Scheduling my first colonoscopy was no easy task. I wanted to do it when I wasn’t too busy with work, which made July the perfect time of the year since it’s one of my slowest months. But I needed someone to take me there and back and felt like I could only trust this task to one of my parents. After all, most of my friends work full time jobs during the day and as a recently divorced person, this is one of those moments where you feel that void that was left after you’ve split from your partner of over two decades. I needed it to be at a time where I wouldn’t have to worry about Aleck, I know everyone had told me how the prep for the colonoscopy is the hardest part, but what if I felt awful afterwards, I have had some bad side effects to anesthesia in the past. Then I had to move the date due to a gig, but finally on my mom’s birthday, July 23rd, I was drinking gallons of yucky liquid to prepare for my procedure the next day. My mom’s dad died of colon cancer so my mom had been on my case a bit to get the ball rolling.
My dad took me to my procedure, I thought my mom needed a break since she’s been back and forth with him to doctors lately, and as she puts it, “growing old sucks,” though we all know it’s better than the alternative. From the time they wheeled me away to when they wheeled me back was only about 20 minutes. They found one polyp which was removed and everything else looked great. I told the nurse I was feeling pain in my abdomen as the anesthesia started to wear off, and I was very dizzy. She listened to my belly and explained that it’s probably gas and that I should go home and lie down with my knees to my stomach to help get the bubbles out. I tried to give my nervous system a few more minutes, slowly found my equilibrium, and got dressed so we could leave and I could get some actual food in my stomach. We went over to The Bagel for what has to be the worst scrambled eggs I’ve ever not eaten in my life, they tasted like baking powder, and a bit of toast. I couldn’t pick my head up off the table. The waitress brought me some orange juice and was asking what was wrong. I didn’t want anyone to think I was bringing COVID into their establishment so I told her I had just had a colonoscopy. She looked surprised and told us how she went dancing the night after her colonoscopy. I tried to picture her 5’2 blond and 60-something frame decked in sequins out at a nightclub, but instead I put my head back on the table. After choking down a few bites, some OJ, and a piece of toast I had my dad take me home. I figured it was just a bad reaction to the anesthesia and maybe I was dehydrated, so we grabbed some Gatorade on our way back.
About 30 minutes or so after I was dropped off, I found myself on the floor of my bedroom, down on my knees with my head on the floor, the only position my body seemed to cooperate in. There was extreme pain running through my abdomen and I didn’t know what to do so I called 911. They put me through to the Chicago Fire Department where a caricature of a Chicago Firefighter explained that “abdominal cramping is common after a colonoscopy and I’d be fine.” Basically he told me to fuck off and hung up on me. I wish I had the wherewithal at that moment to explain that I am a women therefore I know what abdominal cramping feels like, I have since I was 12 years old when I got my first period. I have also experienced the pains of contractions during labor, I’ve carried two babies inside of me, and I’ve been cut open to deliver one, yeah, I’d say I’m closer to the expertise side of abdominal cramping and this wasn’t it. Instead I hung up the phone and tried to figure out what to do with myself. Maybe I’m dehydrated, so I slowly sipped some Gatorade. Maybe I’m hungry so I ate the tiniest bit of a bagel, had a bite of banana and a lick of peanut butter. Next thing I know there is sweat pouring out of every appendage, and I barely made it to the toilet where I started to violently vomit the almost nothing that was inside my stomach. OK, I thought, a bad reaction to the anesthesia, I’ll feel better now I thought.
I took a bath in lavendar epson salts to soak my body, I ate the rest of that bagel, banana, and a bit more peanut butter. I slowly sipped water and Gatorade at intervals. I feel so much better, I told myself, as I crawled into bed, only to find that I could only lay on the left side of my body, the same position I was in for my colonsocopy, but not a position I ever sleep in. When I went to reach over to my right to grab my phone a horrific pain shot down my arm, into my shoulder and up my neck. I couldn’t physicially get to my phone at all. I had popped some Advil and Tylenol before crawling into bed and figured that I would just stay in this position and try and get some sleep.
At around 4am I woke up in horrific pain, once again I found myself on the floor but this time in my bathroom, on my knees with my head on the floor, the only position my body wanted to be in. I was sweating buckets again but I didn’t feel naseaus and I didn’t know what to do. I thought about calling 911 again but couldn’t imagine having to wait; having to wait for the ambulence, or wait for doctors, or be in an ER waiting for everything, the pain was so severe I thought I was going to die. I actually thought about my balcony and was glad I didn’t have the strength to bring myself out there because I didn’t know what I would have done, I wasn’t in my right mind at all. I did remeber that I have a stash of Valium from my hip injury, so I found them and took one and went back to bed hoping I’d wake up OK in the morning.
When I woke up around 8am I felt so much better. I was able to reach my phone, I was able to get out of bed and make myself some coffee and breakfast. But it hurt to burp, which I was doing a lot of, and it hurt to sneeze, and to take deep breaths, and to yawn, and as I discovered later, to laugh. My stomach was very bloated, I looked like I was two months pregnant, and my abdomen was very uncomfortable, it was hard to stand up straight. I called and left a message for my doctor. I called and left a message for the nurse at the office where I had the colonscopy. Then I grabbed a book and plopped myself on my glider on my balcony on a gorgeous July morning. When my doctor called me back she told me what I figured she would tell me, I needed to go to the ER. She called ahead to St. Joseph’s so that they were expecting me. I packed a bag; change of clothes, chargers, water bottle, books, and a snack. Then I called a Lyft to take me to the ER. I spoke a bit to my driver about what was going on and told him this as I got out of his car, “I hope it isn’t anything serious, but I want it to be something, I don’t want to find out I’m in all of this pain for no reason at all.”
When I arrived they were ready for me, I didn’t have to wait a single moment. I got checked in and put in a room immediately where they started me on some morphine and anti nausea medication. I had an X-Ray, then a CT scan, and had to tell my story that you just read above to a countless number of residents, attendings, nurses, PAs, and surgical teams. At one point I looked at them and asked if any of them actually spoke to each other because I was so tired of telling this story. After the surgical team had reviewed my scans we discussed what could have caused this. Their first theory was that there is a tear in my colon, but from what they’ve seen so far they can’t quite tell. I’ll need to have another CT scan but this time with contrast so I have to drink more disgusting liquid in order to prepare for that. They’d like to do laparoscopic surgery on me to see what’s going on, but let’s have this second CT scan first before we make that decision. This could also be the eruption of an ovarian cyst, potentially set off by the colonoscopy. I understood what the first scenario meant, but I had never in my life heard of another woman dealing with a sudden bursting of an ovarian cyst. Meanwhile, the doctor who had performed my colonoscopy was calling me regularly, as I vacillated between accusing him of potentially tearing my colon and thanking him for checking up on me. He kept saying that it was such a routine colonoscopy, completely uneventful, the tiny polyp he took out went smoothly, he didn’t understand why I was in so much pain. Yeah, that makes two of us.
At this point it was late in the day so they were working on getting me admitted. My parents joined me at the hospital and I had a friendly face in the ER, one of the doctors is the father of Aleck’s classmate from school, and even with his mask on I recognized him right away. That was definitely a comfort during this incredibly confusing and stressful time. I called Aleck since he knew I was in the hospital and I wanted him to hear my voice and told him I was ok, and had him guess who I ran into at the ER, he knew right away. When I finally got up to my room my blood pressure was super low, I was very dizzy and light headed, and the nurse practically threw me upside down to try and get my blood pressure going. She ordered a fresh IV and got me closer to normal before starting me on my three giant foam cups of contrast mixed with water and ice that I had to drink; one cup every 30 minutes, I was having colonoscopy prep flashbacks already. After the ultrasound I had my second CT scan and at this point was on a first name basis with Terry, the jovial CT scan tech with the long grey ponytail, and knew what to expect when my whole body heated up which makes you feel like you’ve pissed yourself on the table.
In the middle of the night one of the surgeons woke me up to let me know they didn’t see anything on the CT scan. My abdomen is filled with fluid, but there’s no tear in my colon. They’d be back in the morning with the team to discuss options. I had barely slept a wink when they all came marching through my door in the harsh morning light of the east facing windows on Lake Shore Drive. I had options, but the one that seemed to make the most sense to everyone was for me to have laparoscopic surgery to see what had happened inside of me. Yeah, I thought, I want to know what happened to me, this is fucking awful. After they left the nurses pumped me with antibiotics and morphine, and my sister and mother came to visit me. We put on the Olympic coverage and got ready to watch the opening ceremony in Paris in real time, when a woman from the surgical team came in to have me sign the paperwork for the surgery. We will be cutting through your abdominal wall she explained to me. It’ll be 4-6 weeks of no heavy lifting she explained to me. But there’s no baby coming out of me, I explained to here as I started to hysterically cry in the hospital room. There goes my ability to work for the next two months, 4-6 weeks my ass, I’ve done this before and it took me months to recover. Cutting through my abdominal muscles again, just when I’ve finally reclaimed my body after multiple pregnancies, a c-section, and overall fun times surviving Aleck’s early years. Nope. No way. Nada. This isn’t happening.
The surgical team came rushing in, clearly all of them were already scrubbed up and ready for this surgery, wearing their full garb as they ran into my room. I told you there were options, the main surgeon who had been my point person since I arrived at the ER, told me. Well, tell me again I said, now that the morphine has worn off. We don’t see a tear in your colon or any damage to your organs, he told me. Most likely this was an ovarian cyst that erupted inside of you. OK, I said, what else can we do? Well, we can have the IR team stick a needle in you and verify that it’s only fluid and/or blood inside your abdomen. But since there is no visible tear, since you aren’t running a fever or showing any signs of infection, it’s probably just fluid and/or blood inside your abdomen. OK, I said, do we need to get this fluid and/or blood out of me? No, he said, your body will absorb it slowly over time. OK, I said, is it damaging to my body? No, he said. So can I just go home I asked? Yes, he said. We want to keep you here overnight to make sure you are eating and pooping OK, and if you are then we will know for sure that there is nothing wrong with your organs and you can go home. OK, I said, that’s the option I want. So they left the room and we continued to watch the opening ceremony in Paris.
After two nights in the hospital I went home. I was in a lot of discomfort and I was exhausted, but I didn’t have a new scar on my abdomen and I wasn’t recovering from surgery. That following week I went to see my doctor for a follow-up. When her nurse asked what brought me in I told her the whole story. She told me that she was in so much pain after an ovarian cyst burst inside of her that she passed out from the pain and woke up in the ER. My doctor herself had never heard of this before and had no experience with it. She did see that I had a transvaginal scan in 2022 and that showed that I had a cyst on my left ovary, and ordered a new one for me to have later that day. I left the doctor’s and went to get my haircut where I shared my story with my stylist who I knew would understand what I just went through. She’s had to deal with almost every woman related health issue on the planet, an area of expertise that today’s doctors still don’t have, and she had been through the eruption of a cyst before as well and could confirm that it was an extremely painful experience. I wasn’t alone, yet I had only met one person who had ever dealt with this and had really rarely heard of it. Even my doctor didn’t explain to me that this could happen when the cyst was discovered two years earlier. I raced back to the hospital for the updated exam and found that the cyst was indeed gone, and that there were no signs of any damage from it’s eruption. I was fine, everything was going to be OK. My iron levels were very low so it was doctor’s orders that I go and eat a hamburger and continue to get some rest.
I heard back from the doctor’s office where I had my colonscopy done. The polyp they removed showed no signs of cancer. Even with my family’s history they aren’t recommending I get another one done for 10 years. Not sure I ever want another one done. For sure I’ll have a scan to check for cysts before I go in and I want to put a plan together with my doctor to stay ahead of an eruption of another cyst. When I’ve told this story everyone’s first reaction is to ask where Aleck was the night of my colonoscopy, the night I was writhing in pain on the floor of my bathroom. He was with his dad, I explain, and they breathe a sign of relief. But then they double back and wonder outloud, would it have been better if I wasn’t alone that night? Would things have looked any different if Aleck was around? And of course you can hear them wondering about what life looks like for me now that I do spend about 50% of my time living alone. You know, a lot of people spend 100% of that time alone. I certainly am not alone, though moments like that do make you think about having your lifelines in place in case of emergencies. So thankful my lifelines live less than an hour away, not many grown ass women like me get their parents in their ER room within a few hours of checking in.
