Monday, July 09, 2007

Slippety Doo Dah


So, the White Spot.

Beyond that being the name of my first punk album, I have an update. Of sorts.

To recap: in my last few dildo-cam appointments (oh the joy of that being plural! Can you get frequent flier points or something, some kind of coffee club card for those? A dozen ultrasounds, and your next one is free! They could even use some sperm-shaped hole puncher, just for continuity.), the doctor has paused with the oh-so-reassuring sound of, "Huh." Not precisely what you want to hear when assessing the health of the uteral areas.

Last year, this time, I was waiting to have a fibroid removed. They'd tried to do it the non-invasive way--well, they're still sending cutting implements up my happy chute, so it's still pretty damn invasive--but that was ultimately unsuccessful, so we'd gone the surgical route. Wheee! A caesarian for Phil, my fibroid.

So was this white spot a new growth, or unfinished bidness from the Phil-ectomy, or something entirely harmless? The dildo-cam would no longer suffice, it was time for the big guns: radioactive elements.

For the past month, I've been pretty mellow about all of it because, hell, The White Spot was there. If it was harmless, it was still harmless, if it was screwing up our chances of growing a baby, it was already doing that, and besides, ain't nothing fertilizing up in those parts anyway. The past few days, though: not so much. The sort of overwhelming feeling of This Is It was sneaking up on me. It's some horrid growth, left over from my miscarriage. It was The Son of Phil, back for a sequel, and I'd need to schedule surgury for August. Again. It was cancer and I'd need to lose the entire Happy Fun Uterus.

That is to say, I was slightly pessimistic.

I had an appointment for an HSG: a hystero schmemememe gram. Hystero: uterus. Shmemememe: something about scoping or sono or something. Whatever. The upshot (heh) works something like this.

Have you ever cleaned out a bottle or some long-necked thing where you can't get a sponge the entire way in? So you swish soapy water around in the bottom? We did that, only substitute "uterus" and "radioactive dye". Fill it up till it hurts, make me roll around on a table that moves like an animatronic Disney creation from hell, and then shoot the xray machine at me when the correct anatomy is under the mutation-inducing lens. It's like America's Next Top Model of My Uterus. "Okay, now we need a 3/4 angle... shoot that! Great. Okay, now roll the other way, shift the table up a little, Great! Shoot that."

And it's oh so much less fun than it sounds. I know, right? I'm just hoping I don't get eliminated.

Of course, my geeky side can't help but be slightly awed by the images that show up. You kknow those drawings we all saw in middle school, how the ovaries are attached to the uterus? Picture that as, say, a water slide. An egg's last little fun as it descends into the uterus. The drawings in middle school all have the water slide that looks like this:
See the dude at the top? He's the egg, about to slide into the pool of my uterus.

Stick with me here, this weird analogy will pay off. Okay, maybe, I make no promises, but stick with me anyway.

Well, as we swish the dye around my insides (fun! fun! fun!) I got to see as it snakes up through my fallopian tubes. This is good, since it means my eggs, when the pills and the shots make them do their thing, actually have someplace to go and a way to get there, and that's part of the point of this particularly fun test. But what strikes me is those waterslides. They're no direct shot, they're really more like this:
That's one crazy ride those eggs are taking before settling into life of babyhood. No wonder most don't make it.

And about that White Spot? No idea. Didn't find any homonculous-type Head of Satan staring at me from the 3-D images, so that's a plus. Experts get to pore over the negatives and tell me if we're screwed or what. I meet with my Doogie Howser doctor tomorrow (another punch on my dildo card! eeeee!) and I suppose we'll find out. My ovaries feel almost ready to explode out of my abdomen right now (thank you, Senor Clomid!) and if we're going to do another IUI this cycle, it'll be this week, so yeah.

Like everything about this whole damn shit: it's all wait and see.

But I really think now I want to go to the water park.

4 comments:

Kimberly said...

yeah for water slides!!

oh, not that sort of post, was it. Well, good luck with Senor Clomid and all of his merry friends.

love you!

Anonymous said...

You could put a slip & slide in your back yard and wait for the sprinklers to come on....

Happy said...

Hmm, we're in the beginning stages of DI...I hope you don't mind if I follow your story! I too will be having a test where they shoot dye up the fallopian tube in my near future. Heres to hoping that I have no scarring. It's amazing how my life has changed and I'm thinking about such weird stuff.

kari said...

Absolutely, trace. Just remember: take the ibuprofen they give you ahead of time, try to be zen, and then when they're showing you the pictures as they take them (if they don't do that, ask if they an angle the machine so you can see too) just sort of appreciate the mystery.