A Nalgene and a Half Later

I got an ultrasound done today. It was unbeknownst to me that one has to have a full bladder for an ultrasound to be done so I showed up after just having gone to the bathroom. Let's back up the story just a little bit, though.

The day started out at one of the hospitals that I work at for a day of playing hookie in order to attend a cardiac conference. Not a bad day! Especially because I did not have to do a careplan the night before or tonight because my instructor didn't feel like grading them! The conference allowed the clinical day to be cut short allowing me to get to my appointment (at the same hospital) early. Score!

We show up and ask to be taken early. They agree to do it. We wait for what must have been about 30 minutes to be taken back into the room, and that brings a whole set of fun question. Oh, and my nursing school buddy came along with me because she wanted to see what an ultrasound was like. She was the third person I explained my full symptoms to and I was not expecting to tell anyone but my mom and my NP.

So we get into the room and the ultrasound tech asks if I'm sexually active. No. She asks if I've gotten a Pap smear. I explain that my NP wouldn't do it so no. She then informs me that she was going to do an internal ultrasound but decided to do an external one because I am a virgin and have not experienced anything that invasive yet. Great.

Then I am asked to lay down so she can see how full my bladder is. It was teensy! I was instructed to drink as much water as I could so I down another Nalgene bottle (32 oz.) and a half in addition to the half Nalgene I had already consumed since last using the restroom. Keep in mind I have not eaten since 0630 and it's rounding on about 1330-1400. Anyway, my friend and I go back to the waiting room and she's drinking water with me to help me fill up my bladder.

Another 30 minutes and about 15 funny videos later, the tech comes back out to check my status and the ultrasound shows that my bladder is full enough! Yay!

So pants are unbuttoned and pulled down to just low enough to expose where my bladder and uterus are. The tech pours some warm jelly on the exposed area and starts pressing right where she needs to not press because I'm fixin' to lose all the urine in my bladder if she presses too hard. Pretty soon my uterus gets pointed out to me and it turns out I hang to the left, just a little bit. Haha, comedic relief is helping me get through this and I was slap happy because I was so nervous and I laughed for a solid 5 minutes at my own joke.

10 minutes of smooshing around above my full, and still filling bladder, and she started zooming in. Measurements were taken of each ovary and some labeling, no big deal. I noticed that one of my ovaries was black while the other was gray. She then went from traditional 2D ultrasound and switched to 3D. I thought nothing of it at the time, but the more I think about it, the more freaked out I get about that. It looked bigger, to me, and she looked through different levels of it with the 3D ultrasound thing. She didn't do that to the other one.

Being an ultrasound tech, she wasn't allowed to diagnose me or share the findings because she has to wait for the MD to look them over and then call my NP and then I may get the results at some point during the course of what feels like 80138474536947 years from now.

In the meantime, I'm trying to limit my panic attacks but that's not going well. I came straight home and peed, for the 3rd time in 30 minutes, and fell asleep on the couch. I don't know why because I got a solid 9 hours of sleep last night because I didn't have to do a careplan. Then I woke up from my map with a panic attack and a realization that she investigated the black ovary but not the gray one.

Boyfriend doesn't know about the ultrasound yet, I want to tell him so badly but I think it needs to be in person and after I get the results. We talked on the phone last night about a bunch of deep stuff and he asked what I would do if we found out that one of us was infertile. It was completely out of the blue and without knowing my fears of cancer/infertility/other scary things that I am experiencing right now. He told me I could think about it for a few day but I didn't need to. I responded saying that I had wanted to maybe adopt a kid or two anyway so we could just do that. He agreed and we moved on to more tough questions. Even after asking what brought him to ask that, he said it was just a though he had had but it was weird to me because I am actually terrified that may be my reality.

I'm struggling.

If I find out I have cancer or I'm infertile, I think I'm going to break up with Boyfriend. That's not fair to him to be stuck with me through that. We've been going out for a few days shy of a month and there's no reason for him to feel like he has to stay with me just because I am sick (if I'm sick) or through my (possible) infertility.

My heart is heavy, my mind is racing, I think I might explode.

I finally told my roommate about my symptoms. She knew I had gone to the doctor's and that they ran the STD panel, UA, CBC, thyroid test, and the ultrasound. But she asked why the did the ultrasound so I had to explain everything to her. I'm getting better about talking about things that normally make me really uncomfortable. That's likely, largely helped by Boyfriend helping me to discuss stuff I wouldn't mention before. You know, feelings, kissing, sex, marriage, etc. So Roommate knows and I've been freaking out to her a little bit but I hold off a lot because I don't want to bother her or my other nursing school buddy that I told about it with my problems and irrational fears.

I'm going to bed. Pray with me if you think about it.