10/25/11--2-Week Post-Op Follow-up Appointment

Monday, 10/24/11, MK had her 2-week post-op appointment. Her plans were to go in and get a timeline/game plan on what our next chapter would be. Oh, yeah, she also needed to get a medical release to return to a full work schedule.  

She recounts her first "real" question for her doctor to be "was is as bad as you thought?" referring to the surgery. His response, "it was horrible." MK said she kind of laughed thinking he was being slightly sarcastic. "No, really, it was horrible" again states her doctor. We had known it was bad from her very first surgery but none of the previous doctors had quite taken this descriptive approach.
 
He then goes on to tell her that he had a recent medical conference in Las Vegas (of course I Googled and think he was referring to the "International Pelvic Pain Society's Annual Fall Meeting" last weekend). He said different doctors submitted cases and pictures of surgeries, etc., to be used in the meetings and presentations. He said he was watching a presentation when pictures came up on the screen that seemed familiar. He kept looking at them and approached the presenter afterwards. His thoughts were correct...the slides were from MK's surgery! Best part is that the discussion was basically looking at "worst case scenario" of Endometriosis. As I stated in my closing sentence from the last paragraph, we have known her case was severe but, oh my, MK has been diagnosed with one of the worst cases of Endometriosis in America. Now MK being a pageant girl, she is all about titles, but not this one!!

 Let's look to our future. MK's doctor has said that we need to quickly go back to our fertility specialist and devise our new game plan. So that said, MK has made an appointment next week to discuss with our fertility doctor our options. We have a preliminary belief that we will be limited to IVF and egg donor. The IVF won't have great odds and we are still developing our opinions on whether we believe egg donor would be a proper fit for us.  Of course, we will discuss and consider all options available to us.

I was unable to attend this follow-up visit. I really didn't think that much about it. When MK called me after she left the doctor's office and was telling me about everything, I was shocked. She was being very strong and collected on the phone, but I can only imagine how this news was affecting her. I even had to step out the back door at work to have the conversation.  Now, MK is the strongest woman I know. Not many people, men included, could go through the daily pain and discomfort she is faced with.  I can't imagine my life without her and I am blessed to be by her side through all of this.  As I have said before, this is my disease just as much as it is hers.  She is not alone in this.  I would give anything to help alleviate her pain but I have to stay focused that this is working through God's plan. All I can really do is stay positive, support her, and maybe do the dishes, vacuum, wash clothes, etc., to help her out! We will get through all this through our Faith and support from our wonderful friends and family. As MK has quoted from one her favorite books recently, I firmly believe everything will be worth it when we can look at our "little one" and say "If our journey had been easy, we wouldn't have you".

Thanks for listening,

 --Bradley