The Period That Never Ends

My paternal grandmother died from ovarian cancer when she was in her mid 30's.

I'm 32. I had a baby 11 months ago. I'm breastfeeding her. Shortly after she began eating solids (around 7 months), I started spotting, which I've heard is normal. On April 17th, though, I began having my first heavy period. After a week, it progressed to hemorrhaging. I was using a Super Plus tampon every 15 minutes. During the night, when I fell asleep for longer than 30 minutes, I would soak through the tampon and overnight pad.  

A midwife delivered my baby, so I went back to her to get some help. She put me on Provera. I was on that for 3-4 days, but it wasn't doing anything to control the hemorrhaging. My blood pressure has been high off and on, so she was reluctant to put me on birth control pills; but she did, anyway. She had me taking Levlen 28 pills 3x per day for two days, 2x per day for two days, then one pill per day. I'm now on the second pack of pills, but I'm still bleeding. The hemorrhaging type bleeding slowed down after about five days, but I've been having a medium/heavy bleeding ever since. It's far more than spotting -- more like one of my old regular periods.

I gained about 100 lbs. during my pregnancy, so I have a lot to lose. I started a diet, and lost ten lbs., around the time all this happened. Since that time, though, I haven't really been on my diet; but I continue to lose 2-3 lbs. per week. This has never happened at any other time in my life. That's also scaring me.

One final thing. I've noticed a vague tenderness on my right upper side, near my ribs.