On the scan results and the scan aftermath

So, if you’ve been following my blog you’ll know I had an ectopic pregnancy earlier this year. And you’ll know I had to have my tube removed, and that my remaining tube was damaged from a previous ectopic. Last Monday we had the scan to see if we could still conceive with the existing tube. And I’m pleased to tell you that we got good results at our scan on Monday. So we can try again by ourselves! But we had a little bit of a drama with the scan itself…

The scan I had is called a hysterosalpingogram.

It shows whether there are any blockages or abnormalities in your uterus and fallopian tubes by putting a dye through via a cap suctioned on to your cervix. It’s a fairly non-invasive, low risk procedure and the only complex thing about it is that you have to have it during a certain phase of your menstrual cycle. In Auckland this scan is only performed on Mondays as it requires specialised radiologists.

The scan itself wouldn’t normally be too bad. Attaching the cup to the cervix is a little painful, and you have cramping during the procedure which is uncomfortable, but is similar to bad period cramps, so nothing to write home about because it is usually a 5 – 15 minute procedure. The problem was that during the scan the special machines computer crashed. They spent about 20 minutes trying to get it going, but to no avail. This was not the teams fault – there was no way they could have predicted this, and there was no way anyone would expect them to know how to fix such specialised equipment. They tried the ‘turn it off and on again’ technique – all they could do really. So I had instruments and dye up my lady parts for about 40 minutes.

They found an alternative way to do the scan via good old fashioned x-ray, and moved me to a room where one was free to complete the scan. I felt very sorry for the medical team involved as the computer breaking down would affect their entire day’s worth of scans. No-one would have a machine break on them half-way through their procedure though, that pleasure would remain mine alone. They were lucky I am a nice non-hypochondriac type person.

So they finish the scan then we hear the great results and are pleased. As soon as the suction cup is off my cervix I’m pretty much pain free and we’re very happy. Murray and I both took the whole day off work being unsure of the results and our reaction to them. We went home and had lunch, then Murray rented me a crappy chick flick.

About an hour into the film I started feeling very sore. I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed my stomach had started to swell, and I was in so much pain it was difficult to walk. I didn’t think that was normal as the procedure isn’t supposed to have any serious after affects. After another hour I asked Murray to call Greenlane to ask them about it as it wasn’t any better. They said it could be in the realm of normal, but to go to A&E if it was still bad around 6.30pm as that was outside the realm of normal.

So we did. It cost us $87 for a prescription of Tramadol for pain. The Tramadol helped with the pain, but offered no real support in terms of understanding why this was happening. I didn’t sleep that night, and woke up with nausea and vomiting. I managed to get in touch with someone from Greenlane the next day who confirmed what we had suspected – it was a reaction to the dye from the scan. This was a relief for me because Google Doc had provided an array of other more horrible yet unlikely scenarios. A dye reaction as severe as mine is uncommon. Only one other woman who has had this scan through Greenlane has had one. Because it is not something commonly dealt with, no answers could be offered on how long the reaction would last for

I was off work for four days. I had three days of chronic pain and three days of vomiting. It was unfortunate, but in all honesty, the hospital did nothing wrong, it’s just one of those freak things. I am quite grateful I found out that this dye is not my friend. It is used for a range of medical procedures, including angiograms – which may be on the cards for me if I follow in Dad’s footsteps. I have it noted in my medical files now. There are alternatives they can use, and when there aren’t, they can give me steroids to help lessen the reaction.

So that is the epic tale of the scan. This reaction made it difficult to really digest the happiness of its outcome, but we are really, really happy. We have made decisions around when we will start trying to get pregnant again, but we are realistic that the scan is not an accurate magic 8 ball. Even with a clear scan, the likelihood of a third ectopic is high. BUT we’ll never know unless we try. We are very grateful that at this stage we are not looking down the long waitlist of public health IVF. This is fantastic news for us and we look forward to (hopefully) starting our family soon.

* FYI that is not my uterus full of dye up there - it's someone elses, I don't know who it belongs to. I found it on the internet. I hope they are not offended.