Worst Week: Part I

Awhile back Scott's brother, Carl and his wife, Kimbra recommended a TV series to us called Worst Week. We got it on Netflix but somehow ended up with the British version. If you're familiar with British comedy you have an idea what we watched. If you're not familiar with it, there's probably a reason. After discussing it further with C&K, we realized there was also an American version. We thought the British version was humorous, so we tried again on the USA take. We got it in a few weeks before our move in December, and since the series consists of about 15 hour long episodes, it took us a long time to get through it. But it was pretty cute! It's a total Meet the Parents kind of comedy where a guy just can't catch a break with his future in-laws despite his best efforts.

Since Worst Week has been on my mind, I thought I'd share with you mine and Scott's worst week.
It was the week of May 21-27, 2007. Scott and I were in the middle of our IVF (in-vitro fertilization) cycle and it turned out that we were scheduled for the retrieval part on Tuesday morning, May 22nd.

My doctor had told us all about the retrieval procedure, in addition to all my countless hours of beneficial scary online research. I knew I would be knocked out with anesthesia, but Dr. Vaughn also said it would wear off quickly, and that some patients even returned back to work the afternoon after the procedure. Being the over-achiever that I am, I took that to heart, and even told my boss not to worry about all the stuff I was leaving to do because I'd probably be back to work later on Tuesday. He graciously told me to take whatever time I needed.

If you're familiar at all with IVF, you probably know that during the retrieval the doctor will likely retrieve between 5 and 10 eggs from the ovaries. Even in all my research, retrieving 20 eggs was almost unheard of and the most for anyone to expect.

We went in for the retrieval procedure about 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 22nd. After getting all set-up, I was wheeled away to the OR. They gassed me and told me to start counting backwards from 10. I hadn't talked with Dr. Vaughn yet that morning, and I thought it would be rude to already be sleeping when he came into the OR, so I desperately tried to stay awake, but to no avail. I think I only made it to 8 before I passed out.
The next thing I know I'm waking up and feel the worst pain I've ever felt in my abdomen and immediately start trying to pull out an IV, that pulse monitor thing from my thumb, and trying to curl up in the fetal position. Scott loves to tell that story because it's so unlike me. I'm usually so compliant. Scott had to page the nurse as he tried to calm me down. I became somewhat settled, and we all started the conversation about what had taken place.

I was told that Dr. Vaughn retrieved.....wait for it, wait for it....drumroll please.....FIFTY-TWO EGGS from my ovaries. 52! Each egg grows inside a follicle within the ovary, and this means that I was poked with a needle 52 times in order to penetrate through to the follicle to get the egg out. (In a normal cycle, a woman develops one follicle each month and at the point of ovulation, the egg pops out on its own. Since I was being stimulated through daily shots, several follicles were growing at once. And again, I like to think since I'm an over-achiever, my body was trying to see how many we could grow at once, resulting in almost tripling the max number to expect. Way to go, me! And I succeeded at being the most anyone had ever heard of. Even though not all the follicles were "mature," the eggs still needed to be retrieved or they would otherwise turn into cysts = bad news. Just a little IVF101.)

I was like a circus act. Nurses were coming by to meet me, I think so they could brag to the other nurses that they had met "the girl who had 52 eggs removed." I kept waiting for a reporter and photographer from the statesman to come by.

Needless to say, I was not sent away on my way back to work. I was drugged on lots of pain medication and went home to hopefully stay in bed for the rest of my life. The problem with having so many eggs retrieved is that each follicle also contains fluid, which holds the egg. When the egg is ovulated (or retrieved through a needle in my case) the fluid also leaks out. The amount of fluid in just one follicle (or even 5-10) is no big deal, not even noticeable. But since I had 52 follicles bust open, all that fluid was leaking into my ovaries, making them swell, and even spill out into my abdominal cavity. Its actually a condition called Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome, OHSS. And it can be fatal. Fun. Thus all the pain. I was told to drink lots of Gatorade because the electrolytes in it would help my body absorb the fluid faster and cause the swelling to go down.

My sweet husband was forcing Gatorade down my throat all that day and I was trying to be a good patient and oblige. (I hate Gatorade.) I was feeling awful. I slept most of Tuesday. Around 9:00 on Tuesday night, I started panicking because when I tried to lay back I couldn't breathe. It was like something was squeezing my lungs and I couldn't get enough air. We paged Dr. Vaughn and he said it was from the fluid in my abdominal cavity, that when I laid down, it was leveling out into my chest, putting pressure on my lungs. He told us to go to the closest ER just to get a simple bloodtest done. He wanted to look at a blood level to make sure I wasn't getting into too dangerous of an OHSS case. He even called the ER to tell them we were coming and what we needed. (He's so great.)

So we head to the ER prepared to be quickly poked (again) and then sent home and wait to hear the results and further instruction. Wrong. I now know nothing moves quickly in the ER. Even though they knew we were coming, we waited in the waiting room for over an hour. At one point I was sitting in the floor with my head in a gross chair. And people kept flying by us back to be seen. A stupid middle school girl came in with a jammed finger and they took her right back, meanwhile I'm laid out in the waiting room floor, moaning and crying. They said they were waiting to give us a "room." Finally a bed opened up, I think probably around 11:00 pm at this point.

Our ER doctor was yet another guy who takes his job way too seriously. He immediately starts me on IV fluids. And then starts asking me all these prodding questions about "this procedure." It was clear the guy had NO CLUE about anything IVF related. He was acting like I had some shady surgery performed by a high school kid in a back alley somewhere. I informed him exactly what was going on, and I could tell he didn't believe me. He made me give him the doctor's name who had performed the so-called surgery so he could page him and talk with him directly. I was so embarrassed, but unfortunately, it would only get worse. He also told me since I was having breathing problems, they needed to perform an x-ray. I told him I didn't think it was necessary because I didn't have any obstruction in my lungs and knew it was just a result of the retrieval. Dude, I'm just here for a blootest. He replied with something along these lines: Mam, you came in with breathing problems and its my job to treat you in the manner I deem appropriate. I need to get a chest x-ray to see what's going on.

So in came a nurse to prep me for my chest x-ray. This may or may not include an awkward encounter with the male nurse when he told me I couldn't wear my bra for the x-ray but when I tried to take it off  it kept getting tangled up in the IV wires I was connected to. Hey, just be impressed I was actually wearing one. That being said, we successfully got a flawless x-ray image. While we're still waiting on the bloodtest results to come back, Mr. ER reviews the x-ray and then says he needs to talk with Dr. Vaughn again to go over the results of the x-ray. It's now 1:30 in the morning. Please, no. But oh yes, he pages Dr. Vaughn. Again.

When we finally get the bloodtest results back, things didn't look terribly dangerous so they could release me. But, they also somehow found out that my potassium level was a little low, so they wouldn't release me until I drank that nasty potassium drink. As if that's what was causing all this. I told them I would eat a banana at home, but they didn't buy it. We didn't leave the hospital until about 3:00 in the morning. With orders for more Gatorade and "exercise" (i.e. trying to just sit up on my own) to help my body absorb the fluid. And don't forget, I'm still in crazy pain this whole time, not to mention embarrassed that this random guy paged Dr. Vaughn two times in the middle of the night on my behalf. It was seriously, seriously brutal.

So that just gets us through to Wednesday morning. In an effort to not make this the longest post ever, I'll recap the rest of our worst week tomorrow. It gets better. And it's not all about fertility stuff!