The Queen's Rambles

I know how to have a great evening of family fun and frolic.

Step one: Feel like utter shit.

Step two: Realize you have a fever and you are having side pain that ended up knocking you out just two weeks ago.

Step three: Decide to go to the ER.

If you know me at all, you know I am not an ER type of person. I suffer. Not in silence, but without medical intervention. Deciding to go to the ER felt really dumb since we’d have to drag along a four week old baby and a four year old squirrel. What if I was just imagining it? What if I wasn’t on the borders of excruciating pain?

I had one smart thought before we left and gave the babysitter a call. We were able to dump Erik off for a couple of hours, so at least that helped somewhat.

Our local town has an ER center that is relatively new and unused. We didn’t even have time to read a page in our books until we were called back to triage and shown to a room. The doctor arrived relatively quickly as well. If my symptoms hadn’t been mysterious we probably would have been home within 45 minutes.

Nothing can be that simple with a trip to the ER, though. My symptoms were mysterious. The pain was no where near my uterus, which I suspected but my OB didn’t care about two weeks ago since she’s an OB and only knows about utes. The theory is the antibiotics she gave me for an infected incision site partially knocked out a much stronger infection, thus masking the real problem. The doctor was concerned because the pain was in an area that doesn’t contain much but the colon, so he suggest a CT scan.

I guess other people know about CT scans, but I have been very lucky in my life and have never had the need for one before. I was unfamiliar with the process, even though I was an avid ER fan in the early 90s. The main problem? It took for-freakin’-ever. First I had to drink two huge glasses of apple juice mixed with contrast. Then I had to wait 2 hours for the contrast to go into my bowels (I can’t believe I just said bowels). The test took about five minutes, but then we had to wait another 45 minutes while someone read the results.

While this was going on the nurse, doctor and radiologist were all trying to figure out if I was allowed to nurse or not. We heard several different opinions, most of them being that I needed to pump and dump for at least 12 hours. I hate pumping. I would not have a breastfed child if I had to pump at work. I’ve pumped twice since she’s been born, bringing my stored milk up to a whopping 8 ounces, meaning Mike had to go on a mission to buy formula. Do you have any idea how expensive formula is? Holy shit! That stuff must be crusted with gold and stored in diamond vials!

The last person I talked to, the actual radiologist, said I didn’t need to pump and dump. The most recent study by the big radiologist organization said the contrast doesn’t transfer to the mammaries. You have no idea how thrilling it is to stand in a tiny hospital gown, swollen boobies swinging in the breeze, while a young good looking guy talks about your mammaries. I’m just glad my postpartum pad held up because leaving a trail of blood everywhere would have been the icing on the cake.

Results show that I have a dermoid ovarian cyst (sounds fantastic! “Dermoid cyst of the ovary : A bizarre tumor, usually benign, in the ovary that typically contains a diversity of tissues including hair, teeth, bone, thyroid, etc.”) but that was not my immediate problem. I should call the doctor first thing Monday morning to do something about that, but in the mean time I seem to have a kidney infection so I’m taking antibiotics to deal with that.

I hope this is the last thing that happens for awhile. I haven’t felt good since my 35th birthday, 14 months ago. Granted, a lot of that unwellness was pregnancy related and that was a choice, but I am really tired of being tired and in pain. I suppose I’ll have to recover from another surgery with this cyst and then maybe I can be all well. Pretty please?

To make the night even better, Elsa was up till 1, then again from 3-5. Whoo-hoo! Who needs sleep when you’ve got an infection and a cyst full of teeth and hair in your ovary? I’m not even going to think about the “usually benign” comment in the description.