Part 12: The Scare

The woman was running late…again. Three years out of college and she still couldn’t get this get-up-early-like-an-adult thing down. She raced into her company’s parking lot. Haphazardly she grabbed her keys, purse, computer bag, and the plastic Wal-Mart bag containing the blueberry muffins for her 8:00 a.m. meeting, and walked briskly to the door. Her hair had already started falling out of her pony tail, but she didn’t have time to care. As she stepped up from the pavement to the sidewalk she felt a gush of fluid leave her body.

That was weird, she thought and entered the building. While jogging up the stairs, a voice inside her suggested she should go check things out. I’ll just have to do it after this meeting, she rebutted. I’m facilitating so it will just have to wait until afterward.

Arriving at her desk, she quickly sat down to check her calendar for the location of her meeting. It was then that the moist feeling around her inner thighs won over her attention. Looking down she could see a dark red stain contrasting against her gray pants which in no way could be inconspicuously hidden. Oh my gosh! What do I do? she thought, trying not to panic.  

The woman made her way back as carefully and quickly as possible to her supervisor’s desk. I hope she’s not at a meeting yet! As she approached the cube, she was relieved to see her supervisor sitting at the computer. Tears welled up in her eyes as the woman briefly explained her embarrassing situation. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said, “but I need to go home and change.”

She fought off anxiety all the way home. The seven minute trip seemed an eternity. Luckily her husband hadn’t made it too far when he received her call to come home right away. His car was already in the driveway when she pulled in.

“I’ve bled all over!” she cried hurrying toward the bathroom.

“It’ll be okay, honey” the husband assured her.

The bleeding had soaked her entire pad and spilled over leaving her underwear and pants to do the rest of the job. She couldn’t hide her fear. There was too much blood and she was still bleeding. She called to her doctor’s office. The secretary took a message and said she would have the doctor call the woman back as soon as possible.

The woman began writing emails and making phone calls to keep her mind occupied in the short time while she waited. Prayer was a must in situations like these and she needed all she could get. She was just about to make a call to sister number three when the doctor’s office called her back. It was her nurse.

“The doctor wants you to come in right away,” the nurse said. “Can you get here in the next thirty minutes?”

“Of course,” the woman replied.

“I thought you’d say that. Head over for a blood draw, then go to radiology, then come straight over to the 12^th floor. No specific times. Just get here. When you’re finished with one area, head right over to the next. We’ll get you in. And, honey, don’t eat anything except for clear fluids. We may have to do another D&C today.”

After confirming the details with her nurse, the woman got off the phone and started gathering her things for the trip over. Before leaving, she dressed herself with two pairs of underwear, a pad stuck to each one. This ought to hold me over for awhile, she thought.

The couple made the all-too-familiar trip back to the clinic. Her heart was heavy. She didn’t know what to feel or think. The thought of another D&C was worrisome and undesirable. Her eyes gazed out the car window up towards the sky. Keep me safe, Father. I’m scared and need Your help.

Part 9: Perspective

“Well, at least we know that it wasn’t really a baby,” said the husband.

She wanted to resent him for the comment, but the woman knew that he was only trying to help. Biologically speaking, she knew he was right. The pathology report came back diagnosing them with a complete molar pregnancy, which meant that her egg had no genetic material inside so when it was fertilized, only the DNA from her husband was present. Had it been a partial mole, as the doctors originally suspected, at least they would have both created a little life, abnormal as it may have been.

The woman found herself grieving all over again. First it was the little life that never got to be. Now it was the little life that never was.

“But, it’s kind of like we lost a baby, right? I mean, didn’t you think about what it would be like to be a dad or what you wanted to name it?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“And this whole time we’ve thought it was a baby, so we still lost a baby,” she insisted all the while trying to convince herself.

As she pondered the situation, her mind wandered off to the “what-ifs.” The cells in complete molar pregnancy could become invasive, spreading to other parts of the body, including the brain. They could even develop into choriocarcinoma, the malignant cancerous form of the disease. Twenty percent of women with complete moles experienced a recurrence of cell growth after their D&Cs. She tried to block these thoughts out of her mind, but no matter how many times she swept them away, they always found a way back in.

A few days later, the woman went in for some blood tests. It had been a week since her surgery. Now began the weekly blood draws where the doctor monitored her HCG (pregnancy hormone) levels. If things were progressing as they should, the levels should be dropping. Once the levels hit zero, she would begin the six month long wait to ensure they stayed that way. If they remained at zero, she would then get the clearance from her doctor to begin trying again. She could picture that day in her mind. I hope I get good news today, she thought.

Later that afternoon she received the call from her doctor with the results. Her levels were down to 15,000, a 255,000 point drop from the week before! She could hardly believe it—good news two weeks in a row. The light at the end of the tunnel was a little bit closer and shined a little bit brighter. Things were definitely on the up and up.

Part 8: Renewed Hope

Her hair was up in a loose pony tail. Clothed in a flowered gown, blue robe, and tan slippers, the woman sat in the hospital bed, her husband in the chair beside her, and they waited. She stared out the window into the early morning darkness and admired the city lights. There was something peaceful about that time of day, while the city still sleeps. She took a deep breath, allowing divine peace to calm her in preparation for the upcoming surgery.

“Time to go,” the nurse said, peeking her head around the curtain that split the room in two.

The woman stepped out of bed and followed the nurse down the hall to the elevator. She wasn’t sure what to expect as this was not only her first surgery, but also her first ever hospital visit. They entered a triage area full of people on hospital beds separated by curtains and bustling with hospital staff. The woman was directed to her bed and she climbed in.

After answering a long list of questions for the nurses and anesthesiologists, she was wheeled into the operating room. It looked just like tv: white walls, lights everywhere, people with masks dressed in blue, IVs and monitors. The decisiveness and speed at which the operating room staff moved was like a well oiled machine.

“We’re going to give you some oxygen now, so just breathe deep,” one of the staff said as they placed a mask over the woman’s mouth and nose.

She took about three breaths.

The next thing she realized, she was in the recovery room listening to a nurse talk on the phone, “She’s awake and stable. Ready to come back upstairs.” An escort came by shortly thereafter to wheel the woman back up to her room. When she got back, she found her husband sitting in the bedside chair with his laptop. It was a familiar sight and it comforted her.

Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the free cranberry juice, or maybe it was the knowledge that her body was finally rid of the harmful tissue that had been plaguing her for the past month. Whatever it was, she felt so good—better than she had in weeks. She wouldn’t find out the results of the biopsy for another few days, but still, a renewed sense of hope filled her heart and she was grateful that this was all finally coming to an end.

Part 7: Mystery Unveiled

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

“At least these pieces of the puzzle are finally adding up,” she said to her husband. “We’re finally getting some real answers. And at least they think it’s a partial mole. The complete one sounds a whole lot scarier.”

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.