The Softball In My Uterus

While the ultrasound was occurring, I could watch it live on a screen on the wall. As the tech was moving the wand around, I could maybe make out a few blobs and make guesses as to what I was seeing. One spot was significantly darker than the rest.

“What’s that?”
“That’s a fibroid.”

I asked. She answered. And I stayed so calm about it that she probably didn’t know the inner turmoil those three words started. Turmoil that wouldn’t show up on screen.

At the end of the appointment, she gave me a print out of my “fibroid baby” (poor word choice by her) and said I’d probably get called for another follow-up appointment where my uterus would be filled up with saline (“not as bad as it sounds” she promised) and the doctor would be present for the ultrasound.

There on my ultrasound picture, clear as day, was the fibroid. The tech told me it was something like  9.8 centimeters

I walked out to my car freaked out. I called my husband crying. I wanted to kill time not thinking so I went to Ikea, which is ironic because usually while I’m there all I can think is how I sort of want to kill myself. This time, though, after I stopped crying in their parking lot, I walked through the store like a person on a mission to buy dumb crap. And so I did.

A few days later, as predicted, a nurse from my doctor’s office called.

“You have a 9.8 centimeter tumor in your uterus.”

She said more things. Basically echoing what the ultrasound tech had said.  But that word. Tumor. That was new.

I called and scheduled the next ultrasound for two weeks later. Two. Weeks. That was the soonest they could get me in. The scheduler ended her call with a cheery, “Have a great day!”

This time I didn’t have the luxury of processing information inside my car in a parking lot. I was at work. In a glass-walled huddle room. I quickly made my way up two floors to a single stall bathroom I am sure is reserved for number twos for employees on that floor. I sat on the ground crying. I called my husband again. I stayed in there in that bathroom for more than an hour, with the last 20 to 30 minutes of that just putting cold, wet paper towels on my face trying to calm down. Trying to not look liked I’d just been bawling. Wishing I had brought some eye drops up with me.

I share things on this blog, but I have a very clear line between what is mine and what I am willing to share out with the world. I have similar boundaries for in-person conversations. This whole ordeal left me too raw. I couldn’t talk to my parents about it – I made Wonder Boy make phone calls. I couldn’t talk to anyone at work about it. I made sure to always email my boss updates (to explain absences) when she was out of the office.

When I did eventually talk to family, to a few friends, I kept my voice pretty level. I tried to sound positive. I didn’t cry. I didn’t say how I’d been losing a pound or two a week because my appetite was mostly gone, replaced by nervous nausea. I didn’t say how I’d started sometimes sleeping on my stomach with a pillow underneath my pelvis because it was the only way I felt relief. I didn’t say how I was chewing through a box of Pepto-Bismol every two days to help keep my stomach calm. I alluded to discomfort, trying to make comparisons that people would understand. Alluded to fear. But not the specifics I could have shared.

Telling people did help, though. It made the nausea almost totally go away. It brought back the sensation for hunger, though the only things that have been sitting well have been carbohydrate-loaded garbage. It stopped, for a while, the message that had been playing on repeat in my head. “There is a 10 centimeter tumor in my uterus.” (I rounded up.)

Here are some other things that are about 10 centimeters:

These things are big. That diameter does leave me with some questions. Is it the actual mass that’s making my stomach hurt or is that the seemingly never-ending period? What treatment options are available? When will they take effect? When will things be better? When will I stop feeling scared?