Monday, January 29, 2018

You're Fired




After riding the Lupron roller coaster for 9 months, my OB/GYN suggested a 4th dose, but I finally had the courage to decline. Things hadn't improved since the 3rd injection. In fact, since receiving that dose, I had been fired from my job as Property Manager for the duplex community that we had managed since 2005. It was the ONLY time in my life that I had been fired, but I really wasn't able to keep up and had no certainty that relief was anywhere in sight. It was humiliating and made me feel completely worthless, but there was nothing that I could do about the situation.  I was pretty much bed-ridden 90% of the time between my endometriosis pain and all of the different side effects that were brought to me courtesy of Lupron.

My husband mentioned that he had read online about a center in Atlanta (about a two hour drive for us) that specialized in endometriosis and suggested that I give them a call.  After reaching out to them and getting all of my paperwork in order, Jim and I drove to Atlanta on June 24, 2008 for my first appointment with Dr. Robert Albee at the Center for Endometriosis. Because insurance reimbursement rates are so low, many specialized providers opt to keep their practices on a self-pay basis meaning that they are considered out-of-network for private insurance. What this meant to Jim and me was that most of my time with Dr. Albee would need to be paid for completely out-of-pocket and considering that I had been out of work for almost 7 months and Jim was back working in full-time ministry at Bethel Bible Village, our pockets weren't very flush with cash. Regardless, we felt that it was important to pursue this avenue in the hopes of regaining some quality of life, so we prayed and pushed ahead knowing that it might mean incurring debt. Dr. Albee suggested excision surgery but wanted to wait until the Lupron was completely out of my system prior, so we scheduled my 3rd party in the OR for September 10, 2008.  We decided that during this surgery, he would do an aggressive excision of any endometriosis that he found and also remove my left ovary which had historically been the most polycystic.

Jim and I traveled to Atlanta for my surgery in September and spent the better part of a week down there for pre-operative appointments, pre-surgical bowel prep and my surgery itself. Dr. Albee only found a few spots with endometriosis, likely because I had been in medical menopause for most of the year since my previous laparoscopy, but my left ovary was again riddled with cysts. He also excised significant scar tissue and adhesions. He was confident that I would no longer have pain from my endometriosis.

I followed up with my primary care provider at home two weeks later and was still experiencing surgical soreness, but at the beginning of October, about 3 weeks post-op, I felt fantastic and began to think that I was around the bend. On October 18, 2008, though, I woke up with a different kind of pain...one that prevented me from sitting upright normally.

No comments:

Post a Comment