I am sitting in a prep room right now, waiting for them to access my port and wheel me back so they can thread a catheter into my left renal vein and see if it is being crushed. They said the venogram will take 45 to 90 minutes, depending on how things go.
I prayed the whole way here.
I am sitting here in a gown, wires on my chest, port exposed and waiting, staring at the ceiling tiles and feeling every emotion at once.
I am worried they are not going to be able to do anything about it today… that they will go in, look around, confirm something is “interesting” or “borderline” and then send me home with the same pain… maybe even worse from them messing with it.
I am worried my vascular system is going to freak out… that with my POTS and horrible vascular history and all the times my body has gone sideways, this will be the time my veins decide they have had enough.
I am also hoping so hard it hurts.
Hoping this is it.
Hoping we finally figure out what the hell is going on with this left flank pain… the pain I said months ago felt like Nutcracker Syndrome before anyone put those words in my chart.
Hoping today proves I am not crazy, not dramatic, not “overly focused on rare things”… just a woman who knows her own body and has been right all along.
I am praying they can actually fix something while they are in there.
Praying that if a stent is what I need, they can place it today… that this constant stabbing, aching, grinding pain along my left side might finally start to ease.
It is such a strange place to be… terrified they will not find anything and terrified they will.
If they do not find anything, I go home with the same pain and fewer answers.
If they do find something, it means my vein really has been kinked and congested all this time… and that is its own kind of grief.
So I sit here.
Port peeking out of my chest, waiting to be accessed.
Necklace tucked under thin hospital fabric.
Heart pounding for reasons that have nothing to do with the monitor beside me.
I prayed the whole way here and I am still praying now…
Please God… let my veins tell the truth today.
Let the numbers match the pain.
Let there be a clear path forward.
Let this be one of the days where all of the pushing and advocating and fighting has been worth it.
Whatever happens when they roll me back, I want to remember this:
I did not imagine this.
I did not make this up.
I showed up… again… for answers, for my kids, for myself.
Here in this little prep room, with a plastic bracelet on my wrist and fear in my chest, I am choosing to hope that following this one stubborn vein a little farther might finally lead us out of the dark.
#MomWithATube
