Just a heads up, but this post is going to be a long one. I've been M.I.A. for a few months, but I am anxious to get back to normal postings.
As I sit down to write this, I'm not sure where to even start as there are so many parts to this story, but here goes!
I have never had "normal" periods. Normal for me has always meant that some months I'll have a 3 day period, some months I'll have a 11 day period or even no period. One thing they did always have in common was that they were very painful. In addition to having very irregular periods, I have had multiple ovarian cysts since I was about 19. Due to the combination of these things, I have been on various hormone treatments in order to have more regular and less painful periods. At some point after trying about 5 different types of treatment over the years I had just decided that this was just something I was going to have to learn how to live with, and that heating pads and Midol were going to become my best friends.
In February of 2012, I began having extremely sharp abdominal pains one evening. I sent a text to John (we were not yet married) and told him that something just didn't feel right. He told me to take some Tylenol and go ahead and try to rest. I got a little bit of rest that evening, but not much. When I woke up the next morning I decided to go ahead and go on into work. I made it until about 10 a.m. and I could no longer take the pain. I left work and headed straight to an appointment at my Primary Care doctor. The Dr. came in and began poking and pressing around on my stomach and I was in tears. Any pressure on my abdomen felt like I was being stabbed. He did not like my reactions, so he wanted to send me over to the Hospital, which is right behind his office. I assumed he was sending me over to have a few test done since that is where they normally send you for all blood work, etc. When I got to the hospital and was taken to a room, and I realized I was being admitted. I was terrified, and no one would tell me anything. I was in the hospital for 3 days and I was tested for everything possible. The Dr. thought that is was my appendix, but he wanted to rule everything else out first. On the 4th day, they finally decided to take me into surgery and removed my appendix. The biopsy showed that my appendix was inflamed, but it was not infected. We hoped that maybe this was the cause of the pain and I was sent home the next day. I continued having the same abdominal pain for about 2 more months after my surgery, and then eventually it stopped. I was so relieved when the pain finally began to ease up and I was hoping that would be the end of it.
Flash forward to October of 2012 and the pain returned. This time, we decided to begin looking into possible G.I. issues as the cause of the pain. I went through many more tests, including a colonoscopy. Yes, at 23 I had a colonoscopy. The prep for it was the Worst experience of my life so far. It was seriously H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E. After a HIDA scan in early November showed that my gallbladder was having a little trouble emptying, they decided that my gallbladder was the cause of the pain. So, once again, I was sent to surgery to have my gallbladder removed in November. Again, the pain lasted for a few months after surgery and then it eventually began to fade again.
For the next year, I would still have the same pain from time to time but it would only last a few days or weeks and then it would fade away. After not knowing where to turn next, I just tried to ignore the pain as much as possible.
Flash Forward again to May 2013 and the pain returned. This time, it was more intense than it had ever been before, and this time it accompanied very heavy bleeding. After 2 trips to the E.R. and several trips to my OBGYN (which were their own story full of drama with a Nurse, and we were unable to see my original Dr. so we started seeing a new Dr. in the same practice) where we did lots of blood work and tried a new hormone pill. I was diagnosed with some type of pelvic infection and given a few rounds of heavy antibiotics. Again, it settled down eventually on it's own.
Then, at the beginning of January 2014 I began having a very heavy period. This was strange because due to the hormone pills I was taking I was not due for a period until the end of March. The period continued all through the month of Jan, along with very sharp pains and a lot of vomiting almost daily. Around the middle of Jan. we took a trip to an Immediate Med down the street from our house, because there was snow on the forecast for that day and we didn't wanna risk either being stuck at home dealing with this, or stuck out in the snow by trying to make it all the way to my OBGYN. They again ran some blood work, ruled out pregnancy and gave me some fluids via an IV and sent me back home on 2 more rounds of 14 days worth of strong antibiotics with a diagnosis of "a possible pelvic infection of some sort" and wanted me to follow up with my OB after the snow had cleared up. We went in the next week for a visit with my OB, and she wanted me to continue the antibiotics we were given in addition to changing my hormone pills AGAIN in efforts to get the bleeding to stop, then to come back in two weeks. I wasn't super happy about waiting until two weeks to really do anything, but I was willing to give it a try. At this point, I had spent about 2 weeks in bed, unable to do much at all.
Two weeks later we returned to my OB, and I was still bleeding very heavily and having very sharp pains. When the Dr. came into the room, she didn't even check me and just pointed to my abdomen saying, "so you're still having pain there?". She then said, "lets try another hormone pill and come back in 3 weeks". I lost it. We had already been dealing with this for so long, and I was not going to just go home and lay in bed on pain pills for another 3 weeks. Thankfully my sweet husband was with me, so I got dressed and we headed towards checkout and my hubby asked to speak with the office manager. She was very polite, and did not at all seem surprised that the Dr. had acted that way. (which lead us to think she had several other complaints along this line) She suggested that we come back the next Monday and see Dr. S, who was my original OB. So I went home and spent the rest of that weekend in bed again on pain meds.
When our appt. with Dr. S. came it was GREAT! He spent almost 2 hours in the room with us going through every single bit of my medical history. Although he was not exactly sure what was going on, he decided the next step was going to be an exploratory surgery to go in and take a look around to figure out what was going on. I did NOT want to have another surgery, but after all of this I was just ready for some answers. By the time that my insurance company finally sent approval for the surgery and we got it on the schedule, the only available date was March 25th. That was about a month away. I was in tears on the phone with the scheduling lady begging her to please do something sooner, but this was the only open availability. (Believe me, I even called every other OBGYN and Surgeon in Douglas County and none of them could see me any sooner.) I was so upset because I knew that meant that the next month was going to be again spent in bed, and taking Percoet and Hyrdocodene every day.
The next month was very long and draining both physically and emotionally. I missed out on so many things with my family, and was lucky if I had more than a few hours that I could make it up and out of bed. I also was having a very hard time dealing with what they could possibly find. I was terrified that because of all of this, my fertility was going to be affected, and the Dr. had no way of knowing otherwise until he was able to get a closer look. Eventually I'll do a post on the fears I was facing, and still face regarding fertility but I'm not ready to throw that all out just yet. My sweet hubby stood by me and was so sweet and supportive during all of this telling me over and over, "we can get through it, no matter what he finds". He has no idea how much those words really meant to me, and I doubt he ever will, but without that constant support I really would have lost it.
Finally, the surgery day came and I was terrified. When it came time to leave to head to the hospital, I was crying and begged John to just cancel the surgery and tell me I didn't have to go. Thankfully, he didn't. :) They did the usual prep by starting me on an IV with fluids and then gave me some meds to help me start relaxing since I was so anxious. Finally it was time to go into surgery, John kissed me and told me he loved me and reminded me again, "we can get through it, no matter what he finds". Dr. S let me know that even though the surgery was beginning as exploratory, if he found anything that needed to be operated on, he was going to go ahead and do it while he was in there. As soon as he got inside, he found what he believes had been causing all of these issues for the past few years. Endometriosis. Thankfully, he only found it located on my uterus, and did not see any traces of it on my ovaries, or on my fallopian tubes which is a GREAT sign when it comes to dealing with fertility. He was able to go ahead and remove all of the spots that he found and expected me to have a great recovery. When he woke me up from surgery, I was so scared to hear what they had found. The first thing I remember saying is "Can I still have babies" and his response was "as far as I can see, Yes!"
The first few hours after surgery were pretty rough as my body has a pretty hard time coming off of anesthesia. But after that, it was pretty easy. I have had to take it pretty slow, and remind myself to rest quite often but I am getting back to normal a little more every day. The bleeding finally stopped the day after my surgery, and I have not felt any of those pains at all since then.
At our Post Op appointment yesterday, Dr. S again confirmed that after removing these spots, he was not at all worried about us having any difficulty conceiving when we are ready to start trying. I will continue taking the hormone pills in efforts to suppress any further Endometriosis from forming until we decide that we are ready to start trying for a baby.
I am beyond happy to finally have some answers, and to be over the pain and 12 weeks of bleeding!
For more information on Endometriosis, check out these links.
http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/endometriosis.html
http://www.centerforendometriosiscare.com/
