by Hugh MacLeod

I don’t even know where to begin.

I finally got some good news from our OB’s office today, after going through a horrific scare for the past 8 days.

A bit of background…when you are pregnant your body (the embryo, actually…and later the placenta) produces a hormone called hCG. It starts out very low (pregnancy tests can detect it when it reaches about 25) and in a normal pregnancy it will double roughly every 48 hours until about the 12th week, when it starts to go back down.

Over the past few weeks my hCG has been going down, but very, very slowly. I’ve been going in to my OB’s office one or two times a week to have it tested…they want it to get back down to zero before you start trying to get pregnant again. There are many reasons for this, and one of them is that hCG not going down can signal that something isn’t right, such as the presence of placental tissue after a miscarriage. And, sometimes this residual tissue can be abnormal, and it can turn in to cancer.

Last Thursday I received a call from a nurse in our OB’s office telling me that my doctor wanted me to go in for one more blood test, and that if it wasn’t down to zero she was going to refer me to a gynecological oncologist and that I would most likely need Methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug.

This was the day after I had Jake put to sleep, and right after a call from Deceased Pet Care asking me what urn I wanted for Jake. I was already in such a state of shock and grief, I could not even comprehend what she was saying. It was a blur.

I mean, just POUR. IT. ON why don’t you.

I remember asking a few questions – none of which she had answers to.

I don’t think I even started to process that information until several days later. And when I did, I felt so angry that a doctor’s office would allow a nurse to call a patient and casually drop the words “abnormal placental tissue” and “oncologist” and “chemotherapy” without being able to provide me with detailed information on exactly WHY I would need to see an oncologist…what they thought might be going on with me, what the prognosis was. Nothing. And because it was a holiday weekend I could not call until Tuesday.

I did finally speak with my doctor on Wednesday and she explained that her concern was that I still had some abnormal placental tissue and that if my hCG was still not going down she would like to consult with a gynecological oncologist and that the treatment would most likely be Methotrexate, a chemotherapeutic drug that is very effective in treating these kinds of things. She said that they would most likely do a chest x-ray and a head CT to check my lungs and brain for signs of cancer, as those are the places these things usually spread to first.

Hearing all of this nearly sent me over the edge.

First I lose my baby, then another, I have to put my beloved dog Jake down, and now I may have cancer??

The past few days have been sheer Hell. I was glad to finally have a detailed explanation of what she thought I was facing, and I was terrified of what I was potentially facing.

I shared with my OB the fact that I was not at all happy about the phone call I had gotten the week before…that a nurse, not my Dr., had been tasked with delivering the (partial) news, and that she was unable to answer any of my questions. That you don’t just drop the words oncologist and chemotherapy without an explanation!

She apologized profusely and assured me that she would personally call me with the results the next morning so that we could discuss what would be happening next and she could answer any and all questions I had.

Yesterday came and went. No phone call.

This morning when I woke up I called and asked for her and the receptionist told me she was out until Tuesday. I burst in to tears and started sobbing (that poor receptionist). She asked if I wanted to speak with a nurse, and I told her no, that I really needed to speak with a Dr. She put me through to a very helpful nurse who assured me that another OB in the practice would call me today.

The Dr. that called took a good twenty minutes on the phone with me. She read all the way through my chart very thoroughly…even the pathology report from my first D&C, which she took the time to walk through with me.

The path report was completely normal and there was zero indication that any of the tissue was abnormal (in terms of being cancerous). She also walked through every procedure I’ve had recently (the two D&Cs), the results of those, and the results of every blood draw. She said she wanted to be sure she had a very clear picture of everything because so much has happened in the last two months and she could see how it could all be very confusing.

Bottom line, she said as low as my hCG is at this point and the fact that it is consistently falling, she would never have even thought to get an oncologist involved. She said I probably do have a little tissue left over after my D&C, and that’s perfectly normal, and that’s what makes the hCG linger.

Yesterday it was at 8, and when it’s under 5 you are considered medically not pregnant. She recommended that we continue following it all the way down to 0, and she said as young and healthy as I am we can then go ahead and start trying to get pregnant again (more on that in a later post). She thinks it will be at zero in a week or two, and said there is absolutely no reason to suspect that anything is wrong in any way.

So, as you can imagine, we have breathed an enormous sigh of relief today. Finally, some good news (REALLY good news!) around here! Now we can focus on moving forward…and bringing home Shiloh on Sunday.

I talked it over with Todd and I think we are going to switch to the OB I spoke with today. Not that I don’t like mine, but the lack of communication and the way that this whole thing has been handled this past week has been unnerving to say the least. I really liked the communication style and bedside manner of the Dr. I spoke with today, and I have a good friend who has been going to her for years and raves about her. Obviously, they are in the same practice, so it’s no big deal.

So here we are…moving forward…one day at a time.