So sorry for the long silence everyone. As you already know, I got pretty damn sick 2-3 hours after starting Lupron for my FET and the doctors are still
not quite sure what it is. I only took two doses of the Lupron, my first dose Christmas Eve and the second on Christmas Day because I couldn't get ahold my doctor or any of the nurses. Although the symptoms went away about 21 hours after the first dose, they did Not go away after the second.
Chest pain, upper back pain, pain under my right ribs, pain when taking a
deep breath. It got Awful at night and I was waking up in agony that
lasted at least up to an hour. I have a barely elevated temp around 99.5, fast
heart beat from the pain but my usual lowish blood pressure. I also had a mixture of chills that made my teeth chatter
and my body shake at night (while wearing socks, sweat pants, a long
sleeved shirt, a sweat shirt, a hat and a heating pad in Bed!) and sweats that
soaked through my leggings during the day. The most debilitating is probably the exhaustion, which is either it's own
symptom or a result of all of the above.
After another night clutching my chest in misery, I went to urgent care. The first doctor there ran my labs
but everything came back perfect, though my white count was on the high
end of normal. He decided it must be Reflux from the Lupron upsetting my stomach and since there was no one to read an ultrasound over the holiday, he sent me home. Cue another night of agony that the Pepcid didn't touch. The next day, I made a same day appointment with a different doctor who turned out to be absolutely wonderful. I demanded an ultrasound, thinking
it must be gallstones from all the estrogen, a common side effect of IVF. But that ultrasound threw a major curve ball. A
perfect, stone free gallbladder sitting pretty by my liver which was covered in "masses".
This is where we called Dr. D and officially cancelled our FET. There was just no way we could transfer a precious embryo while my body was imploding and they wanted repeated, radioactive tests not safe for pregnancy.
Looking for logical answers, we thought the masses must be (hopefully benign) tumors or cysts from birth control. They pop up in probably 1/1000 women and given our terrible odds with everything else, I figured it made sense for me to be in that small percentage. Awesome doctor number two ordered a CT
with contrast to confirm liver tumors STAT. I was awake and getting over a fit of chills and pain when the scheduler called at 7:30 the next morning so I requested they bring me in immediately. It took a little back and forthing, but they squeezed me in at 9am. A 1 hour wait guzzling water, an IV and a 5 minute test later I was done. However, instead of answering questions and clarifying things, the CT showed
that the "masses" weren't tumors but swelling in my liver,
along with swelling in my spleen, swollen lymph nodes and scarring plus tiny pleural
effusions on the bottom lobes of my lungs. Not fun, but an obvious explanation for the miserable pain.
Up next was supposed to be another test to confirm I don't have a blood clot in my
lung, but once the liver specialist looked at my CT, he decided he wanted a biopsy of the biggest lymph node instead. This was on Monday and I'm still waiting to hear back from the one person who performs CT guided biopsies, clearly he must have a busy schedule. At this point, most of the chest pain is gone unless I yawn or breathe very deeply so I'm not sure I'll even have a swollen lymph node left for them to biopsy. The liver swelling must be going down on it's own and with each day I'm more and more convinced it's some sort of allergic reaction to the Lupron.
My RE was probably the most
honest and said that sometimes things like this happen, they go away,
and you never get answers or find out what caused them. He does think
the sweats and chills at least were definitely caused by the Lupron. Since we cancelled
the FET, I started taking Advil which managed the pain really well and I'm down to almost nothing now. Of course I managed to catch a virus from sitting in all the Kaiser waiting rooms, but there's nothing I can do besides wait out a cold. Whether they fit me in for the biopsy or not, I just want to move past this and get well so we can finally transfer our embryo.
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