Hospitals

I don't mind hospitals. I worked as a CNA for 4 months before Steve and I got married and I loved it. Of course, I was on Mother/Baby and it was so much fun. I've had 5 babies now and I've decided that I like hospitals when it's on Mother/baby. I was discharged from the hospital on Thursday and seriously, I can't say enough about how great my experience was this time around. The surgery went well, the nurses were awesome, the pain was manageable, and I had an adorable baby boy to love and snuggle.

But sometimes there are complications. Oh, miserable complications.

Sunday my parents came down to take the kids to church with Steve and even brought dinner. I have such awesome parents. I was good and only went downstairs twice. After dinner and a fun "welcome home" cake my parents decided it was time to head home. They were both exhausted after taking care of my kids all week. They were definitely looking forward to an early bedtime and sleeping in the next day! I was not feeling so great- feeling sore from what I assumed was incisional pain, so after getting the kids ready for bed (7:30-ish) I retired to my room and my spot on the bed. About 1/2 later I got the most intense pain in my abdomen. Holy moly, I don't think I've ever felt that kind of pain before. I couldn't move it was so bad. I called Steve upstairs to help me lay down, hoping it would make the pain lessen. I took my Hydrocodon and Ibuprofen and there was no relief coming. I kinda scared Steve as I was moaning in excruciating pain. Looking at my belly he thought he saw bruising, which would indicate internal bleeding, and that scared him a bit as well. He called the nurse help line and finally gave up and called an ambulance, as there was no way he could move me. And then my parents, who hadn't been home very long, got a call to come back and stay the night with the kids (including Thomas!) Our neighbor across the street, who likes to be in "the know" came over until my parents could get back down. The fire department EMTs showed up first from Mahomet and assessed my pain and vitals. I've never had a 150/90 blood pressure reading before! Because putting pressure on my right side seemed to give me relief, they assumed it was my appendix. And unfortunately they were not allowed to give me any pain meds so that the doctors at the hospital could accurately assess the location and level of pain. Lovely. Trust me, I could tell them that it HURT!!! A few minutes later we heard the sirens of the ambulance. They carried me down the stairs in a little chair, strapped me to a gurney, and took me out to the ambulance with the flashing lights. There was a graduation party going on across the street, so we received a sufficient audience on our way out :) And amazingly, Katie and Ellie were not upset at all about what was happening. They just gave me a kiss and said good-bye. Maybe the promise of Grandma and Grandpa's return helped? I still received no pain meds in the ambulance and apparently they didn't use the siren or lights and went the speed limit :( Lame! But Steve got to be an ambulance chaser, which is fun to be able to say. What a long, long night in the E.D. (it's not an ER, it's an ED here). Everything seemed like it was in slow motion. No hurrying for them, unfortunately. It took 3 good hits with the morphine before my pain finally found relief. Then I had a CAT scan and waited and waited for the results. Not the appendix this time, but rather a hematoma in my muscles. Just a fairly rare complication of my surgery earlier in the week. The on-call OB doc came in and told me she was going to keep me for observation overnight and see how I looked by morning. Of course, by this time it's 3:30 in the morning. I was exhausted, I was just told I couldn’t nurse my baby for 24 hours because of the dye they used for the scan, and I'm stuck in the hospital, in a shared room, with no Steve and no baby. Thomas is not even a week old yet and I was being separated from him! I was an emotional wreck. The poor nurse didn't know what to do with me. And to top it off, it just made my belly hurt more by crying. I wanted a quick solution that would send me home to recover. After a couple hours sleep I was feeling better this morning.

So here's the verdict: since there was no sign of infection, there was no good reason to go to the OR and clean it up. I was totally fine with that! I just have to wait for my body to absorb the blood that leaked out into my abdomen. It'll add a couple more weeks to my recovery, but otherwise I do not have any more limits than I did from the C-section. I am still in quite a bit of pain, but it's finally being managed with pain meds and it looks like I can be discharged tomorrow morning. After so many worst-case-scenarios running through my mind all night, it was a relief to know that it was nothing more serious.

Apparently Tom wasn't thrilled about Grandma taking care of him, so she didn't get much sleep last night. Thankfully he was okay with Steve, who relieved her when he got home around 3:30AM. My parents, who were like zombies this morning (did I mention how awesome they are?) took Katie, Sarah and Ryan home with them. I was told that I had to stick around here for another full day (boo!) and here I am. I had quite the roommate and am glad she was discharged this afternoon. A little too much swearing was coming from her side of the curtain! Apparently I’m about to get another roommate soon from a 10-car pile-up. Steve came by with Thomas and it was nice to be able to spend the afternoon with my baby. I couldn't nurse him, but he took the formula just fine (I had supplemented in the hospital, so he was a pro with the syringe). I'm anxious to get back home and finish healing.

Even though this has been a trial, everything fell into place and worked out just fine. The hospital had sent us home with extra formula, so Tom had food to eat. My parents are just 40 minutes away, so they could come rescue us no problem (and come help give me a blessing). I did not need any kind of surgery (I believe a result of that blessing) so I had just 2 nights in the hospital, nothing more. And tomorrow I go home.

So again, I don’ t mind hospitals when I’m delivering a baby and it’s all happiness and joy. I think I’ll stick with that from now on! This is just plain lame!