medical career because they want to help people not bruise the shit out of them. A seasoned tech knows though that to get the picture you’ve got to push down a bit more than skimming the surface.

After the external was complete they let me pee and return for the internal ultrasound using what I like to call the dildoscope. The tech (a man) was too polite to actually insert the scope himself and asked me to do it with the instruction to insert it “similar to a tampon but a different size.” I almost said, “Oh, so like a dildo?” but then thought better of it. It isn’t good to get on the bad side of someone who has you in a most vulnerable position. Anyway, I inserted it as instructed, and he proceeded to take pictures of things very few have ever seen. Although he said this part of the process would only take about 10 minutes it felt like an awfully long time. I’m just not used to anyone spending that much time and paying that much attention to that part of my body.

Once that was all over, I got dressed for the third time that day and went to my regularly scheduled visit with Freud, but I’ll talk about that in the Thursday Therapy post this week.

Now, a day later, I’m having (mid-cycle) bleeding to rival most periods. Also, just a bit ago, the Dr. called to tell me that several cysts were found on both ovaries during the ultrasound. I need to have a follow up ultrasound in 6-8 weeks to determine if they’ve shrunk on their own or if I will need laparoscopic surgery. The Dr. left it up to me whether I wanted to go ahead with Monday’s surgery even with the possibility of another surgery in a couple of months or if I wanted to cancel Monday’s surgery and do it in a couple of months after the follow up ultrasound so that if necessary we can do both the IUD and the laparoscopic surgery at the same time. I chose to wait. I’d rather do one surgery day rather than two.

And if things don’t start getting better, I may just suggest she yank out the whole works regardless of the fact that there is nothing cancerous going on. A woman can only take so much hoopla around her hoohah before finally screaming, “Enough is enough!!”