Ovarian Torsion

First thing Monday morning, I called Dr. R's nurse Beverly and told her my symptoms. We made the trip back up to his office so that we could have an ultrasound. Dr. R told me that most likely the pain I had been having was due to my uterus and my enlarged ovaries fighting for space inside my body. As he prepped me for the ultrasound, I prayed that I would see my tiny baby's heart flickering, letting me know everything was ok. Just seconds later I saw it. I also got to see my little tiny baby kicking and moving. I breathed a sigh of relief like never before. Dr. R had been right. He gave me a new ultrasound picture and I stared at it the whole drive home.

I continued having intermittent pain throughout the next few days, but now that I knew the cause, it hardly bothered me. I enjoyed being home and spending time with my daughter. She gave me lots of hugs and constantly told me how much she had missed me when I was in the hospital. But she also told me she had enjoyed getting to spend time with all her grandparents. I was thankful to have had such wonderful family to take care of her.

I woke up at 4am on Thursday morning with the worst pain I'd ever had in my life. And that's an understatement. In fact, when I was 14 I had been in a car accident where a minivan had literally rolled on top of me, shattering my pelvis. At this point, a van rolling on me sounded quite pleasant. On a pain scale of 1 to 10, I was easily at 100. I was trembling and vomiting and whimpering on the side of the bed. I contorted my body into every possible position I could just to try and get some relief. I tried taking Tylenol, but vomited it up just minutes later. Doug tried asking me questions, but I couldn't even get the words out to answer him. I propped pillows behind my back and found a position that made the pain bearable. I must have been exhausted because I actually fell back asleep in the strange upright position I had gotten myself into. Hours later I awoke to an even greater pain. I writhed and whimpered on the bed. It was morning by this time and Doug paged Dr. R. I started vomiting again. Doug looked panicked. "Let's get you in the car, we're going to the emergency room," he told me. By some strange luck, Meredith had stayed the night with her grandparents that night. I grabbed a pair of pants and hobbled down the hallway to the garage, stopping to throw up every few feet. Doug rushed around the bedroom looking for his keys and wallet. His phone rang and it was Dr. R. He was in the middle of an egg retrieval. Doug explained the situation. "I'm taking her to the women's center or the ER. Which one do you want it to be?" Dr. R asked Doug to take me to his office. "I don't think you want her there looking the way she does," Doug said. Dr. R told Doug that taking me directly to the women's center at the hospital wasn't feasible at this point, and that the ER could be a very long wait. Doug said he would take me into the office.

We had driven the hospital dozens and dozens of times before. I had memorized every landmark, every sign, every building and I knew exactly how long that drive took. Throughout the IVF process, the egg retrieval, the transfer, the blood tests, the OHSS and the pulmonary embolism I had gotten to know that 15 mile stretch of road. This day felt different. It felt infinitely longer. Every stoplight felt like an eternity. I practiced the breathing I had learned at my labor class when I had been pregnant with Meredith. Doug pulled into the valet area in front of the hospital and loaded me into a wheel chair. Sweat dripped down my face onto the trash bag I was holding. He quickly wheeled me to Dr. R's office, where I was met with stares from frightened onlookers. Beverly walked through the door and called a patient name. She saw me and waved me back. The patient started in shocked as I writhed in pain and hunched over my trash bag to vomit. Beverly looked very alarmed. She quickly got me back to a room and asked me if I could sit on the exam table. I crawled up and started vomiting and shaking. She tried taking my pulse but I could hardly stay still. Dr. R came to evaluate and quickly realized how severe my condition was. I could barely form a sentence, but I begged for him to admit me to the hospital so that I could have some sort of pain medicine. He called the women's center and let them know what was going on. He was fairly certain that one of the cysts on my ovaries had ruptured. He told me they would be ready for me at the women's center and Beverly wheeled me over.

When we got there, I saw familiar faces. The nurses that had taken such good care of me were there waiting. They had told me after the PE, that the next time I came back it better be for the birth of the baby. That had been just over a week ago. Doug and Beverly helped me into a hospital gown and the nurses hurried to start my IV. Once they gave me the Morphine the pain faded away for a short time. I was scheduled to have the Morphine every 2 hours, but it only seemed to last about an hour and a half. Then I was back to where I was before, trembling, vomiting, whimpering. Dr. R came to visit and told me he thought I most likely had a ruptured ovarian cyst, but that there was also the possibility that it was ovarian torsion. Ovarian torsion is the twisting of an ovary, which can result in a loss of blood flow to the ovary. For that reason, Dr. R scheduled an ultrasound. The ultrasound would show if there was appropriate blood flow.

It wasn't long after Dr. R left before someone came to take me down to radiology. The ultrasound showed that blood flow was still evident. However, each time the Morphine wore off, I was still in significant pain.

The next day the pain had subsided enough so that I could be on a lower dosage. Dr. R let me know that he would like me to switch over to an oral pain reliever if my condition continued to improve. That would mean that I wouldn't have to drag my IV pole with me to and from the bathroom. That was good because I was having enough trouble just getting in and out of bed as it was and I didn't need anything else slowing me down.

Over the course of the next day, I felt better. I had started taking Lortab, and was able to move around slightly faster. I didn't need Doug's assistance when getting in and out of the bed either. Dr. R was convinced it must have been a ruptured cyst and was even discussing the idea of me being discharged within the next day or so. That night, I woke up to use the bathroom and I felt feverish. I called my nurse, Elizabeth, and asked if I could have some Tylenol. She took my temperature and seemed alarmed when she saw the reading. She left the room for a minute and let me know she had paged Dr. R. When he called back, he ordered some blood work and another ultrasound of my ovaries.

The next morning I felt feverish again and a general malaise that I hadn't had before. I also noticed a raised lump on the right side of my abdomen, beside my belly button. This time, instead of being taken down to radiology for my ultrasound, someone came to my room with the machine. The technician told me that the blood flow to my right ovary was almost non-existent. It wasn't long after the technician left, before Dr. R arrived. He explained that the values from my blood work were dangerously far from where they should be. He examined me and felt the bulge on the right side of my stomach. He told me that he was going to consult with Dr. K and I was most likely headed for emergency surgery.