2am ER Visit

Before I get to the ER visit I want to give you a little background from the few weeks leading up to it.
December 17- We were traveling to Utah for Randy's first appointment. We stopped and ate Jimmy Johns for dinner. I took over driving. I ended up super bloated- so bloated I felt like I was going to puke and I was in extreme pain. So we switched drivers. We debated that night about going to the dr. We eventually decided to wait til morning and if I was still in pain then we'd go. By morning most of the pain was gone.

Over the next few weeks I had this sort of thing happen again and again though nowhere near as bad as the first time. I just took tums because I got really bad heartburn as well. Those seemed to help a little.

Fast forward to last Saturday. By this point, I was having pain just about every time I ate something, and sometimes even without eating anything. This particular Saturday the pain didn't seem to go away except when I was walking. Sunday I attempted church but left early because I was feeling nauseous and dizzy. So I went home and slept all day. Literally. All day. Monday morning, I felt better than the day before but I still had pain. By the time we were going to bed that night I was in so much pain I couldn't sleep.

Now I know it is not good to have this much pain. The only thing that seemed to help were tums and passing gas. My bowel movements were still regular so I knew I didn't have a bowel obstruction causing this. I hate going to doctors, so I debated for a long time Monday night about whether it would be worth it to even go. Then I started to freak myself out, maybe it's been my appendix this whole time, or its my gall bladder. Maybe I have something else really wrong. It was the middle of the night, I was in pain, I was tired, what would you expect? Finally about 2 am I made my decision. I woke up Randy and we went to the ER.

When we got there the ER lady at the desk asked us what had brought us in. So we told her abdominal pain. She jumped up immediately and filled out our paperwork for us. If I hadn't been tired and in pain this may have freaked me out more but luckily it didn't. She got us back quickly and they immediately began testing and asking questions. They took blood and gave me an IV with fluids. After they got the IV hooked up they gave me some kind of pain medicine. It made me loopy.

To describe what I mean by loopy. I thought I sounded strange to myself. Everything I answered it sounded like I answered with a gleeful/giggly voice. Almost like I wasn't taking it seriously. Which I assure you I was. Randy told me the next day that I actually didn't sound like that and that it actually just took me a few seconds longer than normal to answer.

After they took my blood they got the CT ready and took me to get one done. That was weird. The contrast made me feel strangely warm in weird places. Like my nose, throat, and it made me feel like if wet my pants (I had not).

After the CT they took me back and they had me get them a urine sample.

I'm making this sound like each of these happened in sequence but in actuality there was probably a half hour or more in between each test.

So after waiting a couple hours we finally got some results. Blood tests came back clean and so did the urine test. Now we were waiting for the CT results. When they came back the doctor told me that my appendix was fine (they didn't say anything about gall bladder at least not that I remember) and that the CT had shown that I have an ovarian cyst.

An ovarian cyst? That's what's been causing me all this pain? I thought they only hurt when they ruptured. I guess I was wrong. Since I'm in so much pain already I'm worried for how much pain I'll be in if/when it does rupture. I'm hoping that it doesn't and that it just goes away. A girl can hope right? Anyways, they prescribed me two different types of pain medication. And sent us home with instructions to follow up with a primary Doctor and to return to the ER if I start vomiting, get a fever, have vaginal bleeding, or a couple other things I can't remember off the top of my head.

It's been a couple of days now and I still have pain. I stopped taking the stronger pain med because it made me so dizzy. I've just been taking the less strong medication and that seems to keep the pain at bay. But I can only take that one for so long. I guess we'll see what my primary Doctor says. I will keep you updated.

Til next time!
Becca

PS- Randy's surgery is this next week so please keep him in your prayers and that everything will go as planned in the surgery. Thank you!