I had been sick the previous week and thought I was just fighting a cold. But after only a day of feeling better, I started bloating and feeling funky again. Over the next 5 days, it continued to get worse. I was having constant pain in my abdomen. I was swelling in my abdomen, and I was waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat (so gross). I kept putting off calling the doctor, but William finally convinced me to go to the urgent care when I couldn’t take the pain any longer.
Urgent care was a quick visit. They had me pee in a cup to see if I was pregnant (I wasn’t, big surprise), and told me to go to the ER, so we drove across town to check in and wait.
Seriously, if you’ve never been to the ER the wait is real.
When we were finally seen they reviewed my symptoms and ordered a CT scan. I guess they didn’t like something in that scan so they did an ultrasound and took a bunch of measurements and then sent me for another CT with contrast to get a better image. A while later the doctor came in and told me that I had a 13cm mass on my left ovary and it looked like ovarian cancer. I cried. I had a feeling after all the symptoms, but it hit hard. I looked at William and asked him if he was ready to ride this rodeo again. And I knew the answer, he was…but I pretty much started shutting down.
They also said my abdomen was full of fluid, and this is why I was swelling up to the point that it was becoming difficult to breathe. All that fluid was pressing up against my diaphragm and smashing all my organs. The doctor wanted to drain the fluid in my abdomen and attempted a ‘paracentesis’. After poking a hole in my abdomen, she wasn’t able to get any fluid to flow, so she stopped and told us we would need to come back and have this done with radiology.
Before we left the ER the doctor said again that this looks like ovarian cancer and gave us some recommendations on who to call.
Driving home we discussed how we would tell our kids. Micah was at home and we would have to tell him right away. Julia was on a missions trip in Cambodia and I didn’t want to hurt her with this news.
I don’t want to do this again.
-Tamika
