Teratoma, Greek terminology which roughly translated means ‘monstrous tumor’, and often contains hair, teeth, skin, and sometimes organs. That is what the pathology came back as from the mass removed from my ovary. Or, as I like to call it, my hairy, toothy baby! Funny thing, the very first Ultrasound tech who scanned me-Allison-thought that’s what it was right away. But all of the Radiologists who looked at it never once thought that was what it was!
Anywho-that is not what is important, what IS important is that it was entirely benign! No trace of cancerous cells at all! It took a long time for path to come back-8 days-because of all the different layers of the teratoma, and they tested every single one. Dr. Morgan had to remove my whole right ovary also, because the mass had all but completely overtaken it. He opened up a little over 3/ 4 of my c-section scar, more than he had intended to, but once he saw how bad the mass and right ovary looked-he needed to look around and find my left ovary to make sure it was ok so I would at least be left with one functioning ovary. For those of you who are not medical or grossed out by such stuff we crazy people often discuss over meals as if talking about the weather, I will stop there with the play by play of my surgery! So, I recovered, meanly, I might add, for a whopping 3 hours in the recovery room where I was like a nasty drunk coming off a 5 day bender as I came out of my anesthesia. I called people by totally wrong names-Brian became ‘Brindy’ and ‘Brandon’, and I took every drop of morphine they offered me, only to slur my words and fall asleep sitting straight up holding a cup of broth! Thanks only to my Mom and Sister, Kim, that I never spilled any on me!
I spent that night in the hospital, and went home early the next day feeling like a champ! It was all downhill from there! I spent the next 5-6 days feeling perfectly terrible, living on Ibuprofen 800, and Vicodin. When they called me with the path results, I asked if I should be feeling better-and that I had almost used up all of my pain pills and I was having a hard time deciding each night whether to take 2 Vicodin and drink 1 glass of wine, or take 1 Vicodin and drink 2 glasses of wine! And once I was all out of pain meds, I was gonna need a bottle of wine and 2 shots of whiskey! Dr. Morgan wanted to see me right away saying I should not still be feeling that bad! Lo and behold…..the pain is being caused by an entrapped nerve in my pelvis from the surgery and subsequent inflammation! GREAT! I was supposed to be going back to work this weekend, umm not now! Not to mention I can hardly walk up my steps and get into my bed, so obviously no working out yet either!
Uggh-so frustrating and helpless is how I feel! I can’t lift Ethan out of bed, or into his wheelchair, or into his car seat, so Brian and the kids have to do all of that-which often means Brian gets only a few hours of sleep each night before I have to wake him up to put E in his wheelchair for school each morning! In the meantime, I am taking a high dose anti-inflammatory, and steroids to help with the inflammation and resting, and doing ice and heat, and basically nothing seems to help! The pain is there every day, sometimes worse than others and sometimes with random movements. Like for instance, when I reached up with my right arm to pull the hatch of the van down, I thought I was going to die, or when I reached across my body to pull my seatbelt on, my leg felt as if someone was stabbing a burning hot poker into it! And coughing and sneezing? Well forget me looking halfway normal doing either-I’m like bent over holding my pelvis and leg hoping not to fall down! I see Dr Morgan back next Friday to evaluate whether the nerve is any better, and if not talk about a possible different approach-hopefully not surgery.
I am addressing Christmas cards now, got the house decorated, oh, and we bought a new truck! Almost all of the Christmas presents are purchased, though I’ve not managed to wrap any, but I have managed to hide them from my children. I’ve found that if you put them in the same closet where you keep any cleaning supplies whatsoever, your kids will NEVER find them!
I apologize to all of you for taking so long to get the path results out to everyone, I know people were worried. But it is nice to know that I have a friend who already had my obituary written and ready to send to the local papers when she hadn’t heard from me for a few days and just knew I was planning my course of treatment for my newly found cancer! AND she knows me well enough to know that my obit needed to be very colorful and HAD to include what I died from! Thanks Jody-I love you!
I hope you are all enjoying your holiday season, and have a blessed Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or however you and your family celebrate this time of year. You are all in my thoughts and prayers for a Happy, Healthy New Year!
