I'm Not Okay

Recovery was a long and painful process this time, problems with my mother-in-law didn't help.  My husband we relying on her while he was away and she bailed and I was left to fend for myself.  There was so much to process during this time, physically and emotionally.  I had beat cancer and I was facing the reality of that, but also so grateful that those painful swollen ovary times would be finally done.  Maybe it was possible to move on and dream about the possibility of being a homeowner and a mother through adoption.

As I recovered the weather warmed up and we hit spring time.  I even managed to get outside a few times to shoot some fun pictures of the blossom's on my in-law's Almond trees.  With spring come pollen and with pollen come allergies.

I won't take a lot of time or space filling up on this allergy time because I'm still healing from it and I'm still trying to process.  My allergies got horrible and I ended up with a sinus infection and a lung infection which causes such bad coughing that I broke a rib.    I ended up in the hospital with my O2 extremely low, my iron low and my glucose dangerously low.  My heart rate and dropped significantly and I was on death's door.  I can't even remember the trip to the ER and my husband tells me that I was taken back and started being treated before he even had me checked in and paperwork filled out.

I'm home now and recovering and other than being sore from my broken rib and still having sinus issues I'm doing much better.  I'm afraid to hope I'm getting better.  I'm afraid to leave my house and attempt to be normal.  I suppose I have good reason because despite having my cancer gone my one remaining ovary is still having issues. This lead to blood work and testing again.

My hormones were way off, but my test results showed it was possible I might have ovulated and so begin a 2ww that I hadn't planned on.  When my  period was a day "late" I didn't think much of it, but after 4 days I decided it was time to POAS which was a BFN.  No surprise really.  Then 2 more days passed and I decided to test again, maybe it was still early, no surprise there, another BFN.  When the end of the day arrived and still no sign of AF I begin to question the tests and hope that maybe they were just wrong, after all my HCG are never as high as they should be thanks for my messed up body.  I decided to wait it out, but the next day my AF showed with a vengeance and I was devastated.  Though I didn't know why I was.  I felt nothing when my test were negative, but when AF showed I was broken.

To top it off my SIL decided it was time to invite me to her 3D ultrasound.  I'm still waiting on responding to her message.  I will decline I'm just dragging my feet about what reason to give her.  I would tell her the truth, but I fear it won't be cared about and will only cause me more pain the next time her and my MIL forget about me.

All I know is I'm afraid of my body failing, I'm afraid I'll live a childless life forever, and I'm afraid my children will always be forgotten.  I appreciate all the support I've had from my twitter family, but now that I'm healing they just like to remind me how strong I am and how happy they are that I'm okay, but the truth is...
I'M NOT OKAY!

I have Cancer

Home after a long ordeal of having an ovary removed, infected, and finding out I have cancer.  I was weak, sore, and sleeping away as much time as I could.  It felt like I would never again be normal.  I had scheduled testing, we needed to find out if this cancer was gone or if we still had a long journey.  My husband would come home each day from work, bringing me dinner and hounding me to not overexert myself. He tried to make himself sound upbeat and usually in a teasing matter, but the worry on his face and in his voice were undisguisable.

I spent as much time as I could sleeping trying to pass the time until I would find out my fate.  Was I about to endure a long battle of cancer or was I going to be able to heal from this surgery and move forward with finding a  normal?

Test day arrived and it was long and tiring.  I was poked like crazy, by body scanned and over all turned into a lab rat.  Now I had to wait.  With every phone call my heart beating fast wondering if this was the call.  My husband came home with a questioning look on his face, and without saying a word he knew the call had not come, and so our routine of dinner and tv would begin in hopes of making time pass quickly, in hopes of keeping out mind quiet, in hopes of forget that we were waiting to find out what was our future.

"You are cancer free my dear!" the only words I really remember in the long explanation that my doctor gave me in his phone call from his personal phone.  It was over, I had beat cancer it didn't seem fair almost that it had disappeared so easily for me while it's stolen so many lives, but it was over I was going to be okay.  When my husband walked through the door that evening I felt as though my heart would burst through my chest.  I didn't realize how much he had aged during this time, but the man I saw come through that door was a young and happy man!  The worry lines had disappeared and his eyes shone and sparkled.

My husband was able to leave for his work turn relaxed and not worried about me.  His parents had agreed to help out with the dog and with getting me food and he filled our fridge with easy to eat foods that would help keep my iron levels up since they were so low from the amount of blood I had lost.  If only he knew that with in a few short days I would be mostly on my own and even have to drive out to get more pain meds because of a MIL who really didn't mean she was willing to help out.

As I begin to feel a little better and gain a bit more energy the date of my mother's passing was approaching and it wasn't lost on me the irony that the anniversary of my mother losing her battle to brain tumor was shortly after I had just found out I beat it.  I took that day to remember my amazing mother and to appreciate that I was coming out on the other end.  Spring was approaching and it was time for new beginnings, and of course allergies, but that will come in the next post...

Released and Rushed Back

"I'm cleared to go, we are going!" I demand weakly to my husband after my doctor had cleared me to be discharged and to head up into the mountains for the weekend.  I was under strict resting guidelines  but I was allowed to go.  I finally convinced my husband.

The weekend went on like normal, I was tired and rested most of the time with some small easing walks.  I didn't realize it and thought maybe my medicines were making me feel unwell, but suddenly my incision was bulging and puss was oozing out of the stitches.  We called my doctor and made our way back to the hospital.

Infection, I have an infection.  "We need to reopen your incision and drain it." When I woke up again all I cared about was seeing my husband.  I almost lost it when I saw him.  Sitting in the chair next to my bed, one hand resting on top of mine, his head buried into his other hand.  I squeezed his hand to try to communicate that I was okay.  He looked up, his eyes searching mine for any sign that we might be finally done with this mess.  "Get some sleep, you'll be staying overnight, no arguing"  As I drifted back to sleep my only thought was I'm too tired to argue."

"We got the results back." My doctor said to us, his eyes telling much more than he was saying. "It was cancer.  The good news is that we took a piece of your right ovary to test and it was clean." Left alone to process the news.  I was afraid to look at my husband.  Afraid that seeing his sad and worried eyes would make me fall apart.  All he did was lift my hand to lips and planted a kiss.  He kept my hand there for several seconds w/ his eyes closed before he gently pulled me into his arm (as best he could since I was hooked into an IV and monitors).  "It's over" 

After being on a strong antibiotic and IV fluids and my fever going down I was allowed to go home.  As my husband helped me to bed and kissed me goodnight he said in a soft sad voice "Please be home for good."  And we both drifted off into a long deep slumber hand in hand and begin our journey to recover from this mess.

Rushing Into Surgery

That night in the hospital was a horrible night.  I felt like the longest night of my life and at the same time it all passed so quickly and can barely remember a thing.  I remember having so much pain and pressure on my stomach, I remember seeing a huge bulging mass sticking out of my already massively fat stomach (thanks for nothing fertility meds!).  I was throwing up every hour it seemed, though I honestly don't know how I could have managed to have anything left to lose.  I was miserable.  Finally after a late night/early morning draining, mix of morphine and anti-nausea meds I was able to get a little bit of sleep.

"Yes, you have my permission, take out whatever you need to keep her okay!"  I could hear in his voice a fear that I've never heard before.  I could hear the tears that he rarely ever cries.  In our entire relationship my dear husband has only cried twice and I've only seen it once.  Once was when we were dating and I had a bad pain day and he literally carried me into my house.  The next day he told me he felt so helpless and on his walk home, in the darkness of the night in the mountains he dropped to his knees and cried out for a way to take this pain away.  Since this day he has told me that seeing me rushed off for emergency surgery was 100 times worse than that night.

I was awake enough to hear this conversation.  I remember willing myself to reach out and touch his hand, if I could just hold his hand for a second I know everything would be okay.  My body failed to obey, it just wouldn't move, wouldn't respond, no matter how hard I tried it wouldn't work and my world begin to fade into darkness.

When I woke up again I was confused.  I looked around at surroundings trying to figure out what was going on, willing myself to think back to my last memory.  That's when I remember my husband's voice.  I let out  a gasp feeling frantic to find my love when a nurse appeared at my side and calmly explained I had been rushed into surgery.  She took my vitals and begin the transition into my room while reassuring me that I would see my husband soon.

"They had to remove your left ovary and took part of your right.  I'm so sorry babe, I had to let them."  I gave him a small smile, reached for his hand "I love you, lets focus on that."  So we sat (well I laid), hand in hand until I drifted off to sleep, content that for now we were still together and we were both okay.

Being Admitted

What to write?  That is my problem.  How do I put into words the events of this past month?  I'm not even sure my brain has had the ability to fully process what all happened.

It started off like any other day.  I was taking a shower at the end of the day, feeling grateful that I had managed to walk my dog and clean the house.  I was starting to feel that maybe I could recover from everything.  That's when I noticed that my scar from my tubal removal was bulged out and sore to touch, like a dull achy bruised feeling, but there was no bruising.  I thought it was odd, but didn't think to much about it.

As I lay trying to sleep I was noticing more and more the pain I was developing on my side, by morning my slightly bulged area was now a golf ball sticking out of my fat gut.  I called my dr and came in to be seen.  If you remember, I've been fighting with enlarged ovaries and had been going to have them drained every other month or so.

The appointment started out like all the rest, laying on that cold bed with the tech's eyes bulging at my now softball sized ovary.  As he started moving the wand around to get measurements he noticed something odd where my tube should be (of course the tube is long gone) so he pulled Mr. Wandy over to get a better look.  "oh that's not suppose to be there."  This was not comforting to hear as the tech explained that I had a bunch of lose fluid floating around while he picked up the phone to page the doctor to come in.

The rest of it was a blur, but in no time at all I was admitted into the hospital and I suppose I must have called my husband since he was sitting in the chair next to my husband.  The doctor came in to explain what was going one.  I had had blood testing upon being admitted and my hormone levels were way off.  My estrogen had been floating around 700-800 in my last few test, but it was now 989 and progesterone was 2.  I also had an elevated hcg, but it was very very low.  Not even enough to be pregnant, and I knew it wasn't even possible to have been.  It was just one more random number that made no sense.  My ca-125 had been tested a few days before and it was also elevated at 47 normal is <35.  I had my fluid drained (boy was I tired of having a needle stuck into me).  I needed to stay for now because my reproductive organs were filling with fluid so quickly it was hard to keep up.  It was decided that if I was still having issues the next day I was going to have to go in for surgery to at least take a biopsy of my ovary.  We needed to get to the bottom of what was going on.

The rest will come later.  Sorry for the split post, it's the only way I'll be able to write this out.