A very short blog: health stuff

Spoiling the end: everything came back fine and normal. I'm ok. It was not fun waiting to hear that though.

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I try not to "vaguebook," but I also try to stay honest while not fishing for attention. I know a couple blog posts ago (the second Zion one, I think) I mentioned how on the trip I'd not thought about a procedure I was having done soon. I'd also mentioned it briefly on Facebook. In case anyone was curious, I figured I'd update here. It's very anti-climactic. However, I also don't want to worry anyone by alluding to health scares, but then not addressing it later on.

Anything gross will be either glossed over or skipped altogether.

What happened (abridged):

I'd visited my OBGYN for a well-woman visit. Everything looked fine, but I have the copper IUD (the non-hormonal one) and she wanted to make sure it hadn't moved since I've had it for several years now, so she ordered an ultrasound.

A couple weeks later, right before my trip, I went. The results were posted to my online chart, and of course I pulled it up and googled what many of the them were, fully expecting everything to look normal. But one result said my uterine lining was significantly thick. Much thicker than it should have been. The Internet said this was very not good.

I then did the anxiety-inducing thing and asked ChatGPT what could cause the exact level of thickening the ultrasound had revealed. I think thirteen awful causes rolled across my phone, many of which don't always present symptoms right away. My morning was not going well, and I fully freaked out thinking the absolute worst, like cancer, hysterectomies, and the possibility of hormone replacement therapy. It was not a good time.

I had a video chat with my doctor a few days before my trip, which helped significantly. She didn't seem concerned, just mildly cautious, and offered three options to figure out what was going on: wait, see and redo the ultrasound in a couple of months, perform a biopsy which would give us answers the fastest, or perform a D&C (which would also give answers but was an in-hospital procedure requiring anesthesia). She thought it could have been my cycle messing with the imaging, but there was no real telling what was going on, so she wanted to figure it out. I took her advice and chose the biopsy. It happened soon after I returned from my trip.

The biopsy wasn't particularly fun, but at least I made my doctor laugh as she performed it. I think I'd yelped a reminder to myself that "I've had babies," as my uterus spasmed and freaked out from whatever hell device was used to take the sample. Glad she thought that was funny. But overall, it lasted only a few seconds. She was incredibly fast at it. I then went home and just felt mildly uncomfortable for the rest of the day.

The results came back recently and everything was clear. My cycle had completely messed with the imaging. Nothing is amiss, my IUD is where the doctor left it, and everything is good. I'm very glad for that.

But it was still scary as f--k for a solid month not knowing what was going on. If anything, it was a good reminder for me to keep going to my annual check-ups, even if everything seems fine (I already was, but this cemented it).

Go see your doctor, people.