Brush with Surgery

You would think that when I go to the doctor I would learn to keep my mouth shut about all that ails me.

I just went in to Dr. Johnson to have a check up on my Essure procedure that I had a year ago (yeah, I'm a procrastinator) and to check my blood pressure that's been spiking and yet another ovarian cyst that I thought I had.  I figured I would also tell him about my kidneys hurting and my upper abdominal area hurting and figured he would just simply do an ultra sound to see what was going on.

NOoo, he couldn't just do that.  I was poked and prodded and told that I needed to go get a CT scan for my kidneys and abdominal area.

I'm not too keen on needles and drinking chalky fluids but I thought I better do what the doctor says cuz they know best, right?

So, after braving the CT scan I waited a couple days and got a call on my results from Dr. Johnson's nurse.

She said all my blood results came back great but my potassium was a little low.  My CT scan showed that I had small kidney stones in each kidney and a small ovarian cyst on my right ovary and that my appendix was swollen and that I needed to go see a general surgeon ASAP before it burst.  What?  Before it bursts?

Really?  I don't know why but I was so put off that I asked the nurse if it could wait till the middle of September.  She told me no, and said this was serious to get into someone ASAP.

Okay, so my appointment for the general surgeon was on Brekyn's birthday (not cool), and I had the Jackson family party scheduled for that day.  On top of that I was hurting more but I wasn't on my death bed like I thought I would be for my appendix.

So, when I got to the Dr's and he looked at me he was a little perplexed.  I was smiling, happy and joking and not at all in as much pain as I would be if I had an appendicitis.

He told me my appendix was swollen and that's why the nurse sent me here but it's not so swollen that I need to have surgery.  Good thing!  He confirmed the kidney stones and the ovarian cyst but didn't know what was going on with my abdominal area.  He asked me about my medical history and told me it could be one of two things.  I could have an ulcer and with out doing all the major yucky tests for it I could take medicine for acid reflux like previcid and see if it goes away.  If it goes away or helps then I know it's probably that.  If it doesn't, it was choice number 2.  Endometriosis!  The most painful curse any woman could ever have.  He told me a story of a lady that he was doing surgery on that was around my age and in for a collapsed lung from a car accident.  He was fixing her lung and put a stint in it to blow air into the lung when blood started coming out of it.  He said blood doesn't usually come out of a lung unless you have cancer or other severe problems which this lady didn't have.  He cleaned it out and found a strange red bump on her lung.  After investigating into her background he found out that she had endometriosis.  Having other surgeons look at it they determined that, that's what it was on her lung, endometriosis.  He was so excited to find proof that it does travel throughout the body.  I on the other hand wasn't very amused.  Thoughts ran wild in my mind wondering if my endometriosis had spread and attached to somewhere in my abdominal wall or organ.  The only way to know if it had spread he said was with surgery. 

I opted for taking previcid first to see if that would help and if not, back to Dr. Johnson's office I would go.

Luckily it's been helping so I'm going to rule out the endometriosis spreading for right now and assume I have an ulcer.

Maybe next time if I'm not on my death bed for pain I'll learn to just keep my mouth shut.

I'm still not very happy about Dr. Johnson's nurse making me think I had an appendicitis but I'm grateful that I didn't have to have surgery. 

This mom doesn't have time for all of that.