Valentine's Day

After four days of growing stomach pain, sleepless nights and sitting in the fetal position, I was checked into the hospital here on Valentine's Day.  The pain had started small and I thought they were just the product of indigestion.  Towards the third and fourth day I was getting suspicious that the pain might be related to a fibroid tumor I knew I had.  Before leaving the States, I had the fibroid checked and it came in at about 5-6 centimeters.  My doctor recommended doing nothing if it wasn't causing me any pain, since many women have these and they are not a real major concern unless they have symptoms, and I had none.  

When the doctor came to the house on Valentines Day I told them about this fibroid as best I could, they didn't speak English, and they carted Scott and I up in the ambulance and took us to the surgeon.  After a brutal afternoon that I'm sure I will write more about later they checked me into the hospital confirming that, yes, this myoma, as they are called here, was the source of the pain and that it would need to be removed.  They gave me a bed and send Scott and my other visitors home.  For the next two days I recovered from the stomach pain of the previous days and they confirmed the need for an operation, the fibroid now showing up on the ultrasound as around 11 centimeters in diameter.  

For various reasons, also to be explained in a further post, I was switched to a new hospital with more English speaking doctors and employees.  There I underwent many of the same procedures and tests and then Monday was set for the operation day.  Late Monday evening I was taken into the operating room under some distress, Scott was with me the whole day waiting, we had originally been told the operation would be at 10am.  Long day.

The operation went well according to all.  They told me after that the fibroid was indeed 12 centimeters in diameter and three times the size of my uterus.  They ended up doing a laprotomy, an operation not unlike a c-section, but instead of a baby, they took out a huge mass of blood vessels and fibrous tissue.  They incision was about 6 inches long, just below my "bikini line".  To me it looks disgusting and foreign but others, including my doctors and nurses, tell me it looks great and that it will heal well.  I was in the hospital from Monday to Friday evening recovering, getting the occasional pain injection and being pushed out of my bed to hobble around the department.  

They sent me home without much information and no pain medications of any kind, thank goodness we brought some Advil.  I am doing better at home, not having people speaking to me in Russian all the time and struggling to understand anything, and also having Scott with me more often, the visiting hours were killing me, even if they were very loose at the second hospital.  

I look forward to a long recovery, I know that these things take time to heal, but I think all will be well. My school has been very supportive and many of my coworkers were the ones encouraging me to go to the hospital in the first place, since I was terrified to go.  

Ok, those are the basics.  I will post more details about my hospital stay, my injury and recovery, and anything else you want to know.  Leave me a comment if you have some specific questions and I will try to answer them in the next post or two.  

Thanks for all the support in the form of visits, meals, snacks, prayers, kind notes and decor to cheer up the hospital room, translation, calls, texts, rides and so much more.  It has made a big difference in this difficult situation.