My girl

Today is a day I am so conscious of my love for and luck to have my beautiful (and increasingly defiant, independent) blessed little girl.  We had a close call with a potential car accident a few months ago, that ended tragically for some others.  It was a very disturbing experience then, and in the past few days I've had to revisit it as a witness in the legal proceedings surrounding the event.  It is no less disturbing now, and if I have to think about it, I choose today to think about how precious life is, and how precious my girl is.  Today, she is all I think about.

Post Op Halfway Point

So I realized as I was filling my pill box the other night that 1) it is both weird and amusing that I have a pill box, and 2) I'm 2 weeks into this round of hormones, so half way through the planned time with the intrauterine balloon.  That means I only have 2 weeks left until it gets removed.  Not that there is anything for me to do right now, but at sometimes all I can do is hurry up and wait.  For some reason though this time the continued weeks of doing "nothing" feel more like I'm doing something when I'm filling up those little boxes.  I don't know if its just breaking up the time into smaller intervals, but each week goes by much faster than waiting out the month.  I did have a post op office visit after one week, and things seemed as good as can be expected at that point.  It was so different to actually see a cavity there on the US screen this time, but is way to early to know if it will be functional on so many levels.  Questions still remain if I'm developing any/enough functional lining or if the tubes themselves are open.  I'll have the balloon removed in 2 weeks, then a few more studies to check those things and monitor for any redevelopment of scar tissue with office hysteroscopies.  Sometimes it seems daunting, how involved the process is, how many questions are still left, especially considering how many things we've done already.  But I've gotten pretty good at this one step at a time thing.  The other good news (depending on your point of view) is that the hormone levels have to be built up in my system because I'm back to crying every day over the most ridiculous things.  I'm not even sad half the time it happens, or at least I don't think so, just crying.  Sometimes I'll start crying, and then laugh at how I have nothing to cry about.  The husband loves it, if you can imagine.  I'm also constantly nauseated, which apparently is another side effect of the high doses of hormones, and maybe the antibiotics.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, more observing out loud if you will.  I fully realize all of this is part of the process, and am more than willing to cry all day every day, and be 100 times more nauseated if it would help our outcomes.  Its just a little surreal to cry through 3 episodes of Glee, feel like throwing up before, during and after a meal, and then wake up in the middle of the night starving with eyes so puffy they are almost swollen shut.  Those around me are probably just as awed by the upswings - the giddiness that comes either from the estrogen itself - or the comparative result of just not being nauseous and depressed at that moment.  So who knows which me you'll run into next, but stick around and you might get to share the whole spectrum.  Not to worry, I'm sure it won't take that long. 

Surgery - Take 2 - part 2

This is the post I'm supposed to recount what happened with surgery day.  However I'm still a little groggy and basically slept the day away yesterday.  The procedure was a little longer and the anesthetic a little different this time around - but those are good things because it means we made some progress.  Most of what I know now is from what our doctor said to my husband while I was still in recovery - but the look on his face when I woke up enough to ask questions said enough.  I can't explain it exactly, but last time he had a sadness, a fear there - this time there wasn't.  It is too early to know everything we'd like to, but at this point we do know this:  I apparently actually had 2 small areas of normal tissue/cavity buried beneath a mountain of "concrete-like" scar tissue.  But our doctor was able to recreate a uterine cavity and get the balloon to stay in place.  He apparently had to use a number of different instruments to do so, and was surprised at how dense the adhesions were so it took a little longer, but was relatively satisfied at the end.  So that is a victory, and more accomplished than last attempt with our previous doctor.  I have follow up next week, and in the meantime have to monitor closely for any fever or infection.  Since the scarring was so severe he hopes to leave the balloon in place for 4 weeks, so antibiotics everyday for that.  Then there are the fun hormones to help everything heal as best it can, and hopefully the endometrium to grow.  Considering the doses this time around are even higher than before I'm sure to be an emotional mess again.  I cried every day for no reason before, so the count down to that is on.  A small price to pay though I realize, it is more a warning for others than a complaint from myself!  

As I've mentioned before on this blog - there are really 2 goals of this surgery.  One is relieving the obstruction to reduce endometriosis and cancer risks.  I feel good about that outcome, and the ongoing office visits will hopefully confirm that.  The other is to restore our fertility, and there is a lot more to do before knowing if that will be possible.  I've said it before, even with an open cavity and a restored endometrial lining the actual live birth rate for patients with severe Asherman's is not great.  Miscarriages are frequent, as are preterm births with a lot of complications if one does get pregnant.

For now though we aren't dwelling on the downers, I'm restarting my prenatal vitamins and Metformin in case we do get the go ahead, which is as optimistic as I get.  We are taking the time to laugh at my groggy comments, even joke about having to buy a pill organizer ("think they'll card you for that to make sure you are old enough?") and at how different the "lady products" are since the last time I bought any.  To much info you might say?  Well, that comes with the story.  So laugh along with us, and keep your fingers crossed.  It is all we can do for now while we wait.   

Surgery - Take 2 - part 1

Once we had everything in line to schedule surgery I so was disappointed yet again.  I called with my medical approvals, heart testing, clearance from insurance - all of it in place, to learn the first opening wasn't until the end of July - after all the waiting we've done so far, the end of July felt like forever away!  Lucky for us there was a cancellation, so I was actually able to be scheduled this week.  I had intended to update a post the night before surgery - my mind was going a mile a minute, I couldn't sleep.  It was a combination of excitement and dread, and a lot of nervousness.   Of needing to temper any hope with a healthy dash of realism.  I've been called a pessimist on occasion, to which I respond that I'm just a realist - hope for the best, plan for the worst - that may sound depressing, and certainly not any fun, but I suppose it functions somewhat as a shield, a safety net if you will.  It's a lot gentler of a drop if you're already halfway there.  Somehow I eventually went to bed, slept light, woke up early, got the baby to daycare and checked in Preop for Surgery - take 2.