Diagnosis: Endometriosis

For those that don't know, I had surgery this past Monday. Yes, it was actually me this time, not Ben. It was kinda weird having switched places, but we both survived. Just a little background as to why this came about... A little over two years ago I started noticing some pain during certain activities. I went to the doctor here on Zama, and he said it was probably just because I hadn't had a period in a couple months. I think "Ummm, ok..." It wasn't the first time I'd missed a couple periods, but it was a first time for the pain. We wait a few months, still have the pain, go back in and have them put a referral in to go see the OB/GYN at Yokosuka. Takes a few months to get in, but I finally do. In the meantime I've done my own research to find possible reasons for the pain. Over the next year or so, I go in every few months for whatever reasons, but always bring up the fact that I'm still having pain. We talk about the possibility of it being endometriosis, but we can't treat that and still try to get pregnant. We opt to keep trying to get pregnant. Now fast forward to about a month ago. I'm still having pain, and it seems to be getting worse. Not only does it hurt during these certain activities, I have pain during ovulation, I have extreme pain during my period (so bad that the first day or two I can't do anything I hurt so bad), and even pain just at random times. So I set up an appointment with my doctor to talk specifically about this. We talk and we have a "clinical" diagnosis of endometriosis, but it can't be confirmed without surgery. We could treat it with medications and such, but we opt for the surgery. With how much I've been hurting, we were willing to take the risks that go along with surgery. She was open to that option (which really surprised me, as I had one doctor tell me they don't like to do surgery for endometriosis because they don't usually find anything), and she went to see when the next available OR date was. It was July 19th, which we agreed to, and started getting stuff set up. That date was later changed to the 26th, due to a shortage of OR staff. So now it's Monday morning. We get up bright and early (4am to be exact) and get ready to head down to Yokosuka. Surprisingly it only took 45 minutes to get there (it took me 2 hours a couple days earlier). I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. I've never had surgery before. I've been through plenty with Ben, but never any for myself. So there were lots of firsts for me. Like my first IV. The gal who did it was great, even though my veins didn't want to come out and play. She got it the first time, no problems. We did the whole answer the same questions a hundred times. Talked to the doctor, talked to the nurse, talked to the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist was great and explained everything step by step. He didn't give me the versaid as early as Ben would have liked. It's fun talking to him when he gets it and is all loopy, so we wanted to do the same with me. But I didn't get it until right before they took me back. I could feel it working as they wheeled me down the hall though. I don't remember much after that. I remember being in the OR, with my doctor and everyone getting stuff ready, but that only lasted maybe a minute. The next thing I remember is the nurse asking me to open my eyes in the recovery room. That took some effort. I was starting to wake up enough to say I was hurting, what Ben's cell phone number was, and that my feet were cold. After a few more minutes, Dr. Stoker came and told me about the surgery. I remember her saying they had to make a bigger incision in my belly button than they had planned, there were three incisions all together, most of the endometriosis was on the right side, but there was quite a bit of scarring from old adhesions on the left, and I think that's about it. I remember hearing her call and talk to Ben, but I don't remember much of what she told him. And I remember her talking to the recovery room nurse or someone. I also remember asking at one point what time it was. It was about 1040, and I had been in there for about an hour and 20 minutes, which is about how long the surgery took too. They kept me there until a little after 11 because every time I started to fall back asleep my O2 levels dropped real quick. Not that I was having trouble breathing on my own, I just wasn't breathing very deep. So she had to keep reminding me to take deep breaths too. Ben was waiting up in my room when they took me back up. We got me situated in the other bed, Ben went to the pharmacy to get all my meds, and I laid there trying to wake up the rest of the way. I didn't have much pain at that point. I was feeling more lightheaded and dizzy at that point. So we had to wait for that to get better before I could leave, plus the usual go to the bathroom, get up and walk around, and eat/drink without being nauseous. We finally left just before 2. Needless to say, I haven't done much the rest of the week. I spend most my time either in bed or on the couch. The pain hasn't been nearly as bad as I expected it to be. It really only hurts when I get up off the couch or bed and if I spend too much time standing. It's been pretty tolerable without taking the pain meds for the most part. It's going to be a couple months before we can get back to trying to get pregnant. That's mostly to give me time to heal, but I think also because she wasn't able to remove all the endometriosis, we're going to use medication to take the rest down. She was able to remove most of the scars, the stuff on my ovaries and the stuff on my tubes, but there was some on the veins that would have been too risky to burn down. My post-op appointment isn't until the 17th, and we'll talk more about it then. Hopefully this surgery will have helped though and it won't take us much longer to get pregnant. That's what we've got our fingers crossed and are praying for anyway. :)