February 12, 2009

This was the day I had to go in and have a cyst on my right ovary removed. I was 20 weeks pregnant at the time with our first child. The cyst had been seen in my ultrasounds every month and had been growing consistently every month..but slowly. At my last ultrasound (4 weeks earlier), I knew something was wrong because the lady performing our ultrasound left the room and brought the doctor in to "look around". I had been feeling the cyst for awhile before this ultrasound so I knew it had grown again but I didn't know that it had grown to the size of a softball. He did not tell me the size at that time, just that it had grown, "looked funny", and that he would rush the results to my OBGYN. I was a little scared but it went away as we focused on the great news...we found out that we were having a girl. We were so happy and excited, even though I had already known that it was a girl. If the doctor had told me it was a boy, I would not have believed her. I had had several vivid dreams of a little girl in pink and a pink baby room several times within the two weeks prior to this appointment and had already told me husband that I thought it was a girl. Right away, we had already known her name too, Claire Elizabeth Carland. The name has just come to me one day and it jsut fit. We both loved it and when you look up the meaning of the name "Claire" is means "clearly". Of course it did, it was "clearly" her name. When I spoke to my OBGYN next, she said she wanted to send me to a cancer specialist to look at the result and do a blood test on me to look for a positive CA-125 which could mean I have an elevated chance of having cancer. My blood test came back positive and I met with the cancer specialist. He wanted to remove the cyst as soon as possible and I agreed once we ran over some questions. The cancer specialist, my OBGYN, and the Ultrasound doctor were very scared that I had ovarian cancer. The ultrasound doctor said that I had is a very well known ultrasound doctor in the ultrasound world apparently. The cancer dr. said that when that particular doctor gets scared it is for a good reason and he is right 4 out of 5 times. If he is wrong, he still was right because it was still the best choice at the time although it might not be cancerous at the time. It most likely would end up being something bad still and could lead to worse results or emergency surgery. The cyst was getting close to a size that would start affecting the baby and it was just the best thing to do all around. I agreed but I was scared. I cried on the way home. I cried the next day when I told my family, friends, and co-workers. I cried when the hospital set up my surgery and I cried when I had to cancel my 20 week ultrasound. I tried to reschedule it sooner because something was making me very upset that I wasn't going to see Claire on the ultrasound before the surgery...there just was no time. The day of the surgery, I was nervous but the nurses were amazing..besides making me bleed everywhere when they put my iv in. They let me talk about the baby and let me hear her heart beat before going into surgery. They even all took turns listening to Claire themselves. I was very thankful for that. They said her heartbeat was strong and they called her by her name. After all of the paperwork and prep work was done, I said good bye to my husband and they put medicine in my iv to make me go to sleep. It burned so bad and within a minute, as the nurses were wheeling me down the hall, I had a completely drunk and almost delirious feeling sweep over my body. I remember them wheeling me into the room, I remember partly what the room looked like too. I remember them parking my bed and moving me to a stationary bed in the middle of the room. As they did this, I heard one of them say "the medicine is kicking in" and then a hand with a cup went over my mouth. I heard someone say to count to 100...I think I remember getting to 2. I don't remember anything after that until I woke up. I believe I was out for an hour and a half for the surgery. My first memory of waking up was me thinking "I have to go to the bathroom" and just seeing black. Then my eyes opened a split second later and my next thought was "Oh my God this hurts!". I was confused for a second as to where I was and why. When I remembered, my first words were "Is the baby okay?"and then immediately "ouch ouch ouch" over and over again as I clutched my abdomin until a nurse sitting next to me that i did not see before, stood up and came over. This was within a mintue of me waking up...they were very attentive. She gave me some pain medicine, said the baby was fine, and as she was doing this, I told her I had to go to the bathroom. I kept saying this to her over and over again as she kept replying that I had a catheter in and I can go. It wasn't sinking in what she was saying. I dosed on and off for awhile after figuring out what the nurse was telling me...this was my first catheter experience after all. I kept hearing other people in the room in pain and that made me feel comforted...it wasn't just me in pain. After a little bit, I was wheeled into the maternity ward into my own room. My husband and mother-in-law came to visit me right away. My husband told me that the doctor came and told him that everything was successful but that they had to remove my right ovary, not just the cyst, and the right tube because the cyst had killed my ovary. He said that he was told by the doctor that everyone in the room was relieved when they got to look at the cyst and by looking at it, he does not believe it to be cancer. It was bigger than a softball though and sent to a lab to test it for cancer just in case. My obgyn came in a bit later and discussed it all with me as well. She described the surgery room as a bunch of people who were all thinking that they were going to see this horrible case of ovarian cancer in such a young girl who is 20 weeks pregnant. I didn't even know she was present during the surgery and this shocked me. She is such a busy person and to take time out to just be present for a patient of hers' surgery is amazing to me when she was not the one performing the surgery. She said that it was her baby too and she wanted to be there to make sure they stayed far away from touching her. I was in the hospital overnight and released the next night. I was in a lot of pain and had to push myself to walk and to get up to use the restroom. The pain was horrible and the act of getting up and down from the bed and the toilet was worse. My cut was almost 8 inches long and goes vertically from my belly button all the way down to my pubic region. The nurses and I listened to Claire's heartbeat every time there was a shift change. This was about every 8 hours. This made me feel better. Her heartbeat stayed strong the entire time.