This is not a baby bump. I almost wish it were.

This is a tumor or cyst (we’re not sure which yet) growing in my abdomen. It is 8 inches at the largest point, and is filing my entire abdomen so that I can barely eat, and I get faint when I’m walking around.

I am going into surgery Monday to have the tumor we named Lumpy removed. As scary as the idea of being cut open like this is (since they have to take it out all as one piece so have to make a big hole for it) I am so happy that it is coming out.

The last month and a half has been pretty terrible. It started with my abdomen growing larger even though I was eating less and exercising more. I was getting full faster and faster, and my stomach was getting hard. In the last month I’ve been eating less than 1000 calories a day because even one small egg was enough to fill me up for half the day. Currently I’m only able to eat soft foods like pudding, yogurt, and Avacado. On the positive side I’ve lost weight so once Lumpy is out I’ll be pretty skinny. Well, skinny for me.

The fainting is also tough. The mass is sitting on my arteries and constrict blood flow. If I sit up for too long, or walk around much, I start to feel like I’m going to fall over. Gregg has been good about being near me so that if I start to fall he can give me a hand, and making it so if I’m having trouble that day I can just lay down and he can get things for me. I hate being sick, but he has made this so much easier.

But the worst part until this week has been the medical. When you have a giant thing growing inside you there is no option except to remove it. But while we were in Texas we were on cash only for medical needs. We had insurance, but it’s for Washington since that is where our residents is still. Every test has a price tag, and you had to pay up front. And they don’t want to bankrupt you either so they only suggest things you absolutely should get. So after a couple of visits we realized this wasn’t something simple that would need a little medicine. This was worse. There was a mass on my ovaries and I needed to see a specialist. Asap.

So we packed up and drove from Houston to Seattle in three days. Or I should say Gregg drive. I slept most of the way since I was getting worse.

I made an appointment with a gynecologist before we left, but they didn’t have an appointment available for a week. So we got to Seattle, checked into a hotel, and waited.

The first appointment went fast. The Dr had already looked at my chart, and read that I had a 22 cm mass and realized we had to get moving on this fast. She did another ultrasound to check the size… And it is now 30cm. Lumpy is growing, and fast.

So she gave me a box test to see if it is cancer or not (since it could still be a really big cyst) and sent me across the street to get a CT scan while calling a surgeon to get me in a list ASAP! Dr Keys has been amazing!

I talked to the surgeon yesterday. He is also pretty awesome, and very confident that we can get this taken care of. But he also saw the urgency and got me scheduled for this Monday. Just a couple days away.

I’ve had some prep to do, like a covid test since I can’t have surgery if I test positive. I will go in Monday around 11am and be poked and stick with needles before finally getting into the surgery. They will take out the lump, and my ovaries since they are both affected, and send it to test before closing me up. If it is the malignant kind of cancer they will take out a few other things, like lymph nodes, before sewing me up. If it’s benign they will just sew me up.

So, in short I’ll lose 20-30 lbs, and my ability to have periods (yay! I hate those things). And I’ll have to heal for a bit since my stomach will be cut open. Last time it took a week or two before I could walk normally again.

I hope it’s benign because then once I’m healed up I can go back to life as normal. If it isn’t…. Well I’ll still have some treatment to do.

I won’t be able to give an update for a few days. I’ll be in the hospital for at least two days, maybe more. And they won’t let anyone in except Gregg while I’m there, which makes me sad. I’d like to see my kids too. But there’s always video chat.

Corona has made everything a little tougher. Appointments aren’t as available as they once were, and if I had Corona I couldn’t get the life saving surgery I needed. Plus you can’t have visitors, or even a family member at your appointment to talk about your diagnosis. He has to do me off at the door, and I have to waddle in. Thank goodness I can still walk, though I think the nurses were really worried about me falling down at the hospital today. She kept offering me a wheelchair.

One and a half more days….