So off we went to the IVF surgical center on Monday at 630am. I was the only ER that day. My RE showed up at 730am and I was mildly panicking because we were at the 36 hour mark. She told me to relax, we had plenty of time. Chris commented to her, "Welcome to my world". I know, I'm a freak! But this is way too important to me!
I woke up in recovery and had some pain and then noticed a LOT of pain on my right side. I was told that my right ovary was high and back and the RE had a lot of difficulty trying to retrieve all the eggs. Some were left behind as she couldn't get to them. She also had to manipulate my abdomen quite a bit and got what she could. They kept giving me extra pain meds and then some Versed for the pain. They call the RE again and she told them to keep me there, she wanted to see me and do an u/s before I left. The pain would go away breifly and then come back with a vengeance. They did a scan and saw fluid around the ovary which is expected but they didn't see any blood. My RE told me it was a difficult ER and she wasn't surprised I had more pain on the right. We managed to get 12 eggs total. Not the stellar 20-something I was hoping for.
We got home around 12p and I was teary because we had missed out on some eggs and felt that 12 wasn't such a great number after having 24 eggs the last cycle. Chris went off to work and I made some toast. As I was eating, I suddenly have a wave of nausea and thought it was from the Percocet I had been given before I left. I went to bed and took a nap. I woke up 2 hours later with the worst abdominal pain from my pelvis all the way to my diaphragm and up into my right shoulder. I knew something wasn't right. I got up to go to the bathroom thinking that was why I had so much pain and after being upright for 2 minutes, I started to feel whoozy and vomited. I had to lie down. My heart was racing. I could feel it pounding in my chest. Being a nurse, I decided to stand up again and the same thing happened after about 2 minutes. So I whipped out my BP cuff and decided to check my own orthostatic bp's. Lying wasn't too bad, 116/70. But I could not get a reading sitting or standing. I wasn't sure how low the BP's could read on my machine. I called the RE's office and the on-call doc called me back right away. She told me to get to the hospital soon and she would meet me there. I called Chris at work and he must have sped because he was home within 25 minutes.
We got to hospital at 6pm with me lying down in the front seat with the yack bucket in front of me. We went to the Women's Triage Unit at the hospital and luckily not the regular Emergency Room. I got right in to an exam room and the RE appeared. After describing what I was feeling she was pretty certain I was bleeing from my ovary and now they needed to figure out if it had stopped or if I was still bleeding. She had called my RE as well who told her about the difficulty she had earlier that morning. I got another IV and some fluids. They decided to admit me overnight and wanted to do an ultrasound. I finally got a room and was officially admitted at 930pm. The pain medication they were given me wasn't doing much good. I could barely move in the bed without enduring excruciating pain and every trip to the bathroom was met with the overwhelming desire to hurl.
I finally get called to u/s around 1030pm. The tech looked like he was 16yo. I guess the RE had orderd a transvaginal u/s which I am quite used to so I didn't care how they did it, I just wanted it done so we knew what was wrong and could fix it. This poor tech must have been mortified about having to do an internal one. He kept telling me we would do an abdominal one first and let the u/s MD decide. I had a ton of fluid throughout my abdomen and my right ovary was 3 times its normal size which isn't shocking after hyperstimming for IVF. They didn't see any blood on the u/s and decided I did not need an internal scan. I then waitied for about an hour to get back to my room. There was only one orderly on and he was having a busy night.
I get back to my room a little after 12am and learn I will be getting a new roomate. I finally was able to lie on my left side but couldn't fall asleep. Someone came in to draw blood. My new screaming roomate arrives around 2am and then an OBGYN resident who was looking after me came to see me to tell me they wanted to do a CT scan of my belly because they aren't sure the u/s was telling them everything they wanted to see since my blood work showed I was still bleeding. She started talking about taking me to to surgery to do an exploratory lap and at that point I wasn't getting anymore sleep. I could not imagine the pain I was having now combined with the discomfort a surgical procedure would bring on top of it. Death was not sounding so bad at this moment.
I went for my CT scan at 330am. The orderly took me down and stayed with me this time. Getting on and off these exam tables was hell. The CT scan was quick and I was back in my room. I asked for something for nausea and apparently managed to fall asleep for about an hour before the nurse got an order for more medication. I met another OBGYN at the crack of dawn who wouldn't tell me what was on my CT scan and said they were waiting for an "official report". I didn't feel any worse but I wasn't feeling much better. They drew blood again and finally the sun was coming up. I was dead tired.
Finally, the RE who admitted me came to see me and told me I had a huge clot around my right ovary and I had bled into my abdomen plus there was lots of fluid from being hyperstimmed. The good news was no surgery. Whew. I was relieved to hear that. My blood count had dropped a little more from the last check but not enough to make them rush me to the OR to poke around. I was told I would be wiped out and in some pain for a while but I should feel better each day. They decided I could go home later that day if I could eat and if I felt up to it. I made up my mind that moment that I was going home regardless. I couldn't sleep in the hospital, the bed was hot and I so wanted my own bed! I managed to eat something without getting sick and I made a point to sit upright as much as possible. My heart was till racing but I felt better overall. My RE called me in my room and told me she was worried about me. She woke up and immediately was looking in the computer to see what was on my u/s and CT scan and my labs. She told me she wanted to see me before I left and came around lunch time to visit. There was also 2 other OBGYN's who checked on me too. I must say that the concern and compassion this practice showed was unbelievable. I even got a call from my favorite IVF nurse who my RE called to tell her what had happened. I learned that of the 12 eggs retrieved, the lab was able to ICSI 11 of them and we had 6 perfect looking embryo's. It's a good thing we did ICSI.
I finally left around 430pm. I could barely walk but made it to the car with a wheelchair. I was so overtired last night I couldn't sleep. I ended up taking a sleeping pill which worked like a charm and I slept 12 hours.
Today I am still pretty sore but do feel a tad better than yesterday. I am drinking tons of fluids as instructed and have all sorts of pain pills but I think the Tylenol is working best.
Tomorrow morning I am going to the office for an u/s and my RE will be there. We will decide to go ahead with the transfer tom'w at 11am or freeze the embryo's for another time. I'm feeling like I want to have the transfer. I hate to chance losing them if they don't handle the thawing process well. After all this hell, it would be nice to get something out of this. Plus we will have quite a story to tell the little one in the future.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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