I was going to post more earlier, but I was sort of debating what to say, because I was afraid of sounding like a neurotic freak. Then I thought -- too late.
So. Anyway. When I had my initial appointment, the gynecologist immediately thought "endometriosis" but looked a little dubious about the abnormal vaginal bleeding I've had. So he ordered the ultrasound just because of the bleeding -- he said that usually he sees it being caused by polyps, fibroids, or cancer. He then hastily added I was way too young for cancer, that it was like zero chance.
OK. Whatever. So I have my ultrasound. It hurt really bad to have the wand thingy stuck in (because I have vestibulitis, I guess), but after that it wasn't so bad, just a bit uncomfortable. After awhile she said she was going to check out my ovaries and moved the wand way to the right. No big deal. So when she moves to the left side, OUCH! This part of it is pretty painful. I try to be a good sport about pain during medical visits/procedures (although, I don't know why, since they NEED to know if you're in pain), but she noticed I was in pain and asked me twice if I was sure I didn't have the same pain on my right side.
Anyway, so FINALLY she's done, and they do the SIS thing. Like I said in my other post, this is incredibly painful. Towards the end they've got the wand back in and they're staring at the screen and they start mumbling to each other. I hear the nurse say something like, "Yeah, it's really big, it's 5 cm". I assume she's talking about my ovary, and because of my Embarrassing Lack of Basic Knowledge of Human Anatomy, I'm thinking, wow, 5 cm is big for an ovary? (I guess I shouldn't admit this but for some reason I had some murky picture of them being like kidney-sized.) Then the doctor says something about getting a follow-up in six weeks, and then there's this long silence, and he says something else I can't hear other than "vascular" and says "four weeks". And then in a voice I can actually hear the doctor cheerfully says he'll talk to me more in a few minutes in the exam room.
So it's about 15-20 minutes later when I talk to him (I was in a lot of pain and couldn't even get off the table at first). He tells me everything looked fine except that I have a cyst on my right ovary. OK, so no big deal, and I think, oh, OK, that's why the nurse asked me about the pain. He also mentioned there was quite a bit of blood going to it (which is maybe what the vascular thing was about???) and that unlike the usual cysts, it was not filled with fluid -- it was solid. He said possibly that it was where I ovulated last month and that cysts were very normal. So then he said he really strongly recommended doing the laparoscopy, and casually added he could look at the cyst at the same time and maybe take it out if needed. Otherwise, he said, he wanted to do a follow-up in four weeks to check out the cyst.
I know nothing about cysts (again, Embarrassing Lack of Knowledge [etc.]) but remember lots of women here have had them and they're no big deal, so I'm like, OK, whatever, because I had wanted to do the laparoscopy anyway. He said if he found any endometriosis he would cauterize it at that time. He also said he would try injecting the hyper-sensitive painful tissue with some sort of steroid treatment to treat the vestibulitis (which basically means really painful entry at sex). I asked about side effects of that and he said none, really. Feeling guilty about not being an informed patient I asked him if the cyst was abnormal then what did that mean? He kind of hesitated on this one and said, "Well, if you were 50, we might be looking at ovarian cancer," and, once again, hurriedly added that because of my age it was a one in 100,000 chance. And then he changed the subject. Because I wasn't worried anyway, I didn't notice this until later.
At some point in the conversation, and I can't remember when, he also mentioned something about seeing fluid in my abdomen. This went right on past me, because, again, Embarrassing Lack of Knowledge thing, I just sort of figured there was fluid everywhere. Like, this is a really stupid thing to think, because otherwise every time you get a cut you'd do some serious leaking. I am SO going to haul out my children's encyclopedia and read About The Human Body.
So I get my laparoscopy scheduled for next Thursday. As in a WEEK away. At this point, 5 days away -- the 8th. I'd been thinking it would take forever to get in, so I was thrilled about that. Anyway, some nice lady schedules the surgery, schedules a pre-op physical and then some other pre-op screening where they have to do bloodwork, and I sign all these papers promising not to sue if he ruptures all of my internal organs and sews me up with a surgical glove still inside.
OK, besides the whole post-SIS doubled-over-in-agony thing, I'm feeling pretty good, because I'm all happy about getting the laparoscopy scheduled. The cyst doesn't really seem real to me, because, well, I've had a bazillion tests and everything shows that I'm just fine and that I'm, well, a neurotic freak.
Anyway, so late last night, I was thinking, you know, I should really go see what the heck a cyst is. And a cyst, by definition, IS filled with fluid. You get cysts every month when you ovulate -- but these cysts aren't solid. Freaky things happen to the cysts sometimes, but they're never totally solid. I know he specifically said it was solid and didn't have fluid. In that case, there's no way it could have been left over from ovulation, right? I tried searching for solid cysts, and, of course, all the results were about cancer, because obviously if you're going to be talking about benign tumors/masses you'll mention the possibility of the non-benign stuff. And that was when I remembered his reaction when I asked what if the cyst was abnormal. So I looked at ovarian cancer in relation to finding masses on the ovaries. Like everyone else here, I'm sure, I've looked up ovarian cancer before, but was never too worried about it so haven't read much on it other than the symptoms. What got my attention was reading about diagnosis -- about extracting abnormal fluid (ascites) for analysis of cancer cells. And the doctor had said the ultrasound did show abdominal fluid.
Now I'm wondering if the doctor does suspect cancer but is just keeping quiet until he can look at the cyst because he doesn't want to freak me out. Or, if he thinks it's impossible because of my age and is just ignoring the possibility and turning the conversation from it because he's afraid I'm going to get all annoyingly paranoid.
I am actually not really freaked out about it. I think this is because I have had so many tests that have come back perfectly normal -- at this point I have a feeling that I automatically think that everything WILL be perfectly normal. Also -- if you don't catch ovarian cancer early, you are sort of pretty much dead. And if my symptoms are all because of cancer -- then I am probably pretty much dead. So I think maybe I am just blocking out any thoughts of this. Sort of a mental LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU. But, oh well, psychological avoidance is just fine with me if it means I can function normally and wrap Christmas gifts and stuff instead of snivelling into Kleenex.
My husband and I are planning on sitting down and writing up a list of questions and requests for the doctor so we can talk to him before my surgery on Thursday. I don't think I'm going to insist on having the cyst out, but I am going to request at the very least that they do take enough out to analyze it for cancer, as well as extract some of the fluid to be tested. I need to do some more reading and figure out what else. It does sound like the CA-125 blood test is essentially useless for someone my age, so I'm not going to ask for that.
OK, so, that's where I'm at. If anyone is still reading this. Or if you fell asleep a long time ago. If anyone has advice on anything else they should be doing as long as they're poking holes in my stomach, I would like to hear it.
--------------------
jen
"It's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle -- to get one's head cut off." -- LC
Print
Remind Me
Notify Moderator
|
Posts
part II
