About the Doctor

Again, I am about to HORRIBLY overshare. So if you aren't interested, do not read. I wish blogger had a "jump" where I could break the entry so this all doesn't appear on the front page. But then again, I did state in my first entry in this series that it is my intent to share so that others going through similar experiences won't feel as alone as I did. So... go away to somewhere safe if you don't wish to read.

I went to see the OBGYN on Thursday to follow up on the events of 2 weeks ago. The doctor I chose to see was part of the team that kept me from having Geoffrey prematurely 14 or so years ago. I had not seen an OBGYN because I get all my lady doctorin' and checkups from my family practitioner's office. He has a great staff, and I've never felt the need to go see anyone else. Nothing has ever been of issue, until now.

So it's been a while since I have seen this doctor. He asked me to recount the details of Geoff's delivery, and afterwards I asked him "do you remember me and that pregnancy?"

He honestly said, "Oh dear... I've seen a lot of women in my time."

Truth. I'm sure it is.

He is an Irishman with a sick and twisted sense of humor. When I was on bed rest in the hospital, I'd hear him coming down the hall doing his rounds, heading for my room, singing old Irish standards like "Wild Rover" and he'd get to my room and say "Any fine young Irish lass needs sung to on a daily basis."

Those two weeks were the only two weeks of my life where this fine young Irish lass was sung to on a daily basis. He'd also tell me naughty limericks.

This may not be on your list of criteria for a good doctor, but it is on mine. And I told him that I may not have made a lasting impression on him, but he did on me, and so that's why I chose to go back to him. He appreciated that.

So 14 or so years later, I'm on my back looking at the ceiling with a nurse named Denise by my side. He says to me as he's about to insert a 10 inch long piece of plastic to my body, "This will hurt, and you will blame Denise."

It hurt, and I did. "Aw ferchrissakes Denise!" I yelled "That freaking hurts!"

He laughed and said "This one is quick, she learns fast..." and then he chuckled "I remember you now."

The scary part of the procedure, which was to take a sample from my uterus to see if I had polyps or growths or cancer or aliens or whatever growing in my body, was when he said "Well, that's never happened before..."

"What do you mean?" I asked, and Denise leaned down to look.

"Well, your uterus is extremely large. Either that, or I just put this thing right through the top of it and perforated it, because it just kept going and going and going..."

"That would be a bad thing, if you perforated my uterus... wouldn't it?"

"Yes, and I think you'd know it because you'd kick me in the face and you wouldn't be blaming Denise for the pain you'd be in. So I don't think I perforated your uterus." He stated he did get what he needed to run the test, and told me that he wanted to do an ultrasound to see what the heck was up with the size. We have an appointment on May 16th to do so. I know it seems far far away, but that's the state of things I guess in OBGYN land.

He said that he couldn't SEE anything, no fibroids, no visible issues. He gave me a prescription for a pill that would stop my period if the events of 2 weeks ago happen 2 weeks from now. "Do not wait to fill this. Fill it today, and have it on hand. AND, should you need this, call me and do not hesitate. This is your get out of jail free card."

That sounded good to me.

He said that the amount of bleeding I experienced could be directly related to the size of the uterus. Obviously, if it is huge, it has more blood. The clots concerned him, and the inability to stop bleeding concerned him. They took blood samples to test to see if I am having any sort of blood clotting problems, and to check different hormone levels.

He called last night to say there was evidence of benign polyps on the sample that he took, and that is okay. Benign is good, and they're to be expected in a way. The ultrasound will tell us more. And at that point, we can discuss treatment, whether it is the pill, an IUD, an ablation procedure, or something more drastic. He said that "If I had one of these" (meaning a uterus) "I'd opt for the IUD. But that's just me. And what I know about stuff. But we'll come to a full conclusion after all the tests and evidence is in."

And that, dear friends, is the update about that.