ER Visit
The "Timeline" post indicated that I'd be making a separate post just to detail my ER visit. Well, here it is. Settle in and get cozy, cuz this adventure was action-packed. Also, it is not advised to read this if you're squeamish. It's not like it's the latest installation in the SAW franchise, but I still had to put a trigger warning for my more delicate friends (ahem ahem, Jeff).
Upon arrival at the ER, I saw about 10 people waiting ahead of me. The intake nurse asked me some general questions and told me to take a seat in the waiting room. I explained that I had called the Nurse Advice line and they told me to go straight there. She said there were no beds available because of all the ambulance patients.
Funny how that worked out; I was told to call an ambulance but didn't want to be dramatic. Yet here I am, pain at a 9 out of 10, being told to wait so they could see a whole slew of other people first, not one of which showed any outward signs of illness. I mean, I guess every single one of them could have had some type of internal issue requiring emergency care, but I also know that our Emergency Rooms are abused by non-emergencies all the time.
I sat in the waiting room crying for TWO HOURS (thanks, Kaiser) and grew more hostile as I watched people waltz into the ER, say they had chest pain, and be shown immediately to a room. I half-joked to Jeff that I should call an ambulance from the waiting room, tell them my symptoms, and then also mention a vague pain in my chest, just to skip the line. I am not a line skipper! But when a nurse tells you to call 911 because your appendix may have burst, you take it seriously! Ok I admit, I'm salty as hell about the whole ER situation.
After waiting for what seemed like 9 years, I was finally taken back to a bed and hooked up to an IV. The doctor was in within moments, did a quick exam, and told me it was probably appendicitis and ordered a CT scan.
But first, pain meds!
I was loaded up with Dilaudid and for the first time in almost 2 full days, I wasn't in excruciating pain. Praize da lordt 🙌
As I marveled at how pretty the ceiling tiles looked in my newly discovered state of nirvana, a nurse came in to wheel me over to the CT scan. (She might not have been a nurse. She could've been a tech of some sort. But for ease of writing, anyone who works at the hospital and doesn't introduce themselves as "Doctor" will be referred to as a nurse.)
The CT scan was non-eventful. She injected a fluid into my IV and told me that it would feel warm and make it feel like I peed my pants. I'm so glad she warned me. She sat there asking "do you feel anything yet?" I replied "no, not really, I guess it's a little warm on my arm, but nothing too out of the ordi - OH THERE IT IS"
The CT machine also is a bit of a control freak. Some Stephen-Hawking-esque robot voice bosses you around and tells you when to breathe. "Breath in. Breath out. Stop breathing." NOBODY TELLS ME WHAT TO DO!!! And then the nurse (not actually a nurse?) was like "please follow the prompts from the machine." Ugh. Ok fine.
CT results came back and Dr. Dilaudid told me I had a ton of fluid in my abdomen. He knew I had an existing ovarian cyst and he suspected that it may have been what ruptured, based on the CT scan. He ordered an ultrasound and I was once again whisked away.
The ultrasound tech/nurse/whatever was adorable. I could tell she was trying not to alarm me, but I had seen enough ultrasounds to know that we were looking at a disaster.
"Ok, left ovary looks good, great. Aaaaaand then, the right ovary is... it seems like it might be obscured.... there's a lot of... fluid? Ummmm.... it's probably just... I can't find it."
The screen should have had some identifiable dark areas and maybe even something vaguely reminiscent of shapes, but it just looked like white noise on a TV.
Was Eleven trying to communicate with me from the Upside Down? Was Samara about to crawl through and leave my distorted face in a closet?? Unfortunately, this was not an episode of Stranger Things, there is no Jonathan, Steve or Bob to save me. And fortunately, The Ring is so old that most people probably didn't even get that reference. It looked like white noise because that's basically the human version of SpaghettiO's exploding in the microwave. I'll let you think that one through on your own.
Back in my Luxury Suite in the ER, a surgeon came down to talk to me about the ultrasound findings. Dr. G told me I was going to have to have surgery to remove the cyst and aspirate the fluid out. WHAT?? I can't have surprise surgery! What about my high-paying, powerful career (lol)??? What about feeding my animals? What about my concert tickets and vacations and OMG PANIC. But there was no getting around it.
We were going to put it off a few days because it was inconvenient timing for me and I didn't want to be forced into this surprise surgery. Dr. G said she could prescribe me some pain meds, but that I really needed to get it done within the next few days, and she recommended doing it ASAP. After discussing it, we gave her the OK to schedule surgery that night. Might as well get it out of the way, right? The Operating Room had an opening at 10PM, so she booked me. Jeff headed out to run home and feed the animals and get some clothes since this was obviously going to be an all-night excursion.
Right after he left, Dr. G came in for a second visit. This is a little graphic, so skip this part if you're squeamish.
The labs they were running on my blood every 30 minutes showed that I was losing blood at an alarming rate. They had to operate immediately. "Where's your husband??" she asked. That was the first time I got a little emotional because I realized just how out of my control all this was. I called Jeff as a team of nurses (not nurses?) came in to unhook my IV and move all my belongings under my bed. I told him to go take care of the animals because there was no way he'd make it back in time to see me - I was already being wheeled through the ER. "I'll be there when you wake up" he promised.
"It's ok," I thought to myself, "I'm strong! A few short weeks off work, skip the gym for a bit... I can do this!"
They aspirated a liter of blood from my abdominal cavity and removed the remnants of the tumor. When I woke up, they told me that they tried to save as much of the right ovary as they could in order to help with fertility. So my left ovary was still intact, right ovary was about 50%. Dr. G said they were going to send everything off to pathology, which is routine.
I was sent home, and had a post-op appointment scheduled for about a month out. We thought this was the end of the saga. Jeff even said "well, on the plus side, now you won't have to go in every 3 months to measure the size of the cyst!" That was it!!
Narrator: That was not "it". On the next episode, watch Tara struggle to gain a firm grasp on reality when she gets an unexpected diagnosis. Will she be able to charm her way out of this predicament? Find out next time!
Spoiler alert: The answer is no.
As a reminder, I showed up to the ER after having a day and a half of gnarly abdominal pain and under the advice of the Kaiser Nurse phone line. I decided against the ambulance because it seemed like overkill.
Upon arrival at the ER, I saw about 10 people waiting ahead of me. The intake nurse asked me some general questions and told me to take a seat in the waiting room. I explained that I had called the Nurse Advice line and they told me to go straight there. She said there were no beds available because of all the ambulance patients.
Funny how that worked out; I was told to call an ambulance but didn't want to be dramatic. Yet here I am, pain at a 9 out of 10, being told to wait so they could see a whole slew of other people first, not one of which showed any outward signs of illness. I mean, I guess every single one of them could have had some type of internal issue requiring emergency care, but I also know that our Emergency Rooms are abused by non-emergencies all the time.
I sat in the waiting room crying for TWO HOURS (thanks, Kaiser) and grew more hostile as I watched people waltz into the ER, say they had chest pain, and be shown immediately to a room. I half-joked to Jeff that I should call an ambulance from the waiting room, tell them my symptoms, and then also mention a vague pain in my chest, just to skip the line. I am not a line skipper! But when a nurse tells you to call 911 because your appendix may have burst, you take it seriously! Ok I admit, I'm salty as hell about the whole ER situation.
After waiting for what seemed like 9 years, I was finally taken back to a bed and hooked up to an IV. The doctor was in within moments, did a quick exam, and told me it was probably appendicitis and ordered a CT scan.
But first, pain meds!
I was loaded up with Dilaudid and for the first time in almost 2 full days, I wasn't in excruciating pain. Praize da lordt 🙌
As I marveled at how pretty the ceiling tiles looked in my newly discovered state of nirvana, a nurse came in to wheel me over to the CT scan. (She might not have been a nurse. She could've been a tech of some sort. But for ease of writing, anyone who works at the hospital and doesn't introduce themselves as "Doctor" will be referred to as a nurse.)
The CT scan was non-eventful. She injected a fluid into my IV and told me that it would feel warm and make it feel like I peed my pants. I'm so glad she warned me. She sat there asking "do you feel anything yet?" I replied "no, not really, I guess it's a little warm on my arm, but nothing too out of the ordi - OH THERE IT IS"
The CT machine also is a bit of a control freak. Some Stephen-Hawking-esque robot voice bosses you around and tells you when to breathe. "Breath in. Breath out. Stop breathing." NOBODY TELLS ME WHAT TO DO!!! And then the nurse (not actually a nurse?) was like "please follow the prompts from the machine." Ugh. Ok fine.
CT results came back and Dr. Dilaudid told me I had a ton of fluid in my abdomen. He knew I had an existing ovarian cyst and he suspected that it may have been what ruptured, based on the CT scan. He ordered an ultrasound and I was once again whisked away.
The ultrasound tech/nurse/whatever was adorable. I could tell she was trying not to alarm me, but I had seen enough ultrasounds to know that we were looking at a disaster.
"Ok, left ovary looks good, great. Aaaaaand then, the right ovary is... it seems like it might be obscured.... there's a lot of... fluid? Ummmm.... it's probably just... I can't find it."
The screen should have had some identifiable dark areas and maybe even something vaguely reminiscent of shapes, but it just looked like white noise on a TV.
Was Eleven trying to communicate with me from the Upside Down? Was Samara about to crawl through and leave my distorted face in a closet?? Unfortunately, this was not an episode of Stranger Things, there is no Jonathan, Steve or Bob to save me. And fortunately, The Ring is so old that most people probably didn't even get that reference. It looked like white noise because that's basically the human version of SpaghettiO's exploding in the microwave. I'll let you think that one through on your own.
Back in my Luxury Suite in the ER, a surgeon came down to talk to me about the ultrasound findings. Dr. G told me I was going to have to have surgery to remove the cyst and aspirate the fluid out. WHAT?? I can't have surprise surgery! What about my high-paying, powerful career (lol)??? What about feeding my animals? What about my concert tickets and vacations and OMG PANIC. But there was no getting around it.
We were going to put it off a few days because it was inconvenient timing for me and I didn't want to be forced into this surprise surgery. Dr. G said she could prescribe me some pain meds, but that I really needed to get it done within the next few days, and she recommended doing it ASAP. After discussing it, we gave her the OK to schedule surgery that night. Might as well get it out of the way, right? The Operating Room had an opening at 10PM, so she booked me. Jeff headed out to run home and feed the animals and get some clothes since this was obviously going to be an all-night excursion.
Right after he left, Dr. G came in for a second visit. This is a little graphic, so skip this part if you're squeamish.
The labs they were running on my blood every 30 minutes showed that I was losing blood at an alarming rate. They had to operate immediately. "Where's your husband??" she asked. That was the first time I got a little emotional because I realized just how out of my control all this was. I called Jeff as a team of nurses (not nurses?) came in to unhook my IV and move all my belongings under my bed. I told him to go take care of the animals because there was no way he'd make it back in time to see me - I was already being wheeled through the ER. "I'll be there when you wake up" he promised.
"It's ok," I thought to myself, "I'm strong! A few short weeks off work, skip the gym for a bit... I can do this!"
They aspirated a liter of blood from my abdominal cavity and removed the remnants of the tumor. When I woke up, they told me that they tried to save as much of the right ovary as they could in order to help with fertility. So my left ovary was still intact, right ovary was about 50%. Dr. G said they were going to send everything off to pathology, which is routine.
I was sent home, and had a post-op appointment scheduled for about a month out. We thought this was the end of the saga. Jeff even said "well, on the plus side, now you won't have to go in every 3 months to measure the size of the cyst!" That was it!!
Narrator: That was not "it". On the next episode, watch Tara struggle to gain a firm grasp on reality when she gets an unexpected diagnosis. Will she be able to charm her way out of this predicament? Find out next time!
Spoiler alert: The answer is no.
Excellent writing Tara. Thank you for taking us all on this difficult journey with you.
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