A Kick In The Teeth

I'm sorry I still don't have the April Secret Pal revelations ready. I'll try to have it ready soon.

I've made an awful discovery. In anticipation of my appointments with the RE over the next couple of weeks, I called the office of the surgeon who performed my surgery 3 years ago to request the medical records so I could carry those with me to the appointments. For those who don't know, I went in for a routine gallbladder removal 3 years ago, only to have the surgeon find an enormous cyst on my right ovary. They removed more than 2 litres of fluid from the cyst before removing it from my ovary. After the surgery, I told the surgeon The Hubs and I were trying to start a family and asked if the surgery would have a negative impact on our fertility. He told me it should have no effect on our TTC, that he had only removed a cyst.

After receiving the medical records yesterday (one of the perks of working at a hospital is that doctors' offices will go ahead and send you medical records without having to wait), I was reviewing them out of interest when I came across this paragraph in the surgical pathology report "Specimen consists of a 62.2 gram previously sectioned cystic mass, 10.5 x 9.3 x 5.0 cm. The external surface is smooth and gray-tan. The interior lining is gray pink and smooth without papillatory excrescences. The wall vaires from 0.1 to 0.3 cm in greatest dimension. There is a 4.4 cm in greatest dimension fallopian tube terminating with fimbria."

Wait a minute. What the heck?!?!

Yes, you, like I, read that right. It seems that, in removing the giant cyst, the surgeon also removed my right fallopian tube! And more importantly, never thought it important enough to tell me this!

I feel devestated and hollow inside. I know it's not impossible for us to conceive with only one fallopian tube, but I also know it makes it a lot more difficult! Particularly when you add my PCOS into the mix.

And I think the worst part is that I feel violated by someone I trusted. This surgeon is the same one who cared for my Dad for 10 weeks 4 years ago when we thought he was going to die. He has felt like part of our family since that time. And, yet, he lied to me. He didn't just fail to impart a pivotal bit of information to me - he actively lied to me when I asked him about any potential negative effect on our infertility! It is like a punch in the gut. And I feel like the last almost two years of treatment with my GYN have been wasted, both in time and monetary value.

The Hubs and I have talked and have decided we will wait and see what the RE has to say about the situation when we see him. I'm hoping he will suggest an HSG so that we can determine if the other tube is open and also see if there is any damage to my uterus or ovary. If there is any damage, I hate to say it, but I feel we will seriously have to look at whether it is sensible to bring a malpractice suit against the surgeon. Not because I lost the tube (although I do feel the fact I wasn't informed of this constitutes malpractice), but if there is other damage, I can't just let it pass.

For now, I'm going to hope there is no more damage to my reproductive system and that we can put this mess behind us and move onto the next treatment. I'm trying to take some breathing time to process, but right now it feels like too much to bear.