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Thursday

A Doctor's Visit I Couldn't Avoid

I detest going to the doctor. It is an experience that I normally avoid at all costs, unless I feel that I am potentially knocking on death's door. Typically, I just drink a little whiskey, altering the mixture for the symptoms. I have rarely been let down by its effectiveness. As some of you know, a couple days after Christmas, I spent a few hours in the emergency room to find out I had a ruptured ovarian cyst. They told me there was really nothing they could do for me except give me Lortabs and send me home (I don't take medicine unless absolutely necessary so these never got taken). I followed up with a new OB/GYN a week later and was told that I probably have endometriosis and I would need to have surgery (an exploratory laparoscopy) to confirm the diagnosis and to see how bad the cyst was, but my pain was considered not severe enough to send me directly to surgery that day (because I hadn't taken any pain pills), but they offered me some more pain pills, which I obviously refused. So I was referred to an abdominal pain specialist that I had to wait a month to see (and was told to just take a pain pill and deal with the pain- a lot of whiskey was consumed in the month-long waiting time to ease the pain). Yesterday, after a month of impatiently waiting, I finally got to see the surgeon/abdominal pain specialist. I was so nervous about the visit that I did everything but finalize my will beforehand. After lots of questions and a thorough exam, it was determined that I did have a cyst. It ruptured and that is the end of the cyst story. I probably do have endometriosis, but not a severe enough case to warrant surgery at this point (again determined by the amount of pain and lack of pain pills consumed), and also that the majority of my pain is being caused by muscle spasms of my pelvic floor muscles (who knew?!). For this, it was recommended that I take frequent hot baths (nothing like some prescribed me time!) and I am also being sent to physical therapy...If any of  you have experience in this type of physical therapy, please share those experiences with me. The doc described it as both learning a series of exercises so that I would be able to combat the spasm when it occurred and also an internal massage which frankly creeps me out.

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