The Ultrasound That Made My Heart Sink to My Uterus

On the last blog I left off with just having had a Colonoscopy…the most intrusive procedure there is, or at least I thought that at the time.  But that procedure is for another day and another blog.

So I was on a high fiber diet, which was supposed to help shoot everything I eat right through me.  As you can imagine, that is not quite how it worked, which is basically the theme of every doctor appointment or procedure I have had this year.  Every time I ate something my stomach would expand…swell…bloat…get gigantic.  Call it whatever you want, but every time I ate, my stomach would get huge.  At first it was the equivalent to, let’s say, a little baby bump.  But it wasn’t long until even eating a salad would cause my stomach to appear 8 to 9 months pregnant.  I know it sounds like I am exaggerating, but I am actually not.  Sometime this week I will take a before and after picture of eating a salad so you can get an idea of what I am talking about.  Not only would my stomach become huge, but it would become very painful and I would end up vomiting.  In fact this happened so much, I started taking pregnancy tests because I could not imagine why my stomach was continuing to grow, knowing I was not consuming enough food to do so.  I mean, I knew it was almost impossible for me to be pregnant!  Apparently, based on science you have to have intercourse to become pregnant (excluding obvious procedures) and I certainly was not doing that.  But I figured, hey, it happened to the Virgin Mary and let’s face it; we all know I am pretty much as pure as she is!

 After returning to see the Ass Man (Gastroenterologist), who I never thought I would have to see again (I guess I had lost my college touch), he ordered an ultrasound.  Everybody knows these aren’t to big of deal to have done.  You pretty much just lay there and get covered in goo, which all females have experienced in some form or another, whether you admit it or not.  Plus, I had to have an ultrasound when I was about 15 years old.  The technician at the time was shaking the KY Jelly, without the lid on, and squirted me in the eye.  No, this is not a joke!  Totally true story!  Getting hit in the eye with KY Jelly before I was even sexually active definitely foreshadowed my relationships and dating life, I just didn’t realize it at that time.  I figured as long as that didn’t have again, everything was smooth sailing.

I scheduled the ultrasound about 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning so that I could get it over with and not have to take time off of work.  So I get to the appointment and at the very beginning the ultrasound technician tells me that she cannot disclose any findings and that it will all be reviewed and my primary care physician will call in a couple of days and inform me of the results.  She then covers my mid section with jelly and gets this show on the road.  Being that the majority of my mid section would experience periods of pain at different times, this took quite some time.  She had to go over my sides, part of my back and my entire front torso.  On a side note and to clarify – I have never had kids, so I have no idea how the whole ultrasound works when they are viewing a bun in the oven.  She was running the probe down my stomach over and over to get a clear picture.  She then ran the probe just past my belly button and stops…the only words she said during this entire time, “Oh my, we have a strong heart beat right there.”  Being the circumstances of what I was having the ultrasound for, that was the WORST possible statement that she could have made.  At that moment my heart literally sank all the way down to my uterus.  I looked at the technician and said to her, “Ye-ah, that is not something you should probably ever say to anyone again unless they are here because they are prego.”  I of course then started laughing so she would know that while I was seconds away from shitting myself (for the first time in weeks), I was only joking.  Shortly after that she completed the ultrasound and handed me a towel to clean off with. You know the drills ladies…in some way or another.  She then offered me another towel and at that point I responded like I had so many times before in my life, “Ahhhh.  No thanks.  I think I will just go home and take a long shower.  No offense.”  She started laughing and I left.

A couple of days later my primary physician had called.  The ultrasound came back normal for the most part.  Turns out I had a small tumor on my kidney, but it is literally so small I don’t think it really count.  I just have to get it checked again later in the year to make sure there is no growth. 

This is when the different tests just started to snowball into my life like a freaking avalanche.  About every week from here forward I would have some sort of test or blood work done for several months.  The week after the ultrasound I visited Nuclear Medicine.  From a Colonoscopy…to an ultrasound…to eating radio active baby chickens…