The cyst that wasn't
A friend of mine was recently diagnosed as having a small ovarian cyst. I think it's an effect I have on people. At my 6-week postpartum visit after delivering Isaac, my O.B. told me I had a cyst in my left ovary. A couple weeks after that, a girlfriend of mine from Seattle was diagnosed with the same thing in the same ovary. Cysts for everybody!
When my O.B. found mine, she told me it was very small and nothing to worry about, but that I should have it rechecked when I went for my annual exam the next year, you know, just to make sure it wasn't growing. Don't you love it when doctor's tell you they've found something abnormal, but "it's nothing to worry about"? Oh, you know, your body's just malfunctioning, but whatevs.
Of course I worried about it and the ovarian cancer it was surely developing into. I worried about how my ovary would grow into this Zombie Ovary that would start eating itself and have to be beheaded. I worried that Dada and I might not be able to have any more babies because of it. I worried myself sick for about a month, and then, in typical airheaded Claire fashion, I found other things to worry about, like my baby, and forgot about my cyst.
I managed to be responsible enough to remember it when I went for my annual exam last May with my regular family practitioner. Try as she might, though, she said she couldn't feel anything. She ordered me an ultrasound to take a more official look. You know what kind of ultrasound I mean, too. The "special" ultrasound.
My ultrasound was the next week, and was performed by an old dude O.B. I must say that I do love watching my internal organs on TV. It turns me into a bit of a med student wannabe and the questions just fall out of my mouth. I try to warn the techs that I want to hear about everything they see and most of them roll their eyes me and go back to pointing and clicking. Not this guy. He showed me my ovaries with all their glistening holes, and said that he couldn't see a trace of anything that looked like an ovarian cyst, but that both of my ovaries measured at the largest end of normal, and that my eggs were just huge. He wasn't really sure what to make of it, and sounded a little worried.
I explained to him that, over the past two years, I had used my body to cook and then feed a baby, and had only stopped the feeding part two months ago. I wondered, could my oversized ovaries be explained by all the luscious hormones raging through my body because of all that baby-related work? He seemed visibly relieved to hear it. "That's quite possible," he said. He thought that all that time spent without ovulating was probably leading to many pent-up and slightly oversized eggs just aching to pop outta there. "Are you and your husband trying to conceive?" he asked. "Well, actually, yes." "Well, it looks like you're in great shape to do it. Your ovaries are raring to go."
Two weeks later I peed on a stick and found out I was pregnant with Jacob. It's pretty neat, if you think about it -- on ultrasound TV, I probably saw the egg that became my second baby.
When my O.B. found mine, she told me it was very small and nothing to worry about, but that I should have it rechecked when I went for my annual exam the next year, you know, just to make sure it wasn't growing. Don't you love it when doctor's tell you they've found something abnormal, but "it's nothing to worry about"? Oh, you know, your body's just malfunctioning, but whatevs.
Of course I worried about it and the ovarian cancer it was surely developing into. I worried about how my ovary would grow into this Zombie Ovary that would start eating itself and have to be beheaded. I worried that Dada and I might not be able to have any more babies because of it. I worried myself sick for about a month, and then, in typical airheaded Claire fashion, I found other things to worry about, like my baby, and forgot about my cyst.
I managed to be responsible enough to remember it when I went for my annual exam last May with my regular family practitioner. Try as she might, though, she said she couldn't feel anything. She ordered me an ultrasound to take a more official look. You know what kind of ultrasound I mean, too. The "special" ultrasound.
My ultrasound was the next week, and was performed by an old dude O.B. I must say that I do love watching my internal organs on TV. It turns me into a bit of a med student wannabe and the questions just fall out of my mouth. I try to warn the techs that I want to hear about everything they see and most of them roll their eyes me and go back to pointing and clicking. Not this guy. He showed me my ovaries with all their glistening holes, and said that he couldn't see a trace of anything that looked like an ovarian cyst, but that both of my ovaries measured at the largest end of normal, and that my eggs were just huge. He wasn't really sure what to make of it, and sounded a little worried.
I explained to him that, over the past two years, I had used my body to cook and then feed a baby, and had only stopped the feeding part two months ago. I wondered, could my oversized ovaries be explained by all the luscious hormones raging through my body because of all that baby-related work? He seemed visibly relieved to hear it. "That's quite possible," he said. He thought that all that time spent without ovulating was probably leading to many pent-up and slightly oversized eggs just aching to pop outta there. "Are you and your husband trying to conceive?" he asked. "Well, actually, yes." "Well, it looks like you're in great shape to do it. Your ovaries are raring to go."
Two weeks later I peed on a stick and found out I was pregnant with Jacob. It's pretty neat, if you think about it -- on ultrasound TV, I probably saw the egg that became my second baby.
posted by Claire at 10:37 PM
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