A 'rather terrifying' birth

After a pregnancy that Summerlin said "went really well," her delivery experience was the opposite.

During her labor, Summerlin experienced cephalopelvic disproportion, or "a mismatch between the size of the mother's pelvis and the head of the fetus," Boodman reports.

Summerlin's baby weighed nearly 11 pounds at birth, and experienced signs of fetal distress due to the presence of green meconium (stool) staining her amniotic fluid.

Shortly after delivery, Summerlin developed a low-grade fever and was informed her baby suffered a displaced hip. A pathology examination of Summerlin's placenta revealed chorioamnionitis, "a serious bacterial infection of the membranes that surround the fetus" along with funisitis, or "inflammation of the umbilical cord" that often shows up alongside chorioamnionitis, Boodman reports.

Two nights after Summerlin and her baby were prescribed antibiotics and discharged from the hospital, the new mother developed shaking and chills, as well as a fever of 101 degrees and abdominal pain. After several weeks of calling her obstetrics practice and receiving "a different explanation" each time, as well as a variety of antibiotics, the chills and symptoms persisted — all signs of a serious infection. 

Doctors also removed Summerlin's appendix, which they later determined was neither inflamed nor the cause of her infection. They soon diagnosed Summerlin with "a post-Caesarean wound infection that resulted in intra-abdominal sepsis with purulent peritonitis — a pus-producing infection of the abdominal lining," Boodman reports.

After spending six days in the hospital, Summerlin was later discharged, saying that she "didn't feel good for a couple of years," though she largely attributed it to other factors at the time.

A few years following her daughter's birth and resulting post-partum hospitalizations, Summerlin was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, along with periodic yeast and urinary tract infections.

 "I thought maybe my immune system was a bit weaker because of all the antibiotics I had to be on after giving birth," she said.

In September 2023, nearly nine years after giving birth, Summerlin woke up with "severe abdominal pain, pressure and a distended stomach," Boodman reports.

After going to a Kaiser Permanente urgent care center in Maryland, her blood tests revealed a high white blood cell count, which doctors suspected was associated with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which is typically associated with STIs like chlamydia and gonorrhea — both of which Summerlin tested negative for.

An abdominal ultrasound and CT scan soon "revealed a left-sided mass that indicated a possible tubo-ovarian abscess," a form of PID that "affects the fallopian tubes and ovaries and sometimes can cause inflammation of the nearby bowel or bladder," Boodman reports. Summerlin received antibiotics, stayed in the hospital overnight, and was soon discharged.

A month later, Summerlin had her IUD removed at the recommendation of Ariel Cohen, her ob/gyn at Kaiser Permanente. A month later, the severe abdomen pain and swelling returned.

After being treated with antibiotics for over 48 hours at a Kaiser Permanente urgent care center, Summerlin was discharged after her condition improved. However, her white blood cell count was high, and a scan found fluid in her fallopian tubes.

Worried about the potential for the infections to keep recurring, Summerlin underwent exploratory surgery to get to the root cause of her pain.  

Before Summerlin's exploratory surgery, Cohen and his colleagues speculated that Summerlin might be suffering from a lingering problem related to her 2014 C-section.

"What we thought and what we found were very different," Cohen said.

A gasp-inducing find

In late-December 2023, Summerlin was wheeled into her surgery, "in tears and terrified," because she was concerned doctors might not be able to operate laparoscopically, which would lead to a longer and more difficult recovery, Boodman reports.

To Summerlin's relief, the surgery was minimally invasive and went well, according to surgeons. Cohen informed her, however, that her right ovary and both fallopian tubes had been removed.

Surgeons found a segment of Summerlin's appendix — which was supposed to have been entirely removed in 2014 — "firmly attached to Summerlin's right ovary" and "leaching its contents, including liquefied feces, into her fallopian tubes," Boodman writes.

"It was very much connected to stuff it should not be connected to," Cohen said. "We were all just kind of gawking at it."

Summerlin remembers her doctors saying that "there is no such thing as a partial appendectomy. No one could think of a reason for this."

While it's still unclear how CT scans found no appendix, Summerlin said she is "very grateful" to her Kaiser Permanente doctors, particularly Cohen, whose efforts empowered her with answers and relieved long-held, unexplained and painful infections.

"It's a bit of a horror to think that I had this Franken-thing in my body for almost 10 years," she said.