Post-Op

My surgery went well. I have a small amount of endometriosis on my rectum and abdominal wall again. I got a shot of pain meds before I left and they did prescribe me darvacet, but I didn't get it filled. I'm having mild cramping, but I was having that along with heavier spotting (like a light period) before the surgery (now 20 days that I have been bleeding, not impressed). I am having incisional pain around my belly button, but it is bearable with ibuprofen.

Dr. Moro

I had my appointment with Dr. Moro today with regards to having my tube removed. He is the doc at the hospital where I work that I was referred to so my insurance would cover my surgery. It was a rough start, you see, I have to work tonight and tomorrow night, and here I am with an hour of sleep under my belt on my first 12 hour shift in. I was sitting in the waiting room at 1:50pm for a 2pm appointment, and that is where I remained until 3pm. I guess he was running late, but I didn't appreciate the fact that the patient taken before me was late for their appointment and not made to wait until after mine. My mom said it's my fault that I didn't speak up-what could I say really? I just wanted the doc to see me, and I certainly didn't want to piss him off, especially after he'd been called on his cell phone last week to try and schedule me for surgery without having ever met me.

While I sat in the waiting room, Dr. M passed by and had to give me a second look after he thought he was done seeing patients today. Then it clicked and he asked if Dr. Moro was doing my surgery. I said yes he was, and I'd be calling him to get our cycle going again mid-December. My period following my surgery won't be expected until Christmas Eve (lucky me) so we'll be actually starting lupron, etc. in January sometime. Now that I think about it, I'm supposed to be on BCP's the cycle before we start our drugs. I guess I need to give Dr. M a call and find out if I will go on BCP's when I get my period later this month.

Anyway...surgery is scheduled for 11am on Nov. 16th and I have to be there at 9am. I was planning on working the two nights before surgery, however, what I had forgotten was required for a surgery like this is a bowel prep. Oh yeah, fun stuff. So, I will now be working that Sunday night, off on Monday, and pretty much confined to my bathroom all night. I will learn to like chicken broth as well that Monday as I am only to have clear fluids all day.

Dr. Moro seemed pretty sure that my ovary will be left undisturbed except in the event that my endometriosis is back and extensive enough to have plastered my tube/ovary to the pelvic wall in which case we'd have to see what happened. I'm hoping that the endo is minimal and that this surgery goes off without a hitch and removal of my tube takes all of 5 minutes as the doc thought it would.

Archie and I were planning (before surgery crept up on us) to go to Atlantic City on the 17th and 18th while Jack is out of town on a cruise with my mom. They leave the day before my surgery and come back that Friday. This seemed like a great time for us to get away as normally we're not willing to leave him. It is also a good time for a bowel prep and surgery, LOL. No little one wanting to know what I'm doing running to the bathroom every 5 minutes, and only a dog to worry about post-op. We're putting plans for AC on hold until we see how I'm feeling post-op. I'm thinking the 17th isn't going to be a good night to stay in AC, but maybe we can go up on the 18th and come back on the 19th as planned. We shall see!

Otherwise, maybe we can just lounge around our house, I can make him clean (LOL as if!), and we can rent some movies to keep us occupied while I recover.

Real Quick

I have to go get Jack from school, but real quick. After Dr. A booked me for 11/11/10 for surgery I called my insurance company only to find out that we'd owe 20% of our bill for her and for the hospital where the surgery would take place. No way! But it would be covered 100% if the surgery was at the hospital where I work or one affiliated with us. SOOOO, I called Dr. M who referred me to a doc where I work. I have an appointment with him on 11/1/10, and then I called today with my pity story, told them I was a NICU nurse at our hospital, etc., and the very nice surgery scheduler checked throughout the day for a cancellation this coming Monday. When there were none, she called the doc on his cell phone, gave him my story, and he told her to put me on at another affiliated hospital where he performs surgery for 11/16/10!!! Ok people, I have a surgery date, and it's only about 26 days away now!!!! :) :) :)

Impatience Pays Off Sometimes

I have no idea if Dr. A got my fax that said I wanted this hydro taken care of ASAP or if she got the report from Dr. M, but she just called me and she is going to take that tube out of my body here shortly. She said I will have to be out of work for at least a week to 10 days (I thought only a day or two!) which completely sucks. She is going to have her secretary call me tomorrow at the latest to set up my pre-op stuff, and get this ball rolling. I guess I will either have to use some of my vacation time for this recovery period unless I can finagle my shifts to be grouped together right before my surgery and right after in the hopes that I don't have to use too much of my time. It could be tricky, but we shall see what happens.

Follow Up and IVF Talk

We met with Dr. M this afternoon. I decided I wanted to talk about what I thought to be positive info first-the SA results. So last cycle we had 9.5 mil sperm and this time around 14 mil. Great! Then last time we had 31% motile sperm, this time 42%. Great! However, of the washed sperm, only 1% were motile- 500,000. I can't remember what it was last time but he said it was less this time than it had been previously. He would consider these SA results perhaps slightly better than last time. So perhaps not as positive info as I thought!!!

Then we moved onto the elephant in the room-the stupid hydrosalpinx. I always thought our little boy was a miracle. Now I know it! I pulled up research articles that had been published and with a hydro, chances of pregnancy are cut in half and that is with IVF, and if you consider that the fact that anyone gets pregnant on any given month, that's crap. Dr. M hit the nail on the head when we were discussing whether or not to correct this problem before proceeding with our cycle when he said, "If you don't fix it and the cycle doesn't work, you will think it was because of this." Damn if that isn't right! Sure, it could just be a failed cycle, happens all the time. But if I didn't have the hydro corrected I KNOW that I would think it must have been that, and even if I wasn't totally convinced of that irrational thought, I would always wonder "what if?"

So, the decision has been made and Dr. M is completely backing us. I will call my OB/GYN in the AM and try to get a surgery date set up ASAP to have this thing either removed or at least have that tube tied. Which brings me to my next issue to deal with emotionally and physically. The consequences of taking care of this issue. I asked about something I had read online on a forum about hydros where multiple people said that they not only had to have their tube removed but the corresponding ovary as well. This is a problem! So we discussed that and Dr. M didn't really feel that that was a necessary evil, but he did bring up something I had not considered. I figured if they had to remove the ovary then obviously I would have less eggs to retrieve when it came down to it. I just sort of figured that if the ovary was left in we would have those eggs as well. Not necessarily. The fallopian tube and ovary share a blood supply, so if we clamp the tube, we may be risking any follicles and resulting eggs from that ovary. It is an unfortunate situation, but I think I'd rather risk losing the response from that ovary than having fluid leak into my uterus and giving us dismal odds at pregnancy.

I will have the surgery, and per Dr. M request that Dr. A or whoever ends up doing my surgery try to preserve my right ovary as best as possible. Dr. M said that we could contact him as early as a month post-op to setup our mock transfer appointment and begin an IVF cycle. He tends to be a little more aggressive than some docs, he said that others would recommend waiting at least 8 weeks post-op to see if you get pregnant on your own. But given our male factor infertility issues, I think getting pregnant on our own may not be very feasible.

Please pray that we can get scheduled quickly and that the surgery is as atraumatic as possible!

Post-Op Update

Hi everyone!

My surgery was on Thursday. Anesthesia came in to talk to me and get consent and their plan was regional. When I asked them to exlain that they said that they would numb from my arm down and put me into a little twilight. I said, enough twilight that I won't remember anything. They said, "well you shouldn't". Not good enough for me. When I said I was worried it was not only about knowing when they were drilling into my arm, etc., but I also didn't want to say something stupid like about what idiot doctor's can't read x-rays and how it's pretty bad when the ortho techs can do it better. I have a hard time adjusting my filter when I am not loopy, and I saw a recipe for disaster and therapy in my future if I remembered any of this or made an ass of myself.

So, I opted for general which meant I would be completely asleep, and the doc would only numb the area where he was working. They felt that the block would give me more pain control for a longer period and left that as an option available to me should I want it when I woke up.

I am happy to reprt that I don't remember a thing, not even getting into the OR. When I woke up I was in pain and they gave me a vicodin which didn't touch me. So the anesthesiologists came back. They said that normally they sedate people to do the block. That made me a little nervous about what was going to happen. They gave me a few shots of lidocaine in my neck area, and then gave a huge shot near my collarbone that worked BEAUTIFULLY for pain control! The only problem was that I could not move my arm, shoulder, hand on my own at all, LOL. I hit it on stuff a couple of times and never felt it. And to touch my own arm and try to lift it with my other arm was like dead weight and you would be surprised at how much a dead arm weighs...

The block began to wear off about 10:30 Thursday night. So it lasted about 8 hours. Lucky for me the nurses had told me to start the vicodin (and anti-nausea med) as soon as I got home and to keep up with it every 4 hours so that I wouldn't be playing catch up. I had to up it to two pills overnight and it was not touching me. I called in the morning and they switched me to percocet (it is stronger than vicodin which I did not know). Percocet was good, it didn't take away all of the pain, but made it tolerable and made me sleepy. I dropped down to one percocet every few hours Saturday morning and my last dose of pain meds was 2pm on Saturday. It is slightly painful, but nothing I feel like I need meds for and usually if I keep it elevated with ice for the swelling it'd not even painful.

I am in a soft cast (hard along the inside of my arm and all around my thumb to immobilize it, with an ace bandage the rest of the area) to allow for swelling until May 24th when I see my doc again. At that point he will decide which is next-hard cast or fracture brace (removable). In the meantime it's ice, elevation and relaxing.

Thank you for your prayers. If you could pray that this wrist heal correctly this time so we're done that would be great!

Long Time No Hear

I know I haven't updated lately. Mostly because nothing was new. Then when it was, I wasn't in a nice place. To be honest, I'm still not in the best of places.

My last post said my cast was due to come off in 3 weeks-April 28th. Well, I went in for my appointment, they removed the cast, and did some x-rays. I waited around in the waiting room for 3 hours after my x-ray. I was not a happy camper to say the least. During that time I washed my arm twice, after scratching the skin off of my raw, rashy arm, flexed my fingers and decided that either my arm was still broken or just normally sore after being in a cast for 5 weeks. It was rather sore.

So, the docs take me into the exam room, assess my arm, look at my x-rays and decide that I need another week in the cast because I am still pretty tender in my radius area (I personally thought it hurt more on the outside part of my wrist but no one was listening), and they can still see the crack on x-ray. My doc tells me that his wife is having a baby the next week (of course she is, so are half of my coworkers, and I'm still not even close!), and he's trying not to come in for clinic. He tells me and his physician's assistant (PA) that the plan is for me to come in, get the cast off and go into a fracture brace (removable) that I will wear for everything except for showers for the following two weeks. During the first week I will go to PT for range of motion excersizes, and the second week I will go for resistive therapy, then I can go back to work. Sounds good right? I was ready to go.

I go into the casting room to get my next cast, and the ortho tech is obsessing over my xrays. I'm thinking to myself, "the docs already looked at it, I've been here for close to 3.5 hours, just do your job and put my stupid cast on already!" He asked if I'd broken my wrist before. "No, many other bones, but this is the first wrist." Hmmm. Twenty minutes later, the resident comes in to look at the x-ray. "Huh, let me go get Dr. P." My doctor comes in with his team, looks at the x-rays, then comes over to explain that in 2-8% of wrist fractures the scaphoid bone is also broken. It appears that mine may be broken. "Are you afraid of closed spaces." Ha, I knew exactly where this was going. So that Friday, on the 6 week mark from the accident, I was getting a MRI-at 7 in the morning...

He went on to tell his PA to look over the MRI results for my appointment the following morning and go from there. He tells me that I could be in a cast for another 3 weeks and it may not heal, then I would require surgery. He told me that I should be thinking in the next week about whether I'd like to just go ahead with surgery. I asked if I'd be in a fracture brace post-op or another cast because I really need to get back to work. He says, "If you have surgery you'll go into a fracture brace for 2-4 weeks while you're getting PT and then you can go back to work." Ok. I really don't like the idea of surgery, but there's a chance it may not heal and I'll have to have surgery anyway. I'll think about it.

I did think about it. I thought about the fact that I'd already been in a cast for 6 weeks, and it hadn't yet healed, what more was 3 weeks going to do (although they now included my thumb in the cast for better immobilization). I thought about the fact that I really need to get back to work. I went for my MRI and my appointment that following Monday. My results on Monday were of course that the bone is broken. Big surprise. I have found something I do well-break bones, and I'm not about to fail this time! I opted for surgery.

The PA is filling out my OR information, and I ask if this will fix it for sure. She tells me that we'll know in about 12 weeks, if it doesn't I may require a second surgery with a bone graft. Well now my mind is reeling! I said, "Well I can go back to work in that 12 weeks right because Dr. P said I'd be in a fracture brace post-op." She then informed me that while he does surprise her sometimes, most of the time you're in a hard cast for 2-4 weeks post-op then in a fracture brace. You've got to be kidding me. I hope my doctor wasn't distracted last week when he was talking to me. I asked if I could take my brace off to scrub and wash my hands at work, the answer was yes. I asked if I could have it off for procedures and cares, and they said not if I want it to heal in that 12 week span.

I don't think my employee health department will clear me to go back to providing patient care with a brace on my arm if for nothing more than infection control purposes. I'm already looking into going back on light duty, maybe answering phones or something.

Anyway, my surgery is scheduled for tomorrow and I'm completely freaked out. When they set the bones initially in the ER, they mashed on my arm to get the bones back into place. They did so without pain medication or sedation, and I have to tell you that nothing in my life has ever hurt like that. Not a broken leg, pelvis (in 3 places), fractured skull, or even childbirth (I did have an epidural though). I still get panicked thinking about it. I asked the PA at my pre-op appointment if it was general anesthesia thinking that at least if it was I know I'd be snowed and completely out. It's not of course, it's regional. I asked what that was, and it turns out it's just twilight and they numb my arm. TO CUT OPEN MY ARM AND PUT A SCREW IN MY BONE. Are you kidding me???? I am sure everything will be fine, this is what everyone tells me. But given my recent experience where even Dr. P thought I should have been knocked out to set the bones, I'm a little skiddish.

So if you read this tonight or tomorrow morning, please say a prayer for me. Pray that I get really good drugs that will cause me to not remember anything about tomorrow's ordeal, that I get good pain medication for once I get home and everything else has worn off, and that my little boy is good for us tomorrow night and Friday morning until his dad gets home from work. And please pray that this will take care of my broken wrist and I will be done with this healing process quickly.

Thanks guys!

Arm Update

My appointment went well on Wednesday I guess. The doctor said he didn't think I needed surgery. He was happy with the alignment of my bones on x-ray. He wanted to recast me in a hard cast, the problem is that he was concerned that if we tried it then that my bones may slip out of position which would thenrequire either them being reduced again or surgery...

So, we agreed we would attempt to recast me this coming Wednesday in the hopes that my bones have begun to heal and are less likely to slip out of position. If they do, then we are back at square one.

Thank you for all of your well wishes!

So Sorry!

My ICLW'ers will have to look back at last month for my intro. I'm sorry, I broke my left wrist in 3 places on Friday while attempting to do some house repairs and I now have one hand to type with. I have an appointment Wednesday morning to determine if surgery is needed.

The good news is that my husband and father-in-law were able to finish the repairs safely, and I did some one-handed container gardening. After watching "Food Inc." and learning in particular about the food industry and things that the consumers are not told, I decided we will be buying local and organic whenever possible. In addition to that I planted lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, and strawberries in my containers. Our town has a farmer's market May through November that I will be making trips to. I found a cattle farm which uses no antibiotics or hormones, (and while their cattle feed does have some corn in it, the cattle are allowed to roam in the pasture and eat grass as well) and they sell at the market, and she has a chicken farmer who she will be sharing her booth with this year, so we are hoping to be able to take advantage of this.

Of course, this broken arm means I cannot work, which means that we will not be seeing my normal paycheck = hold on paying off credit cards, hold on any possible treatments at this point...it sucks but all we can do is roll with it.