The low down down there

In light of my hazy knowledge about the exact proceedings of today's visit, gf and I decided that I should refrain from eating this morning (though coffee, of course, was mandatory) which made me all the more ornery this morning. Because of her impending procedure, she hadn't eaten either and was suffering waves of nausea and stomach cramps.

Still, we managed to be snuggly in the waiting room as we used it to its best purpose.

Assuming that things were on a first-come, first-served basis, and veterans of the NYC real estate market, we decided our best strategy would be to be half an hour early, which gave us exactly 40 minutes of sitting in the empty waiting room, contemplating our mistake.

Actually, I contemplated while gf mangled her Spanish lesson (one small patch of land in her vast world of self-improvement).

In any case, Dr. K, the Big Man, called us in, sat us down. On his desk were my HSG slides juxtaposed ominously with a sheaf of papers, the top page a diagram called, The Normal Uterus. Presumably, the rest of the pages were dedicated to the various abnormalities of deviant uteri, one of which would inevitably document the exact nature of my uterus's deviance.

Dr. K, after introducing himself, grabbed the Normal Uterus.

"You see, this?" he asked, in his rumbly Greek accent? "This is what we like to see in a uterus, this lovely triangle-type shape." Then he gestured to my HSG. "Now here..."

At this point he took a pencil and started scribbling on the Normal Uterus, a big, black wedge of pencil hatch marks, bisecting the 'lovely triangle'.

"Here we have something that looks, maybe, a little different...Too bad these are terrible films, or you could see better."

I seized that moment to tell him the abbreviated version of the nightmare that Fag, M.D. had been. He seemed unphased, pronouncing "at least 20% of them-- radiologists-- terrible."

He went on to explain that there was no way of telling from the films whether it was bicornuate or septate, and that he would do another ultrasound to see if they could see. If that didn't work, a laparoscopy.

Then we'd decide what to do from there.

Back in the stirrups again (humming)... The nurse gave the abridged instructions-- "waste down, drape." And five minutes later Dr. K came in to probe my hoo ha with the now familiar ultrasonic dil.do, pointing out vague blobular shapes in the static. I know this is technology, but it seems an awful lot like reading tea leaves.

"Ah yes, I see here..." (gesturing vaguely) "Hmmm.... yes. I see a surgery in your future!"

Back in the office, dignity shaky but still intact, I got the story: it's a septate uterus, 99% sure. Which is good news in the sense that it is fixable (and insurance will even cover it, so they say). Bad news in the sense that this bearing child thing s still apparently on me. Gf's uterus is off the hook for now.

What we do from here:

Details are a bit boring, but the septum is essentially an anvil of tissue separating the two halves of my single (yay) uterus, and on Oct 10 Dr. K will perform a "hysteroscopic resection of the septum with laparoscopy"-- in a nutshell, he'll go in through my hoo-ha and snip away that little anvil of tissue while Dr. B watches from above with a laparoscope inserted through my belly button (note to self: remove ring) to ensure that Dr. K doesn't snip right through the top of my uterus.

After that, I have to have an IVP--intravenous pyelogram, because whatever embryonic developmental process that went awry to form this anvil in my uterus can also affect my kidneys and other minute, delicate structures in the urogenital tract. For the IVP they shoot more radio-opaque dye in me, but instead of in my cervix, this goes through the circulatory system, so the can trace my kidney function. I wonder if I have to register with Combover again.

Whew. Sigh of boredom relief.

Now, onto ministering pre-surgical support to gf who is currently moaning in my bed with my three cats and two dogs in attendance.

Above: the view of a normal (not mine!) uterus through a laparoscope.


*UPDATE: Gf's procedure went well, aside from the three hours (that more than 1/3000th of a year) in the waiting room. She is now happily passed out in my bed after a plate of fresh spinach linguine with alfredo sauce and fresh warm garlic bread, plus 1/2 a glass of forbidden red wine.