The Dog Ate My Homework

This very long blog is dedicated to my cousin Cathy for it's content, for always reading and for ispiring me to write.

Note: This blog contains medical details that may be too much information for some people. You have been warned! :)


So, I was a couple weeks late with my last blog entry. I told you I had a very good excuse and then left you hanging. I guess I now must explain myself. My dog didn’t actually eat my blog. I don’t even have a dog and if I did it would mean that it had eaten my computer, in which case, I would definitely no longer have that dog. As always, there is no one or two line reason to give. I have a whole big story.

Let’s see, 3 weeks ago I had some surgery to fix myself from the possibility of ever getting pregnant (a more detailed blog about this to come). Yes, I had my tubes tied. Well actually, they weren’t tied they were burned! Okay, cauterized. But burned sounds so much more serious and it really means the same thing. Anyways…this is a run of the mill surgery, you go in, they put you out, they do their burning and Bob’s your uncle. You’re in and out in a few hours. Recovery time is 5 to 7 days and that is that. For most people. Of course, I am not most people and if anything strange or unusual will go wrong, it will happen to me.

So for the first 5 or 6 days, I thought I was doing great. I was up and about, felt good, no pain. Piece of cake. Then Monday comes and the pain starts. And then more bleeding starts. Tuesday, one week post surgery and I’m definitely in pain and the bleeding does not appear to be going anywhere. By Thursday night, it’s even worse and now I have a fever. This I think is not so good. I hum and haw about going to emergency. I don’t want to use up that resource if it’s really nothing, but then what if it is something? I call the Nurseline. After a long discussion the nurse really has no answer and tells me to go to emergency. All right, we are off to emergency. Now sit down, because this is a story of one good health care experience that I would never imagine possible!

We arrive and check in. I don’t even sit down in the waiting area and am taken in. I’m put in the “Pelvic Room” (yes, that’s what it’s called!) But NICE - a totally private room! This is all right. I have barely got my gown on and I have a nurse in to see me. Literally (and I do mean literally) less than 5 minutes later the emergency doctor is in to see me. I mean, the nurse hasn’t even taken the blood pressure cuff off yet! Not more than 5 minutes into the doctor’s exam and the lab person is there, ready to take my blood. I AM NOT EXAGERATING OR MAKING THIS UP! Border waits are longer than what all this took! So the doc says it could be a bladder infection, it could be infection from the surgery, it could be my appendix, it could be this, it could be that. First, rule out bladder infection and call in a gynaecologist. So off I go to pee in a cup. While I’m waiting a nice lady comes in and gives me warm blankets and adjusts my bed. Aside from the bright lights and medical supplies everywhere I’m starting to think I’m on a little vacation. So much so that when a nurse comes in with a cup of orange juice, I actually think “oh how nice, they’re bringing me something to drink”. Laugh out loud here because they are not bringing me a drink. They are bringing me contrast dye to drink so they can do a CT scan. Uh, apparently it’s not just a bladder infection. And a CT scan? Hmmm. Worry a bit more. Just as I finish gulping down the orange juice dye concoction (which I actually think is quite tasty) the nurse returns to tell me that radiology has changed shifts and I won’t be getting my CT scan done tonight. I’ll probably stay in the hospital.

At this point the gynaecologist arrives. As does someone from radiology to take me to get an x-ray. The gynaecologist says to get the x-ray first. I assume she will go off to see other patients. When I come back, she is WAITING AT THE NURSING STATION FOR ME. Maybe this is normal, maybe it’s my own opinion about our pathetic health care system, but I thought this was rather impressive. Anyways, the awesome gynaecologist is ready to examine me. I don’t know if she’s giddy from lack of sleep (she will finish her 24 hour shift in a few hours), giddy because she leaves for Paris that day (must be nice), or if she’s a crazy manic woman like me. Doesn’t matter she was great. She checks me out, tells me none of this is right, I should not have pain, I should not have all this bleeding and of course there are a long list of possibilities when it comes to what’s wrong. I will not being going home tonight, period. I think this means I’m staying in emergency. No. I’m being admitted to a medical unit. Uh, okay. So I’m thinking this is serious. The x-rays showed nothing but my white blood cell count is high, my blood pressure low and I’ve still got a fever. Even if I wanted to go home and come back in the morning for the CT scan (as Dave and I had sort of talked about earlier), this is now not an option. Period. Well, all right. I tell Dave (who has been with me this whole time, by the way) this is my “0 star” vacation.

I want to say that we arrived at the emergency department at about 10:00 p.m. I was in my bed on the medical unit at 3:00 a.m. Maybe 5 hours sounds long, but I was utterly impressed at how fast everything happened. I’m pretty sure I’ve waited 5 hours just to see a nurse on other emergency room trips!

In the morning I was told I couldn’t eat or drink anything (save for a bit more orange juice dye concoction). It also seemed like they were preparing to have me there all weekend. Um, okay I’m a bit worried. I had my CT scan. Not normal. I had gone out for a smoke and when I came back to my room I overheard someone on the phone using my name and “urgent ultrasound” in the same sentences. “Urgent ultrasound” was repeated several times. Okay, this does not sound good. So I stood in front of this person until they were off the phone. Turns out it was one of the gynaecologists (I’m pretty sure nurses book these things when the order is made so the fact that I had a doctor arranging this was both alarming and again, impressive to me). So we talked. The good news: my appendix is fine! Oh yay! The bad news: something is not right with my right ovary. I can’t remember all the details, but I would need this ultrasound to find out more. Urgent means urgent. Ultrasound would happen in an hour. More bad news, still nothing to eat or drink because they may have to do surgery. WHAT????? I'm starving!!! And everyone is still talking like I’m here for the weekend.

So, off to get an ultrasound. By the way, did I mention that every time I go for one of these tests I get picked up by an orderly who wraps me in a blanket and wheels me to the radiology department? AND, when I’m in getting the imaging, I’m given warm blankets. The whole warm blanket thing is a big seller for me. I don’t get warm blankets at home. Then after the test I get picked up and wheeled back up to my room. I know I’m in a hospital, but for a girl who loves attention, especially when she doesn’t feel good, this is sort of fun. Anyways…after the ultrasound I’m seen by the gynaecologist and the resident who happened to be assisting on my surgery. Nice luck, since she remembers the surgery and exactly what they did.

The Verdict: nothing serious is wrong. No infection. They did not injure my bowel or any other organ during surgery. There are cysts on my ovary but this is normal. Basically, for some unknown reason, there is still fluid and inflammation around my right side. They have no explanation, other than to say that it is very unusual and that it is nothing serious and will resolve over time. They have the head gynaecologist review everything and come to examine me as well (again, I’m thinking I’m getting all the top notch care here!). He repeats what the other doctors have told me. It is just very unusual, but as long as it does not get worse, I am fine to go home, get some rest, take anti-inflammatories and follow up with my own gynaecologist at the end of the week.

So all that for pretty much nothing? Not that I wanted something to be wrong, but, well, I guess I sort of wanted some specific diagnosis. Not “we really don’t know why this inflammation is happening, it doesn’t usually happen, most people recover from this kind of surgery with absolutely no problems, we don’t really see this…” This SOOOOO only happens to me. Seriously. At the end of the day me, my mom and Dave could only laugh that, while all the doctors agreed that something was wrong, there wasn’t any real diagnosis. If anyone is going to have some weird and unusual pain that cannot really be explained, it will surely be me.

So I went home. I stayed off work for another week. I did not write my blog. My fever finally subsided. I still have some pain and my gynaecologist said to expect two or three more weeks to pass before I’m really feeling better. 5 to 7 days for recovery? Ya right! Not in my world.

So that, my readers, is why I did not make my deadline for posting a blog last week!