I had surgery this past Friday and decided to share this personal story about my health. I’m sharing my pain because in doing so I might help someone searching for answers, the way someone else’s blog post helped me. I would also say, before you read this post, that any decision about your health should be made with your doctor. I am not a medical expert, I am simply sharing what happened to me and what eventually led to answers.
Some of you may remember I was hospitalized in early March. I was driving home from a work event and suddenly went into an immense amount of lower abdominal pain. My hands and arms went numb, I started to pass out but thankfully I got off the road first. I could have killed myself or someone else in a car accident due to this sudden burst of pain.
After being admitted to an emergency room, I was told an ovarian cyst had ruptured. It was news to me because I had never heard the term ‘ovarian cyst’ and certainly didn’t know that I had one. Y’all, it was as much pain as I felt when having contractions with the twins. For the Moms out there, you know the pain I’m talking about! I was literally screaming it was so horrendous.
Once the hospital did an ultrasound, I learned I had more cysts hanging around in there. The advice when leaving the hospital was ‘watchful waiting’. They typically go away on their own, let’s just wait and see, etc. But they didn’t go away and for the past six months I’ve been in a lot of pain.
Besides worrying about the existing cysts we also needed to stop any new ones from developing, and the most common way to do that – no surprise here – was the birth control pill. So I started taking birth control to stop new cysts from forming while also dealing with the existing cysts. Out of the blue, I started to get daily headaches, which had never happened before. Then the headaches became migraines. Then the migraines came with aura. Then the left side of my face started to tingle and the left side of my lips started to droop. All of this had me scared out of my mind that I was going to have a stroke at the age of 35.
I went to my regular doctor. I went to a neurologist. I told my OB. Their diagnosis was tension headaches caused by stress. Exercise and taking relaxing baths were recommended to help me deal with my stress – and when my neuro said stress, that word really meant ‘emotions’. I had to reiterate to my neuro that I did exercise as much as I could with my cysts, I did take relaxing baths, and I also had been meditating. I was already doing the things she recommended simply because they were part of my daily life before the headaches started.
Fast forward to a weekend in Mid July and I literally could not set a square inch of my head on a pillow without feeling like it was going to explode. I had all the signs of an oncoming ischemic stroke. By this point, I hadn’t slept in a few weeks and was tired of not having answers so I went into a google frenzy. I knew this was not stress, something was wrong and apparently I would be the one to figure it out for myself.
Luckily, I found one single blog post by a girl in the UK who had started taking birth control and then was hospitalized with a stroke as a side effect to the pill. The pill had caused her stroke! I looked at my calendar, my headaches began about one week after I started taking the birth control pill. The pill I was taking had me on the edge of a stroke! And while I gave all three doctors the same story and symptoms, none of them connected the dots. I stopped taking the pill and within one week I could actually sleep again. My face stopped tingling, my lip stopped dropping. I still have lingering occasional headaches but they are minor and manageable.
My surgery on Friday was to remove my ovarian cysts. Everything went smoothly and there were no signs of cancer from the pathologist’s report. I am so thankful to get this health hurdle behind me so I can get my quality of life back – playing with my twins, walking my dog, running, yoga – all the things that I enjoy that require physical effort.
The main reason I wanted to share this story is because if I had not found that UK blog post on that Saturday afternoon, there is no doubt in my mind I would have had a stroke. I also want every woman out there reading this to know that if you feel like something is wrong and your doctor disagrees, get a second opinion and/or do research on your own. The more we share our personal stories the more help we can give each other.
Be well. Stay safe. Advocate for your health!
The Stacy Strategy 