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Saturday, March 10, 2012

The Balloon from Hell

Yesterday started with an innocent enough mix-up.  I got up at 5:00 to get ready for my surgery, showered, and woke my husband up.  That's when I realized it was actually an hour earlier than I'd thought and my alarm clock had Sprung Forward two days early.  Somehow it had the date wrong, wrong year and everything.  Ok, fine.  Took a nap for an hour and thought it was no big deal.  Maybe it was a sign of worse things to come.

The procedure itself was fine.  My veins behaved beautifully for the IV insertion, I passed out pleasantly (isn't it always pleasant?), and wasn't in too much pain afterward.  My doctor removed some more scar tissue and needed to insert a balloon to promote healing, so had to trim back my septum farther.  The balloon was inserted and 5cc of fluid put in to prevent the uterine walls from fusing back together and forming more scar tissue. 

My husband recorded his conversation with the doctor afterward, and I have yet to listen to it.  I've looked at the detailed drawings, timeline, and uterus pics, though, which is about all I can handle right now.  Looks like I'll be taking estrogen and then estrogen/progesterone this cycle, having a period, and then having another saline infusion sonogram.  I have the option of doing letrozole at the same time as the 3D sono, but I'm not sure where I stand on that.

Back to yesterday.  I hadn't picked up my post-op prescriptions yet because my work week had been busy, so we stopped by the pharmacy.  The resident who'd written the prescriptions hadn't written a quantity for oxycodone, which started a drawn-out drama of trying to get it fixed by phone while we were waiting.  About an hour later, meds in hand, we were able to head home.  Pain and cramping started to set in for real.

Thirty minutes later, I was writhing on the floor in agony.  It sounds totally melodramatic but I'm actually not exaggerating.  Pain meds weren't helping so we headed to my doctor's office 30 minutes away.  Seriously do not know how I made it through the trip, I was so out of my mind with pain.

I saw a fellow, who with my main doctor's blessing removed 2 cc's of the fluid from the balloon.  It gave me immediate relief but not enough, so he removed another cc.  I started bleeding, and the doctor said some of the pain had been from blood building up that couldn't be expelled.  I went home feeling much less pain and no inclination to writhe.

That's when the bleeding picked up.  A couple of hours later, I called the fellow again, and he said I'd have to go to the ER if the bleeding continued to be heavy.  That definitely freaked me out—did not want to go there.  Thankfully, the bleeding tapered some by bedtime and I pretended to sleep.  Couldn't sleep more than 30 minutes at a stretch.

Called the fellow again this morning and the current plan is to removed the balloon tomorrow morning.  We'd planned on removing it on Friday, but I can't deal with this level of pain for that long.  I wouldn't be able to work, for one thing.  The doctors say it's probably been in long enough to do some good, anyway.

I haven't really been able to process the fact that we'll be waiting at least one more month, if not more.  I can't say I'm surprised, though.

Quick Blogger question that's been driving me crazy:  some of the blogs I've followed through Google Friend Connect don't appear on my main Blogger Dashboard page or my Google Reader.  I end up missing those posts and it makes me sad.  Any ideas what's going on?

13 comments:

  1. God, I'm sorry you've had such a rough time of it. Hopefully it will do what its supposed to and be useful.

    About your question, I cant help you but can suggest a way around the problem. I never actually look in my blogger dashboard page- I just add any blog I'm following to my blog list, and that way, it tells me who has come up with anything new.

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    1. That sounds like a good plan--just adding the blogs to my blog list. Thanks!

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  2. Holy crap! I'm so very sorry that you had to go through all of this. Not good. I hope that you continue to feel better and that the time the balloon was in was enough to do the trick.

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  3. Oh jesus I'm so sorry. Just one thing after another, huh? That happens to my blogger dashboard occasionally too. Sometimes it helps to click on the reader link instead.

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  4. I had issues with my balloon too, but my major pain was when they put in the seaweed stick to dilate my cervix. Holy hell that was horrible.
    I am glad that they feel you can have the balloon removed!

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    1. The seaweed stick sounds so horrible. They didn't give me anything to dilate my cervix this time, or the last time. The time before that, I took misoprostal.

      I've decided to try to keep the balloon another day. We'll see how things are tomorrow.

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  5. I hope that you are soon feeling better. How awful the pain must have been!

    I don't think I'm on your blog list so I have no clue.

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    1. Hey Rebecca! I know I'm following you but need to update my blog list on my side panel. Your posts are some of the updates that Blogger decides not to give me all the time. :(

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  6. Oh girl! Sorry this has been so bad for you! i'm hoping you get some relief soon!

    I too have been having trouble with my dashboard and posts not showing up. I've started just clicking down the list of blog titles on the left to see if they've posted recently. It's aggravating cause sometimes you don't see it for a few days.

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  7. Good Lord! That sounds absolutely awful!! So sorry to hear you were in that amount of pain...not fun at all. Hope you can rest up today, and maybe take a day off work next week?

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    1. Yes, I took today (Mon) off and maybe tomorrow, too! Thanks, Sunny.

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  8. That sucks, so sorry it was that awful- it must feel like par for the course at this point. Glad you get it out soon - hang in there!

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  9. Holy smokes, that sounds like torture. Hopefully this is the LAST of uterine procedures for the both of us. Goodbye septums!
    Katie

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