Hello St. Mary, Goodbye Pain

"Well, you're no spring chicken"-Keith Mueller to his wife Nicolle after sledding down the snow hill.

It's Sunday afternoon, and Kolbe and I had just come back from dropping my Mom and sister off at the airport. There was about 45 minutes left of daylight and Kolbe wanted to go back to the hill to sled, and I wanted to go too! We went over and started trekking up to the very top.

Kolbe makes it down just fine, he actually slows down in a few spots. I get on the disc and go bolting down. I have no idea how fast but my legs are out straight and I end up getting turned around to where my back is facing downward...several seconds later at the bottom of the hill...SLAM...my back runs right into Kolbe who is still laying down.

I hit him...hard.

He's crying, and it took the wind out of me. I get up and help him and after a couple minutes he wants to go back and try again. We go one more time and it takes about 5 minutes. By the time I get down the hill again I get up and can't even stand all the way up...ouch. Pain in my lower pelvic area that I can't even describe. I barely made the walk home. I laid down the rest of the night in a lot of pain, but it was tolerable.

By Monday I was doing OK and went into work just like normal. Still not able to stand up straight and assuming this is all from the sledding run-in, but my back didn't hurt at all. I was really tired, and slept about 11 hours the night before and was still exhausted. I took it easy Monday night too.

By Tuesday morning I went into work already feeling "off". My skin was hot but I couldn't get warm. I had a headache, no appetite, my stomach was still hurting and once again I was exhausted after 10 hours of sleep. I made an appointment to see the LE doctor on-site.

I went over there at 2:00 thinking they would confirm it was from running into Kolbe and that I just needed to rest and get over it. Not the case. They took a urine sample, did blood work, did an exam and he was worried. I also had a fever of 104. He thought it may be my appendix and that the sledding incident was merely coincidental. He wanted me to head into Madison for a cat scan to get everything checked out. I drank what seemed like a gallon of barium and headed over.

Keith and the boys met me over there and only stayed for a bit. It was sweet of him to stop in and see what was going on. We're definitely not used to problems like this without family around. I'm not one of those people who likes to be sitting around waiting by myself, but it was not easy for the boys to be there so Keith took them home.

They did the cat scan with an IV in to run more fluid through. It only took about 45 minutes to get the results. Good news-appendix was OK and no surgery needed to remove it! That's what I thought because I was having pain on both sides. So...what was the diagnosis?

A CYST!

The doctor found a 3" cyst on my right ovary that was bleeding. It was bleeding down into the pelvic area as well-which is what was causing pain on both sides. Treatment: lots of R&R, no lifting the boys, pain meds and Tylenol for the fever (the fever stumped him). He's going to monitor it very closely. There's a small chance of a hemorrhage-but it's very unlikely. I asked him whether or not the sledding accident triggered it and he couldn't rule it out. Obviously the cyst was there, but I think it wouldn't have just started bleeding on it's own. I feel very fortunate it was found and can now be monitored. I don't know how long it would have taken if this hadn't have happened.

See, there is a good side to bad things that happen! I'm also thankful to know what it is now...and very thankful to the person who invented Vicadin.

BIG thanks for my wonderful hubby for running ragged taking care of me and the boys. Also Kolbe set up a train to bring food to the guest bedroom downstairs eventhough he did tell me I needed to make the food to put on the train, it was still very sweet.

Now, where are my drugs?