Wednesday, March 19, 2008

This one's for all the ladies. Seriously, it's more crap about my lady business, so feel free to skip it.

My little cystic friends have been still hurting me, off and on, and they hurt so badly a couple of days ago that I pondered another visit to the emergency room. Instead I waited, and went to the doctor today to check it all out with the ultrasound machine. Turns out I have a dermoid cyst, which is the kind that sometimes has teeth and hair inside of it (I find this secretly thrilling), and I have endometriosis of the ovaries, which is a major bummer. You know that stuff that forms the uterine lining? Of course, who doesn't. Well, some of that stuff is outside of my uterus. And like a zombie hand that still twitches and moves after it has been sliced from its zombie body, the endometrium that's stuck to my ovaries actually produces period blood every month. Ew, and ouch. Between this and the cyst, it's like my body really wants to make a baby, and I'm not cooperating, so it's just going ahead and making do with whatever scraps it can find. My body would apparently be o.k. with a shambling, crudely-formed golem of a child.

The long story short is, my doctor is recommending laparoscopic surgery. That's the kind with the tiny incisions and the little camera, and you get to go home after it. They also inflate your abdomen with gas, which is alarming, and apparently results in having gas pains in strange locations for a few days after surgery. She says that recovery will take a week. People I know who have had their gall bladders removed with a similar technique say it doesn't take as long. But whatever. The extra exciting part is, once they get inside there, they may decide to remove the entire ovary, so I shall become half a woman. Or, the problem may be bigger and more complicated than they thought, and they'll end up slicing me open like a melon, and I'll end up in the hospital for a couple of nights, and recovering at home for weeks. I am really hoping that neither of those things happen. I have not yet scheduled the surgery, I still have some questions for my doctor, who will call me tomorrow after she studies the film. (By "film" I am assuming she means the ultrasound photos, and not "College Road Trip.")

All of this means that if I want to ever have a baby, it will be very difficult for me to do so. Not so difficult that I can stop using birth control, however. Thanks, universe!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Women's bodies are so creative, so ready to make life. Who needs stem cells! Should be a way to sell that fine endometrial enthusiasm.

Hang in there, sweetie. With all that pain, you've already done the hard part. At least with surgery you get drugs.

Love and kisses
Your Piscataway fans

Jennifer Myszkowski said...

Well, this certainly explains your pain.

I know a couple ladies with one ovary who made babies just fine, so, you know, the no-baby nell is not sounding.

I've dabbled in polycystic ovaries for a while now, but I've never had a cyst grow anything but more cyst. Hair and teeth, like actual teeth? Whoa.

I want there to be a comic strip about an ovarian cyst with a big toothy grin and a giant pompadour. It's a lounge singer. It winks at you while it sings you songs. Maybe the ovary plays the piano?

Oh, wait! The cyst plays piano and the ovaries sing backup!

Or maybe the cyst is a comic who makes lame jokes about ladyparts and says things like, "Can I get a what-what?" after his jokes.

I'll work on this.