CONTINUED................
The initial "counselling" at the local suburban hospital was poor. The doctor advised that the name was "sacral" teratoma rather than sacrococcygeal teratoma which created confusion for me when trying to research the condition. He also advised the tumour was in the baby's stomach and completely enclosed. This was incorrect, the tumour was external to the baby, attached to her tailbone, with a small intra-pelvic part. The doctor also felt that the situation was not urgent, that we should go home and that I may possibly be delivered a week or two early. He advised I speak to an obstetrician who I was no longer seeing to help coordinate what to do next.
The obstetrician promptly got his secretary to call me back and advise that the suburban hospital in fact should be taking responsibility and guiding me and the obstetrician advised via his secretary he wasn't prepared to see me bc he hadn't for some time. I thought the obstetrician's apparent indifference was cruel in light of the urgent situation in which an unborn child's life was in jeopardy. In an attempt to allow myself to stop hyperventilating and therefore not go into premature labour, I surfed the Internet.
Whilst there are a lot of negative things about " the net" such as it having unreliable information, it was my best friend. Of course, I chose only reliable pediatric sites. I learnt a lot about SCT's like there was a 50:50 chance of my baby surviving and that they occur four times as often in girls than in boys for some unknown reason. I also learnt that "teratoma" is a Greek word meaning monster and that it is a word to describe tumour. Thankfully, my instinct kicked in so I also made some calls, I returned to the original ultrasound people who had failed to diagnose the sct, insisting they see me. It was very stressful trying to co-ordinate the medical appointments by myself. The professor at the ultrasound clinic agreed to see me and wrote a report advising that the baby's bladder was extremely dialated and that the heart was enlarged that there was a risk of rupture. The urgency of the situation was now conveyed. Through the blur, we were admitted to the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.
|
