10 Years Ago This Week

While I’m “celebrating” my 10 year high school reunion this weekend, I also have another anniversary this week. Ten years ago, I had my left ovary removed in emergency surgery. While I have no way of proving that this has caused my infertility, I do feel like its removal did spark a chain reaction over the next ten years that has brought me to this point.

I always get a little nervous this time of year. Thanksgiving is by far one of my favorite holidays (next to Passover, which may as well be Jewish Thanksgiving) and so I’ve always been conflicted as the holiday approaches. I love me some dry turkey and cranberry wine, but I’m always reminded of the tiny scars on my belly: 2 half-inch incisions just at the waistband line of my underwear, one on the right, one on the left, and a singular tiny scar inside my belly button. Even 10 years later, I’m still amazed that both an internal organ and a tumor was removed somehow via these tiny exit points.

I don’t remember that particular Thanksgiving, but I remember the day after. I had gone out to lunch with my group of girlfriends from high school: we had just survived the first half of our first college semester and we were eager to see each other. I went to Chili’s and got queso dip. It was delicious but I had wicked indigestion afterward. That evening I went bowling with Larry (then boyfriend), and my sister and my brother-in-law (then fiance). I bowled an 11. Larry was wearing this blue sweater reminiscent of Dr. Huxtable. I hated that sweater. I remember having pretty bad stomach cramps by the end of the night and generally feeling like poo. The severe pain started sometime in the middle of the night, followed by fever and chills. I went to the ER. They told me I was having severe menstrual cramps, gave me morphine and sent me home.

When the morphine wore off, I blacked out from the pain. And when I woke up, I did nothing but scream in my bed. I begged my mom to make the pain stop.

My dad was out of the country at the time and my mom was frantic. She called Larry’s mom, a nurse. I made a second trip to the ER that Sunday. I remember being taken by stretcher out of our house because I couldn’t walk. The EMT’s name who held my hand during the ride was named Kathy. I’ll never forget asking her name and thanking her through the tears. “I’m just doing my job,” she told me.

I remember having to use a bedpan at some point in front of both my mom and my future mother-in-law, and being so embarrassed. They gave me Phenergan and I slept and slept and slept. Somehow I was at my GYN’s office, seeing a doctor I don’t normally see. “Exploratory surgery, with possible removal of the ovary” I overheard. More sleeping. It was nighttime now and I was being wheeled down a hospital corridor. Larry was there and wearing that ugly blue sweater again (hadn’t you already gone back to college?) and told me he loved me before we were separated by swinging doors. Everything got fuzzy, muffled, quiet, dark and then:

Beeping. The sounds of oxygen machines. My neck and shoulders hurt like hell and my mouth is parched, my lips cracked and chapped. The room is blue and the lights are too bright. There’s an old man groaning in the bed next to me. I can’t move. I try to speak but only choke on my words, my tongue swollen and dry. I feel like there is a blur of nurses around me, all ignoring me. Somehow I manage to croak out the word, “help.” Someone responds. “Where am I? What happened?”

“You’re in the hospital. You’re in surgical recovery. We’re going to take you to your room in about 20 minutes.”

“Can I have some water? My throat hurts.”

“That’s from the breathing tube. You can’t have water, only ice chips.”

“Can I have some pain medication? My neck feels like it’s on fire.”

“That’s from the gas from your surgery. It’ll go away over time. We’ll get you some meds before we take you to your room.” And as promised, the meds made their way into my veins via my IV. More sleep.

I woke up later, my bed flanked by my mom, Larry, my sister, Larry’s mom, and the surgeon. I was in my room. My blond-haired doctor informed me that the surgery was a success. “We found a tumor the size of a small orange,” she said. “I can’t believe you waited this long to be seen; I can’t imagine the pain you must have felt as it killed your ovary. You were extremely lucky. Any longer and your ovary would have gone septic.”

In my semi-coherent state, I managed to ask, “Will I still be able to have children?”

My doctor smiled. “Of course.”

. . .

Physically, I healed just fine. The tumor was biopsied just in case and it was simply a large ovarian cyst that had torqued around my ovary and killed it. (Just FYI… don’t ever Google Image Search ovarian torsion. For reals.) I took a medical leave for a few weeks to recover and completed what assignments I could at home. Over time, the emotional toll began to show. I felt broken. Even though my fertility was assured, I still struggled with knowing I had only one ovary. I worried all the time, even though children were far from a priority at that point in my life.

That’s why I found participating in The Vagina Monologues so healing in college. I became empowered about my body, about my lady parts, and found myself acutely tuned to my body’s workings. I started paying more attention to the signs my body was telling me. It was that close attention that finally brought me into the doctor’s office last year. It was that empowerment that allowed me to stand up for myself: this is not stress. Something is wrong.

And all because of some bad queso dip. Well… maybe not. But I didn’t eat queso dip for quite some time following (the way I didn’t eat spaghetti for years as it was the last thing I ate before my appendix was removed).

I can’t believe this was 10 years ago. I’ve healed in many ways from this one event, but there’s more healing yet to be found as I cope with this latest reproductive adventure.