Sometimes You Just Can't Plan

Have you ever heard the phrase "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans?"  That's kind of what things have felt like so far this year.  As I've tried to focus this year on loving my body and appreciating all of the wonderful things that it does and can do, it's apparently had it's own plans.  Hence, the laughing at my planning.  I think reaching 38 with very minimal trips to the ER is a pretty good thing.  I guess I've been making up for time lost lately.

It all started last December actually.  Apparently my team Christmas party was just too much for me and I got to spend that night at the emergency room.  My poor roommate got home just in time to watch me fold over in pain and take trip.  Watching other people in the waiting room kind of made me feel like I was over reacting as one poor guy couldn't keep anything down at all - and we all got to hear it - another poor mother was stressing with her infant.  But after several hours, no sleep, an MRI, they discovered a cyst on my ovary.  That's not the biggest surprise ever with our family history.  Fortunately, I was able to sleep in, but poor Mandy had to go to work.  After following up with my regular doctor and doing a lovely ultrasound (I've decided this is a form of cruel and unusual punishment, tell someone to completely fill their bladder, wait for an hour or so, then push on it), the cyst is there but doesn't appear to be growing.  The fibroid are there and the endometriosis is there.  We just get to deal with it - and apparently the cyst isn't so big that it should be causing me as much pain as it is - maybe I'm just a drama queen.

Move ahead, and we get to go to whatever round we want to call it and do three more trips to the ER in one week, two catheters, a few blood draws, IV's, Morphine,  a CT scan, and another MRI.  Apparently, I'm dehydrated, which is bizarre considering I always have my water bottle with me and drink two or three per day (it's a 32-oz bottle).  And the only discovery so far in all of this is rectal inflammation.  While I am grateful that it's not something huge, I'm still extremely frustrated because of the amount of pain that I've been in, not being able to sit, sleep, etc.  Two out of three of the doctors have been great to work with, one of them I don't know who was more likely to hit her as I broke into tears, me or Mandy.  She apparently didn't catch that I said I was having lower back pain, which was the first thing shared in my admitting papers and conversation with her, but maybe not.  I was thrilled when she went off duty and we changed doctors who was so great to work with.  She sent me home with Lortab - which is fabulous except it makes me tired so it's only good for evenings, not during the day when I want to drive/work - and set me up with a lovely colonoscopy.

So that's been my adventure for today.  I will say this, after doing the lovely prep stuff, I don't care if I ever drink Gatorade ever again!  I loved Dr. Clark.  She was so nice and understanding.  Very thorough in her explanations of the process, what they are looking for, and what can happen.  That was wonderful.  So, I guess the big issues they were looking for were negative (yeah!), but they did have to biopsy on something so I get to wait for those results.  This could all be related to the lovely endometriosis, so I get to follow up once again with that and another ultrasound.

As annoying as all of this has been, the reality is that I still have it pretty easy overall.  I think it's funny when the doctors take your glasses then want you to read or sign something and am glad I can laugh at that.  I was depressed that I had to miss Time Out For Women, so I lost that money, but there will be other opportunities for that this year.  I have an amazing boss and coworkers who have totally stepped in to help cover for me.  Pretty sure my roommate and I have crossed all sorts of privacy boundaries that we had initially had during all of this, but she's been great.  We've decided this is part of the reason that we were supposed to live together.  Mom was able to do a little bit of rearranging of her schedule to help me out today.  I actually felt kind of bad asking because I haven't kept Mom and Dad in the loop with everything that's been going on.  I just hate adding to her stress since I know what she's going through with Grandma, but as she pointed out, she has amazing siblings and everyone has been able to step in.  So, whatever the end results end up being, I know I'm not alone and I know that there are amazing people in my life willing to step in to help, when I'm willing to ask.  And this adventure is, to be continued...