One thing the woman learned quickly when going to doctor appointments is that waiting rooms are accurately named. Nothing makes bad news worse than having to wait 1 ½ hours to hear more of it. Luckily, her husband was a geek who had a major work project due that week, so he had brought his laptop along that day. They sat in the waiting room devouring as much information as they could about molar pregnancies to pass the time.
Symptoms: nausea/vomiting—check, vaginal bleeding—check, “snowstorm” appearance on ultrasound—check
They were finally called back to a room to speak with the surgical gynecologist who would be taking over the woman's care. The doctor was young, approachable, sensitive, knowledgeable...and female—everything that caused the woman to take an immediate liking to her. She educated the couple about the disorder. Inside the woman's uterus abnormal cells from the fertilized egg were producing tissue resembling a bunch of grapes. Due to the cancer-like, invasive nature of these types of cells, the doctor highly recommended an outpatient surgical procedure called a dilation and curettage, or D&C. This is where the contents of the uterus are suctioned out and the inside of the uterine wall is scraped in an effort to remove all of the abnormal cells. In all reality, there was not much discussion about alternatives. At 5:45 a.m. the next morning they were to report to the hospital admission desk.
Though much had taken place over the course of the whole day, to her it all seemed to be moving so fast. The woman didn’t have time to think through all of the risks of the disease she carried in her body or the procedure she was having the next morning. Three weeks of mystery had finally been unveiled, and there was no sense dragging it out any longer. She was glad that there was finally something she did not have to wait for—the surgery. The surgery would be the first step to ending this horrible month-long nightmare.
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