Thursday, March 3, 2011

Pregnancy prognosis - written about 25 February

On Friday morning I leap out of bed at 6am to swallow down a quick breakfast and then go back to bed for the 30 minute progesterone medication wait, now known in our household as tea and toast (despite Matthew never having prepared my tea and toast!)

My pelvic scan isn't until 10am, and I have to drink a litre of water from 8.30 - 9.00am. But before this I need to duck into town to get my blood test. Matt has taken the day off from work to drive me around and really, just in case I do need to go into surgery.

We run into town at 7.30am. Matt grabs a quick coffee while I race in for the blood test. We get home in time for me to start drinking my litre of water. It takes about half an hour and I need to pee....but I can't!! By the time we leave here at 9.20 to get to the hospital and find a park, I am in agony. I think I am going to pee my pants. It takes us a good five minutes to find the women's diagnostic centre. I tell the receptionist about my 1 litre consumption and that I don't think I can hold it. She tells me I can go to the loo, count to 10 and then stop. Oh my!  That was the best 10 seconds I've ever spent on the loo. I was impressed with my restraint and just how much relief I got from the short pee.

When I get back to the counter Matt and the receptionist have figured out my appointment is with the regular Queensland Xray centre. We find our way there and wait. By 10.15 I was busting again. What can I do? I go to the new receptionist and ask permission to pee again! This time I've got a 5 second count limit.

Finally I get into the ultra sound room where the sonographer does an internal and external scan. As he is scanning he isn't saying too much. Eventually he finds the spot that lead to the referral. He explains it does look suspect and starts pushing and prodding in the area and it hurts! I get dressed and the sonographer tells me the result it isn't certain. He is going to have a radiographer take a look at the pictures and the report will be with my doctor in an hour or so.

Matt and I wait for images to be ready and head home to wait for a call from the doctor with the verdict. We figure we've got time to kill so we stop and rent a couple of videos to try and take our mind off everything. Once home we settle into the couch. It was only about 15 minutes into the movie when the phone rang. The doctor already has the report. He asks if the sonographer gave me the result, I explain he was sitting on the fence. The doctor tells me the report says I've got a highly suspect 2cm growth in the tube, which they believe in that clinical setting is an ectopic pregnancy.

Yesterday the doctor had explained to me that ectopic pregnancies can be life threatening. If they rupture they can cause you to bleed out into your stomach. Needless to say, the doctor is keen to prevent any of this and asks me to be at the hospital and checked in by 2pm for immediate surgery. I need to pack an overnight bag as it is likely that I'll be in hospital overnight to make sure I'm okay after surgery.

We decide it's time for us to ring our family and let them all know. I start getting a bag packed. I have to ring work and let them know that I will out of the office for a week or more. It is like a whirlwind and we are back in the car and headed back to the hospital.

I'm sad. Matt's sad too. But I'm also glad it's over. No more uncertainty.

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