On zebras

You know you made the right choice when you already feel better, just three days after major abdominal surgery, than you did beforehand.

Even though the surgery turned out to be a bigger deal than previously foreseen, I'm recovering quickly. I have a 2" incision in my CS scar as well as the laparoscopy ports, which I assume is where the tube was removed, so I have some lifting restrictions and incision pain that we hadn't anticipated. However, it's still better than the pain I was having in that junked-up left tube, and I think in a couple days I'll be feeling like a new woman.

Right now, I have to say that I'm a little angry. Losing the tube shouldn't be a big deal to me, since I was having it tied off anyway, but I'm upset nonetheless. It's not so much that I lost the tube, but that the tube was diseased enough to need removal. I'll know more when the pathology comes back, but it certainly suggests the infection wasn't treated adequately. If I'd been given the right antibiotic or an ultrasound when the infection was first diagnosed, if I'd insisted on a D&C when we found all that stuff in my uterus, if I'd gotten IV antibiotics after the first recurrence, if we'd gone to surgery in early November instead of waiting around until an elective tubal ligation could get scheduled, could it have been avoided?

I understand that my doctor is conservative by nature, and that I didn't have a very high fever or highly elevated WBC. I know she didn't want to rush into potentially complicated (and expensive) surgery or IV antibiotics unless she were positive I needed them. Thing is, apparently I did need more aggressive treatment than I got, because the infection took root and ate up my tube. It might have turned out the same way even if we'd gone after it sooner and harder, but what we did wasn't enough. And I had to fight to get even that much -- she had originally wanted to wait another week after the first antibiotic failed before proceeding to ultrasound, and didn't want to do the lap unless I were having a tubal anyway.

Maybe my presentation really was unusual, and infections which do that much damage generally have more outward signs. To be fair, it's not like she ever suggested it was psychosomatic, just that she didn't see any indications to proceed, other than the pain. Still, she blew the pain off, even when I made it clear that it was affecting my life, and that I felt something was really wrong. And so I lost my tube, maybe my ability to have children, because of it. No, I didn't want to have any more, but what if I had? I shouldn't have lost that option, or have had to push so hard to get the pain taken seriously. If I hadn't wanted to get my tubes tied, this would have gone untreated for months more, and yeah, I'm not happy about that at all.

I really do like my doctor. I think she's very capable, and conservatism is usually a good quality in a physician. However, if we'd been more aggressive at any point along the way, I might have had less damage. Of course, it's a much easier call to make with the benefit of hindsight, and I do understand why she wanted to proceed with caution. Still, she and I are going to talk about whether she should not have been so quick to dismiss my symptoms, just because there wasn't a strikingly obvious cause.