13 words I never expected to hear (Part 1)

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from Dr. S.   I hadn't talked to her since the day of my surgery so I was excited to tell her how good I was feeling, that I was already weaning myself off the pain meds, and was even up and about doing a few things.

My biggest complaint wasn't even related to my uterus being taken out or even the incision in my stomach.  Instead it was the gas pain.  I had a laparoscopy 7 years ago, also because of endometriosis, so I knew that during surgery they fill your abdomen with gas.  Well, they call it "gas" but it's basically just air.  Even so, when they fill your belly so full that you look 6 months pregnant, it's not very much fun.  They do this for two reasons: so they can gently and safely move nearby organs out of the way, and so they have more space to see what they're doing and perform the procedure.  Expelling the gas was more painful and taking longer that I remembered.  Dr. S reassured me this was totally common and nothing to be worried about.

Then she said 13 words I never expected to hear.

But first, a little context ...

Dr. K had already called with his portion of the pathology results.  As anticipated, the mass in my upper abdomen was a build up of endometrial tissue.  While this was good news, it was also very unusual.  By definition the endometrium is the innermost layer (the lining) of the uterus.  So the fact that I had an endometrial mass so high up in abdomen, which was no where near my uterus, was very strange.

Let alone that it was significantly bigger than normal!

Most endometrial lesions are 1-3 millimeters, which is about the thickness of a quarter turned on its side.

By comparison, the mass from my abdomen was a little over 3 centimeters, which is the size of that same quarter plus half of another quarter laying flat.

It wasn't until Dr. K resected the mass that he realized it was also encased in an even larger hematoma.  So not only did I had severe endometriosis, which was miserable enough on its own.  But I also had this abnormally large ball of endometrial tissue that was covered like wrapping paper with a blood clot.  (A blood clot that Dr. K aptly described as "the consistency of warm Nutella".  YUCK!)

Although both the location and size of the mass were out of the norm, it was a relief to know the pathology was negative.

That relief, however, would be short lived.

To be continued ...