“I know the Lord will never give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.” – Mother Theresa
Since this past Friday’s surgery I have to admit I had been feeling so much better. I finally felt as though the worst was behind us and that I was going to be able to resume everything I’ve been eager to get back to doing. In fact, I had been feeling so well that today was the first day I planned to be back on campus to get caught up with grading and to return to class to teach for the first time in about 2 1/2 weeks. I was pumped, excited, and thrilled to finally feel as though I was returning to a sense of normalcy. I actually did make it on campus for a few minutes today.
Only a few minutes after arriving on campus I had a pretty traumatizing experience dealing with more complications from surgery and ended up leaving campus quickly after bleeding pretty excessively. It frightened me and I instantly called the doctor. This afternoon I was seen by the same doctor who performed my surgery on Friday and underwent two ultrasounds. Both ultrasounds determined that I was still bleeding and that tissue still remained inside of me. As you all heard in my last blog post, doctor’s informed me that a third surgery is not common. The doctor’s who have been practicing for 25-30+ years in the practice had never performed three D&C procedures on one person for the same pregnancy. So when I arrived at the doctor’s office we were all stumped as to what in the world is going on with me. The doctor said he believed it could potentially be remaining pregnancy tissue, fibroids, or polyps. The ultrasound also showed that my uterus is slightly different shaped, rather than being the shape of a pear it is more like the shape of a heart which they believe made it tougher for the tissue to the be extracted. The doctor gave me the choice to again take the medicine as I did last week to see if the tissue would pass on it’s own but he said from what he saw in the ultrasound that he felt it was attached the uterine wall and that’d it’d be best to go through a third D&C, even more so because of the extent I had been bleeding earlier in the day. They feared more risks of infection and continued excessive bleeding. The doctor also informed me that they would use a scope during surgery to take pictures to help the doctor’s find out what was going on inside. So we headed back to the hospital late this afternoon for a third surgery.
I have to admit this has been a very nervous experience for Jason and I. I suddenly feel as though I’m some sort of medical anomaly where the doctor’s are still unsure of the cause of all that has happened. I was quite frightened to go through surgery a third time – I seem to have the worst luck lately and I just feared what could go wrong.
The nurses at Winnie Palmer have all come to know me well. Several of them recognized me and after they learned of my experiences they were so supportive and caring. They helped ease my fears through these traumatic times. I think they were equally as shocked that it was my third surgery in just two weeks.
I made it through surgery safely. I’m still in quite a bit of discomfort. The doctor believes she was able to get the remaining tissue but at this point there’s uncertainty if the tissue is from the pregnancy or possibly polyps. I imagine in a week or two we may learn more answers. Based on the things we’ve learned today there will likely be more exploratory procedures moving forward to find out exactly what is going on within me that for some reason it’s taken this long to learn about. They believe that the shape of my uterus may have had an impact previous pregnancies and though they can’t say for sure it’s the cause of the miscarriages it potentially could be the reason for miscarrying three times.
Hopefully I haven’t completely overwhelmed you all with too much personal news. At this point I realize I have soooooo many of you who have come to care and are truly concerned about me and my family and in just the few short hours I have been home from surgery I have had many of you continually questioning me so for me this will hopefully help address all the concerns you all have. Thank you all again for all the support and care you’ve shown my family over the last few weeks. It’s amazing to see so many of you caring during such challenging moments in our life.
by Amanda Kern
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