u/LastTraintoSector6

Five years ago, I drove myself to my local emergency room in severe pain. I was eventually diagnosed with perforating diverticulitis with sepsis, and had an emergency resection, and was fitted with an ostomy. A week later, the wound dehiscenced (separated like a zipper coming undone) because my doctor had paid so little attention to the amount of serosanguineous fluid I was producing. After nearly dying, I had a second emergency surgery, and then developed a giant abdominal hernia (do not google pictures of this, it's gross). I had a third surgery to reverse the ostomy, and then a fourth this January to correct the hernia, which was a massive undertaking and had me hospitalized for a week.

A year after the initial event, my much younger sister was left unattended in an ER with a slightly-low level of iron. At some point in the night, she went into cardiac arrest. Yet despite being in a major California hospital, nobody responded to her coding for 10 full minutes. By the time she was resuscitated, she had suffered permanent severe brain damage. She spent the next 10 months drifting in and out of consciousness - her only reactions during brief periods of lucidity being to scream. She died of a second cardiac arrest after nearly a year of unearned agony. Medical science reduced a bright and healthy 32-year-old to a corpse who was basically tortured to death in a single annual cycle.

This morning, I received out-of-the-blue blood results that show I cannot have children. No treatment... no hope... just "sorry."

I've tried to be a good sport for the last 5 years - really. But this morning's email (because, hey, telling someone they're doomed to die with no kids? That doesn't warrant a phone call) was really kind of... the end. I'm honestly on the verge of killing myself. And the only thing that's really stopping me is, if there is a God... I don't want to be around him/her/it. Because, frankly? I'd rather have not existed than have lived this life.

>Following up on your recent blood tests. The most significant result was the FSH level, which is the pituitary hormone that signals the testes to produce sperm. It is elevated to 11.1; men who produce normal numbers of sperm have an upper limit of 7.6. This means that your body is *sensing* that you are not producing normal numbers of sperm, and the pituitary is therefore producing more FSH in hopes of signalling the testes to get to work - and yet, the testes aren't able to act on that signal, so no more sperm are being created. This is the definition of premature testicular failure, for which there is no known cause or treatment.

Just received that from my doctor. We're too poor for IVF, and my recent sperm tests were abysmal - with a zero count. This was essentially out of the blue - I went from medical people telling me "oh, yeah, low count is common - totally treatable" to "it's probably too late" in one email. And, honestly, it has left me heavily considering taking a warm bath with a plugged-in toaster.

The rest of the email was basically a "good luck, we can't help you." Should I seek a second opinion? Or is this just kind of the end of the ride?