Yet another roadblock

Hopefully this post will not be on the rambling end this time.

This surgery wasn't too bad pain wise.  I was pleasantly pleased that I was able to go to work without too much pain.  I guess anything after my last knee surgery seems so easy.

Okay fast forward to this week for my post op appointment.  I should of known that I wasn't going to just walk in there and get to see the pictures from the surgery and get a shot and go on my merry way.  Nothing has been that easy with trying to become pregnant.

Here is a summary of how things went:

-The cyst on my right ovary was the size of an orange and the one on my left side was just a simple cyst and he drained it for me.  

-I have level 3 endometriosis out of 4 levels. Level 4 is when you need a hysterectomy because it has overtaken your reproductive system.  I also have gun powder endometriosis.  I know it sounds crazy right?

-During surgery they discovered that I have a split uterus which means I have another surgery before we even attempt to become pregnant.

-When I do get that shot it won't be 3 months of the menopause but any where from 3 to 6 months long.

-I am getting referred to a doctor in San Diego.

Although I will be seeing a doctor who is specialized in infertility I am not looking forward the 10 hr drive to San Diego and back.  I just want a doctor to tell us that everything looks great and we can finally move on.  I should be hearing back sometime next week when we will start seeing our new doctor.

Until then I think I will be purchasing some mederma to help get these scars to disappear.

-Kate    

Post Surgery Day 1

Well yesterday was a very long and frustrating day.  I was scheduled to be at the hospital at 7AM Monday morning.  I knew I was in for an interesting day when I walked up to check in at the front desk and I was greeted by irritated hospital staff.  Last time I had surgery my experience was wonderful minus the pain I was in after surgery.  Everyone was amazing and super helpful.  I had the polar opposite yesterday.

My first issue was when my one of my corpsman was unable to get my temp via ear thermometer  My ear holes are smaller than I suppose a regular person.  So he decided instead of pushing it in at an angle he would get the thermometer that you scan across the patients forehead.  I have no issue with that thermometer at all but I do have a problem when you don't use it correctly lol!  He just placed it on my head.  So who knows if he got a proper reading or not.

My second issue was corpsman number 2.  He was in charge of taking blood samples from me.  He seemed very nervous so Preston asked him how long he has been in and told us 3yrs.  This made me feel better because I had a horrible experience in Pensacola when a corpsman in training did blood work on me and used the wrong size needle and I shot blood across the room.  So getting blood work done freaks me out at times.  Okay back on track....so he does the tourniquet on my left arm and struggles to tie it and once he does my arm is filled with a ton of pressure and my arm is turning purple.  So first try he said my vein rolled so no luck there.  I started giving Preston the look like im going to freak out.  2nd try he does the same thing struggles to tie a tourniquet and my arm is throbbing again and then he misses my vein completely.  At this point I lost it and started crying.  Preston got up to comfort me because this was the last thing I wanted before surgery.  At this point the nurse steps up and goes to my left arm and finds a vein and successfully gets the needle in but then was ready and had the corpsman hand her the viles one at a time.  While she is getting my blood work the ER nurse comes in to see what is taking so long because they were expecting met to be in the waiting area by 8 AM. Then my nurse notices that the corpsman labeled my viles wrong so they had to fix them.

After I was taken out of my room and taken back to the waiting area things were much better and I had amazing staff who were joking with me about silly things on Facebook.  Once I was transfered to the OR I was asked what music I would like to listen to which I laughed and told them it didn't matter because I would be out.  They found out that I was from Ohio so they choose Country music! :)

After a few hrs after surgery Dr. Ta came and talked to Preston and I about the surgery and everything that he discovered.  He was able to take out both cysts one on the right and one on the left.  I was informed that I have level 3 endometriosis which he thinks may be the reason why we have been so unsuccessful with trying to become pregnant.  So the next step will start next week.  My Dr. will give me an injection (don't remember the name of it) that will chemically induce menopause for 3 months.  The point of that is to try to stop and or shrink the endometriosis.  Supposedly women who have done this have had this treatment were able to become pregnant.  We will still do the IUI instead of trying naturally and taking the risk of giving the endometriosis a chance to grow back.

So today I am feeling groggy and sore.  I did not sleep too well last night not because I was in horrible pain but I was just uncomfortable all night.  I think I catch people off guard when I talk to them on the phone because I had a breathing tube in my throat yesterday.  Also sorry if I am rambling on in this post because I am on pain meds.

Tomorrow I will go back to work so we will see how that goes.  I cannot lift anything heavier than 20 pounds for at least two weeks.  Hopefully my managers will help me out at the front counter the rest of this week until the 3:30 shift comes in.  I forgot to mention why yesterday was a long day besides the obvious.  I was at the hospital from 7-4:30.  I didn't think we would be there all day.

I will continue to update our blog next week once I have my post op appointment.

-Kate

Surgery

Well I had my follow up appointment to check on the cysts.  I think the appointment was sometime last week.  Not good news though.  I will be having surgery next Monday on the 3rd of June.

It won't be a major surgery unless there are some complications while he is doing the surgery.  I will be having a laparoscopic surgery.  So at the most I will have two or three tiny holes in my abdomen.  I know who will be near my belly button.  The type of cysts that I have are called Chocolate cysts.  Here is a link that explains what exactly a Chocolate cyst is:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_cyst  (WARNING there is a graphic pic of what a chocolate cyst looks like)

I will be taking Monday and Tuesday off from work and hopefully I will return back to work on Wednesday with weight limitations.

So as if I didn't have enough on my plate at the moment my tooth decided that Friday was a great day to go bad.  I was in horrible pain and I ended up going into urgent care on Friday night because I was taking only Tylenol for the pain because I was two weeks out from surgery.  And needless to say the Tylenol was doing nothing for me.  I was given the green light that I could take some pain meds and I was prescribed some antibiotics to help with the infection.  So most of this weekend I spent sleeping from the pain meds.

I am looking forward to my appointment with the dentist tomorrow and then my surgery on the 3rd of June.  I hope that after this surgery I can start getting good news from the doctors office.

-Kate

Just what I expected...

Well there is no good news to even report.  First of all my doctor had no idea why I was there today until  I reminded him that I had cysts the last visit.  I wish I was there for an IUI visit.  After sitting in the room for what seemed like 30 mins (mind you I felt like crud this morning) he finally came back with the ultrasound machine.  Yup, no good news came from this ultrasound.  My cysts have grown instead of disolved or shrank.  I now have a 3 1/2 cm and 3 cm cysts on my right ovary.

I need to stay on birth control for another month and see if it helps at all.  If they have not shrank or dissolved I will be having surgery in either May or June.  I then of course discussed cancer with him.  I asked do you screen for it when you take off the cysts.  He told me yes but I am too young to even have to worry about that.  My next question was well if for some reason it is cancer what will you do?  His response I take everything out and we do further testing.  Then I asked well if you are taking everything out can we save any of my eggs and the answer was no.

I am feeling beyond defeated.  I have been on the verge of tears all day but haven't broken down yet.  I am just at a loss and pretty numb because every visit I get worse and worse news.  I don't know what to think or do any more.


-Kate

Hoping for some good news!

Well it's that time again when I get to go back to the doctor's office.  I will be going in on Wednesday for another ultrasound.  Unfortunately Preston cannot go to this visit either.  Last week he had Lasik eye surgery and has is 1 week follow up appointment at Camp Pendleton (which is 5 hrs away).  I am trying not to be a pessimistic but I am assuming that they cysts have not magically dissolved after one month back on the pill.  I hope to hear at least that they are smaller and no new ones have developed.

Since I last posted we have done the following to make sure we are prepared and ready to go when we get the green light for the IUI process.  I have gotten all of the injections that I will be needing in the next few months.  When I say gotten I mean I picked them up from the pharmacy's not had any injections done.  I am so thankful that I will have LT. McKenna doing my injections for me though when I am ready.

Preston contacted the sperm bank in Fresno to schedule an appointment.  My doctor sort of freaked out when I told him last visit that we had not done that yet.  Come to find out that no appointment is really needed.  He can call up that day and and go in.  Preston also contacted the company we need to order the IUI catheter from.   Again we can't order that right now because it has to be used in a certain amount of days or it will be deemed unusable.

I am ready to be done with the pill.  I have forgotten how much it stunk to remember to take it every day at the same time.  I have also forgotten how much it sucks when you first get on it too!!  Ouch I am always tender!!

Either Wednesday or Thursday I will blog again about what our next step will be.  Keep your fingers crossed that we can finally move on and really try!

-Kate

1 Step forward 30 steps backwards

Well as much as I would like to tell you all that everything went great today with my ultrasound I would be lying.  The visit started off on a bad note.  Our doctor failed to tell us that we needed to contact the hospital in Fresno prior to todays visit.  The hospital in Fresno is where Preston needs to go to make his donation and it gets cleaned and possibly frozen.  So even if my visit went well today we wouldn't be able to do IUI this month.

During my ultrasound my doctor found two cysts on my right ovary.  One is 4 cm and the other is 2 cm.  Side note he hasn't done an ultrasound on me in over a year.  I knew that when I was on Clomid a few months ago it was important for your OB to check and make sure you aren't developing cysts and well that wasn't done.

So what happens now? I will be on birth control for two months and fingers crossed that my cysts shrink and go away.  If they aren't gone in about 6-8 weeks this girl will be having another surgery.

With all of that I can say that I am not having a good day.  So I will probably blog about my physical therapy on my knee because that isn't going well either.  Hopefully I will have some better news to blog about next time.

-Kate

The Run Down

Okay I figured it would probably be helpful if I explained how this month will be like for us.  Here are the steps we will be taking on our lovely IUI jouney:

1) Day 1 of my cycle I need to call my doctor and make an appointment for a baseline ultrasound exam within the first 3 days of my cycle

2) From Day 5 to Day 9 I will take 100 mg of Clomid a day for 5 days

3) On Day 10, I will be given a gonadotropin injections, Gonal-F subcutaneously.  This injection can also be given at home by myself or Preston gets to give it to me.  It has to be done at the same time every day in order for it to work correctly.  So more than likely I will be giving them to myself during my breaks at work.

4) On Day 12, I will go back to the doctors office and get an ultrasound exam to evaluate follicular growth.  I may have to keep coming back for a few days for additional ultrasounds or injections until my ovarian follicles reach appropriate size.

5) When everything looks good I will be instructed to take 10,000IU of hCG injection.  This basically forces me to ovulate.  During this time Preston and I will go to Fresno and he will have to make a "donation" and the clinic will clean it up and then give it back to us to take back to the hospital on base.  Either that day or the next day we will do the IUI treatment at the hospital.

6) Plan on taking a urine pregnancy test 2 weeks after IUI

So basically I am going to be pretty busy.  I am trying to keep my thoughts positive and I am also trying not to stress out.

So this might be too much information but the day I am suposed to start my next cycle is on my birthday.  So as I told Preston I will either have a really good birthday or a crappy one.  I am also throwing a baby shower that weekend with another friend and I am sort of thinking maybe I should change the baby shower to the next weekend.  Or I should just put my big girl pants on and deal with it.

That is all for now!  As always I will continue to blog about our experiences.

-Kate