Unexplained Pain/Pain Explained

So...January was not my best month ever. I spent the majority of the month in pain, doubled over, in bed...not my finest hours. I'm going to be pretty candid in this blog entry, but not gross. I promise.

It all started near the beginning of the month with a bladder infection. I took my antibiotics, like a good girl, and thought that was the end of that. But two days after I finished my antibiotics, my back starts hurting. So I go back to the doctor to see if I should have been on antibiotics longer and the infection has spread to my kidneys. He tells me I have no infection, but that I might have kidney stones again. Which is funny, because kidney stone pain is a very distinct pain that is unmistakable...especially after having two previous bouts with them. I wasn't having that sort of pain. My pain was dull and hot and constant. He schedules an MRI for a few days out and gives me Percoset. Now, I like a good narcotic as much as the next guy, but I don't want to be taking stuff I don't need...at least YET. So I ration them...cutting them in half and only taking them every so often.

I have my MRI on a Thursday, and don't get the results back until the following Tuesday. They call me up and tell me I have multiple kidney stones in each kidney, and a "moderate" sized ovarian cyst. But they don't tell me what to do about it. And I'm drugged when they call, so I don't ask. In the days between the MRI and the call back from the doctor's nurse, the pain spreads from my back to my lower abdomen. I feel swollen, and like my abdomen weighs 400 pounds. I'm not in excruciating pain or anything, but I feel extremely uncomfortable. I'm also nauseous, which is just super.

Two days after the call from the doctor, it is my 30th birthday. I can't get out of bed. The nausea and discomfort are just too much. John takes the day off of work and starts calling doctors and waiting for calls back. My GP says to call my Gynecologist, because, if I'm having pain, it's probably the cyst. My gyno is, of course, not at the office. But the doctor on call has his nurse get a copy of my MRI, and they tell us (on the phone) that it's probably NOT the cyst...go see the urologist. So I do.

After testing my urine for infection (nope, still "clean") and checking to see if my bladder is emptying properly, my urologist has no answers for me. He tells me that he is sorry, but he doesn't know what to tell me. I have kidney stones, but they are tiny, they are not blocking anything, and they are probably the same stones I've had for the past few years since he checked me last.

So at this point, I feel like a crazy person. I am sitting there, in constant pain and discomfort, and people keep passing the buck. I tell John repeatedly that I am NOT a hypochondriac, that I hurt...but I start to wonder if you mentally can create symptoms so severe.

I call my gynecologist, who is already closed for the day. I call the next day, and discover that they are closed on Fridays. I wait through the weekend and call on Monday...three times...and don't get a call back until 5 o'clock. My appointment is scheduled for the following Thursday. You know, because I'm not pregnant, and I'm not in such pain that it warrants an immediate trip to the emergency room. So I gut it out at work as much as I can and wait.

Don't get me wrong, despite the difficulty scheduling the appointment, I really LIKE my gynecologist. I switched to him last year, as he came highly rated from a local doula...and doulas know which docs are the best.

So, I get this ultrasound that, well, makes you feel like you need a cigarette afterwards (any woman who has had one of these knows exactly what I am talking about.) The ultrasound tech, a very pretty young blonde girl, almost immediately asks me when I had my uterus removed.

I haven't had my uterus removed.

So as I am silenty freaking out, she redoubles her effort to find the darn thing, and declares that it is there, it's just "flopped over backwards." So, what...my uterus is lazier than I am? Great. She stumbles over her words for the rest of the scan, presumably because she is embarrassed for scaring me...or maybe because she found something else? She is very quiet as she walks me back to my doctor's office. So now my mind starts wandering. Is it an ectopic pregnancy? Do I have a tumor? Has the cyst grown to epic proportions? It doesn't help that I am moved to three separate waiting areas over the next 20 minutes while waiting for the doctor. (Side note--I get the call from Murry's Dinner Playhouse to be cast in one of their shows in the middle of this. Needless to say, I decide to call them back later.)

My doctor comes in and scoots up next to me to show me the results. He shows me a small cyst on my left ovary, and then an area of fluid where another cyst had recently burst (which explains the swelling, and at least some or all of the pain.) I had a cyst surgically removed a few years back, and had a scare where I worried I would lose my right ovary. It's still in there, but I don't know how well it works.

He then asks me if I knew about my septated uterus before. I tell him I haven't, so he explains. It's a birth defect where your uterus has a partial or full "wall" in the middle. He shows me how my uterus looks sort of like a lazy, flopped over heart. He tells me that people with this sort of thing can still get pregnant, and then changes the subject back to the reason I am there--the pain. He suspects endometriosis, but the only way to diagnose that is to go in surgically and take a look around. He doesn't want to have to do that if he doesn't have to (and I certainly don't want to have to pay for it), so we decide to wait a month to see if the pain comes back, as endometrial pain comes in cycles. If it does, then we'll go in and have a look-see. I am satisfied with this answer. I hope that I do not have endometriosis, as it is painful and can cause infertility from scarring. But I have a family history of it, so I will not be surprised if I do.

However, when I get home, my naturally curious neurotic self has to go on the computer to research "septated uterus." What I learned has put me in a funk that I am just now crawling out of. There are different extents of septated uterus--sometimes a partial wall, sometimes a complete wall. They are all a birth defect--wherein two parts of you, the developing fetus, don't join together as they should in utero. Usually, women don't find out about this abnormality until they have had multiple miscarriages. Finding out the extent of the septation requires a dye test where they inject you with dye and study where the blood flows. The main thing that freaks me out is not that you can't get pregnant, but that it is very difficult to carry a baby to term with this type of uterus. The baby runs out of room, can't turn around, and if it implanted on this wall, doesn't get enough blood to survive. If the baby can't turn, then you have to have a c-section. Women with a septated uterus can have many early and late term miscarriages. Miscarriages, at any stage of the game, are truly devastating. I am lucky that I am learning about this now, before something like that repeatedly happened to me and my husband.

The good news is, you can have surgery to remove the wall. But I'm definitely going to need to get some more information about the extent of my wall first. So, for now, I just wait. I wait to see if my pain comes back (it has waned a lot in the past couple weeks), and if it doesn't...then I decide how long I want to wait before going back to the doctor again to find out more about my funny uterus and what I need to do to fix it.

I've heard many women share the same thought I am about to share. I've spent years of my adult life trying not to get pregnant...and when the time comes when I just start THINKING about it, I discover that it won't be as easy as I thought. I love the Duggars...but I can't imagine what I would think about that show if I never carry a baby to term.

So, that's what's going on in my mind these days. I went back to the gym for the first time in almost a month yesterday, and it was pretty rough. But I can't turn into a lump just because I don't feel good. I start a show at Murry's in April, so that's exciting. I'm planning on auditioning for at least one of the shows at TWT this summer, so I can start focusing on my audition for that now. Anything I can do to stay busy is great.

I'll keep writing about what happens to me here. I hope this blog doesn't turn into a chronicle of a long quest to ensure I can have a baby, but if it does, so be it.