Thursday, July 14, 2011

And then I almost died...

So at the ripe old age of 38 I have...hip problems. Inorite!? I didn't expect this for at least 40 more years or... never.

But so it is. And it's derailed my hot body/fitness plans enough so that I went to the doctor to make sure I wouldn't need to be the youngest hip replacement candidate ever.

Things were going along swimmingly for a while, meaning I was sitting by myself waiting for the doctor, when he reappeared to examine my x-ray. Initially, he told me everything looked fine. Then I saw it. It looked like a golfball right in the middle of my pelvis.

"What's that?" I asked in a shaky voice thinking it's a tumor and I'd be dead in 10 minutes

"Hmm,are you constipated? Sometimes stool balls can look like that"

"Uh no, I'm uh very regular" I said partially amused but mostly embarassed

"When's the last time you saw your GYN? You really should have that looked at"

And that's when I knew death was imminent. In that fraction of a second I'd diagnosed myself with everything from a malignant tumor to,well,everything unmentionable and horrible.

I managed to tell him that I see my OB-regularly and wondered why they wouldn't have caught something so gargantuan.

"I can't say...but"

Then it hit me "Well I have fibroids, but my OB's office checks them regularly since I have a family history of fibroids and related surgeries"

"Could one of them be calcified?"

I quickly remembered that I'd been told shortly after I had the twins that one of them had calcified and thus was no longer in danger of growing and causing problems. Upon sharing that news with the Doc, he clicked in the corner on the radiologist's notes and read "patient has 2cm calcified fibroid"

"2 cm. Why does it look so large?"

And then Doc fuckup measures the golfball and confirms it's indeed 2cm.

"Yep, I geuss that's what it is then"

Cue me, mouth open, ready to box "Um we could have just read the notes and done this before and saved me the worry" (nervous chuckle)

"Yeah, I guess we could have" (authentic chuckle from Dr Fuckup)

It was at that moment that I pulled the razor blade from my hair and promptly cut him. Ok, not really. I really just wiped the sweat from my brow and breathed a sigh of relief.

But, if there was ever a moment I wanted to roll gangster style and do something like that it certainly would have been then.

5 comments:

Virtualsprite said...

Ugh... been there. "Oh... wait.... you had surgery recently? There were complications? Well... it's not appendicitis after all. Good thing we caught that before we scheduled surgery, eh?" Reason number two I usually carry a pocket knife in my purse now.

Sorry about the hip problems. Hope you feel better soon!

Gilsner said...

So glad you're okay! But you totally should've drop-kicked Dr. F. Or, at the very least, sent him a bill for helping him with his (lack of) diagnosis. Good lord!

kkryno said...

A-ma-zing! How many times have I heard similar stories of not a clue of patient history lately? My daughter has been trying to get a medical situation resolved since November of last year. The medical "professionals" have all been pretty condecending with the exception of her nurse practioner. She finally has an appointment with yet another gyno on Monday. So much for health care in the greatest nation on earth!

I hope all goes well with you. Surgery is never easy! :)

Stacey said...

I'm alive and kicking...still have a bum hip but I'm working through it. Thanks y'all!

Meredith said...

Appreciaate you blogging this