medical scares and happy endings

I wrote this almost a week ago then forgot to actually post it… oops.

When they did my first ultrasound at 8 weeks, the radiologist said that I had a cyst on my right ovary--one that measured just large enough to warrant concern. The worry was that as real estate gets more crowded in my belly, the cyst could make my ovary torse, or twist. If that were to happen, I’d need emergency surgery, possibly later in my pregnancy when, again, space is tight and maneuvers are complicated. Obviously that's a stretch of a possibility (ha, no pun intended on “stretch”), but because of the possibility, the protocol is to do a laproscopic surgery early in the second trimester to remove the cyst. Better safe than sorry. 

We thought this would possibly happen in September, so since June I've been happy to just put it out of my mind and pretend it wasn't happening. Anil, not so much. During my 12 week ultrasound we had the radiologist look at the cyst again, and it was still there, and my doctor said that we'd think about doing the surgery in August. I freaked out a bit because this was much sooner than I’d expected and made it feel, well, like it would actually happen. I was not at all happy about having surgery for the first time (unless you count my wisdom teeth when I was 17... I don't) WHILE being pregnant, and that this would happen after our vacation to Florida, in mere weeks.

The next step was to go to Beth Israel (BI), the hospital where Anil works and where my OB-GYN is affiliated (where I’ll eventually have this baby!), and get another ultrasound from the radiology department there. I thought it was just another hoop to jump through, and Anil said that it was probably just to get me into the system at BI so that my OB as well as the surgeon could access the images and the info. The ultrasound place I went to before was separate from the hospital. I wasn’t seeing it as a second opinion or an opportunity for a different diagnosis.

But, lo and behold, the senior resident there pretty quickly asked if we'd thought about it being something called a hydrosalpinx. [All I ever think to call it is a hydrocephalopod and I'm pretty sure that's a dinosaur or something...] If it was this thing that is, in fact, a medical term and not a mythical creature, it would mean that I didn't need surgery! So we crossed our fingers as they poked around and did some measurements, then they called the attending doctor in to get her opinion, and she said, without fanfare, it's a hydro-whatever. Anil asked how sure she was of it, and she looked at him like he was an idiot. I think that meant she was quite sure.

The one funny thing I have to mention about all of this is that we were now in a teaching hospital, with residents. Residents like Anil, and residents like the people we hang out with on weekends. So it was strange at first for me to accept that I was going to be examined by people we kind of consider peers, but the truth is that they’re peers with a whole ton of medical training, and I’m old enough that my peers are also professionals in their own right. It's still a funny dynamic though. And, do you know what this time of year means? Residency programs do turnover in July. Senior residents graduate, and new interns quake in their boots. We could tell immediately that our team consisted of a senior resident who was helping a new radiology resident to do my ultrasound. For the external belly one, that was fine. He took a while and looked around a lot, but that meant I got to see lots of images of the baby, who looks relaxed, as if someone was thoughtful enough to deliver a La-Z-Boy chair to my uterus. 

But I knew they’d also be doing the other kind of ultrasound too, to get a better look at my ovaries. And Internet, I’m not going to state flat out what that entails, but if you’ve had it, you know why I’d be unhappy about a new resident using me as a learning opportunity! Fortunately the senior took over for that one.

 

I met with my OB a few days later and got the all-clear! In case you’re wondering, a hydrosalpinx is, I found it on Wikipedia. In my words, it’s a pocket of fluid on a fallopian tube. It requires no surgery and no further worry! Interestingly, it’s often a cause of infertility, but obviously that’s not the case here. If it’s inhibiting the right side from working, the left did just fine in getting the cupcake into the oven. So that’s another thing this week that we’re thankful for. This is hugely exciting and reassuring news.

And it speaks, I think, to the importance of second opinions, even though I wasn’t consciously seeking one. I even told Anil on our way to BI that if he wasn’t in the medical system himself, if I was doing this with less of a trusty and well-informed guide, I would have sought a second opinion myself, when duh, I later realized that my OB was doing just that for me. She’s a fantastic doc and we’re lucky to be working with her.

 

And, just to respond to the new swine flu and pregnant women scare, I can at least say that Anil had the virus two weeks ago, and I never got it. We’re on a pretty good streak here.