The Medical Term for Shrek

I made an appointment with the OB/GYN ASAP. They wanted to give me an appointment for a month and a half out, but I was pretty emotional and I said um, no way. I need an appointment now. I explained what I had going on, so the scheduler put me on hold and spoke to the powers that be and squeezed me in on the following week.

That week was torture. I wanted to call Ale but he was celebrating his Mama's birthday and I didn't want to spoil it. I couldn't tell my Mom, no way. She has her own health problems. Plus, my sister is pregnant and having a terrible time of it. I didn't want to tell anybody until I knew exactly what I was dealing with. Jeannet knew of course, she was the one that really pushed me to go to Urgent Care.

The day finally arrived and I was in good spirits. I try as much as possible to be optimistic. I really believe it helps the outcome. The nurse came out and got me, weighed me and all that obligatory stuff. Asked me my and my family's medical history. Then Dr. K came in and I got a good feeling right from the start. She explained to me in detail what the CAT Scan revealed and what my Shrek's official title is. It's called a Dermoid cyst and it's a nasty little bugger!! Well, it's not so little. At this point it had grown to 14 cm by 11 cm. Huge for a cyst. Dr. K said it's been there for a long time which I was surprised by because I had had my last pap in May.

I had seen this kind of thing on those medical shows on the Discovery Health channel. Never did I imagine it would happen to me, but according to Dr. K, it's quite common among women of child bearing age. So ladies, if your feeling unusually bloated, don't hesitate, go get it checked out ASAP. Back to Shrek, it's one of those yucky cysts that grows hair, teeth, sebum, and bones. Ew! Someone that isn't a medical professional, such as myself, could believe it's fetus gone awry. I mean, it does originate on the ovary, does it not??

Dr. K told me that since it had grown to epic proportions, it needed to be removed surgically. There was no other way around it. Crap. I explained to her that Ale, the Italian, was coming in a few days from Milano, and I really wanted to have some time with him before having my surgery. She agreed that we could wait a few weeks, 3 at most, but no more than that. We'd be risking it growing more or even bursting. The biggest concern was that it could also be cancerous AND she said that she was 99.5% positive I was going to lose an ovary. Maybe even both. That was really hard for me to hear because I don't have kids yet, and I want to be a Mom more than anything!

She reassured me by saying that she highly doubted it was cancerous just because I didn't show any signs and symptoms of cancer. I had just played tennis for 2 1/2 hours a few days before!! Just to be safe, she sent me to the lab to have a CA-125 test, which is a blood test to determine whether there is cancer in the ovaries and made me an appointment with an Oncologist. Not a Doctor I really wanted to see.....