Life upended...

The following days I spent in the hospital were awful. Monday, January 18 was actually my best 24 hours in retrospect, if I had known what the next three days and in reality the next two weeks would be like, I would have reveled more in my immediate post-surgery "high". The anesthesia had yet to fully dissipate so my body still felt dazed and confused which was a good thing. I was still hooked up to oxygen, IV, and catheters so my movements were limited which was a good thing; though at the time, I was beyond annoyed and irritated at the constant beeping since they had put the IV in the crook of my right elbow and being right handed every time I lifted it to eat, answer the phone or do much of anything, it would set off the alarm. The oxygen tube lines kept tangling like Christmas tree lights plus it was just one more invasion of my personal space which I had completely lost altogether.

Dave had stayed with me through the night, neither one of sleeping well. I remember watching his form in the dark toss and turn on the pull out chair, a very similar chair that he had slept on when we had Cole. Silent tears coursed down my face as I began to understand the significance again of what fate had handed us that night and yet I was so grateful that my destiny was not to leave Dave and Cole behind.

Dave had to head out at dawn to relieve Jesse our neighbor who had stayed at our house to be with Cole. He set me up with ice water, the phone and everything else I would need at an arm's reach. I was now alone with my thoughts for the first time since the series of the past day's cascading events. Sitting in that hospital bed with an incision in my gut necessary to save my life was almost too surreal for me to truly accept. Minutes passed and I laid there crying to myself about the loss of what was to be and was no more; despite it being only a few weeks, there had been a life growing inside of me that was going to change my existence, if only I had known that it would indeed shape me forever just not in the way I had imagined.

There was no hiding my tear stained face from the nurse who had just come on shift as she cheerily entered my room. She offered her sympathies and took my hand and said "I can only imagine how you are feeling but you will get through this". I had phone calls to make and wanted to reach out while I had strength knowing that fatigue and pain were on their way. It was like telling someone else's tale of woe as I shared with close friends and family what had transpired.

My surgeon's partner arrived on rounds and she offered a short debrief for me since I truly knew only the basics and not the specifics of my situation. She explained how rare my ectopic was, that even despite the ultrasound, they could not know how dangerous a location it was until they got in there. She believed that they were able to save my tube since the ectopic actually perforated my uterus instead. However, that was the reason I had lost so much blood. If I had been home when it ruptured rather than in the ER, I more than likely would have hemorrhaged to death before they would have been able to ascertain what was going on. She was grateful we had taken the initiative to get ourselves to the ER when we had. They were still watching my hemoglobin levels which continued to drop as my body was forced to function on its' low blood status but she was relatively certain that I would not be receiving a transfusion. She did want me to get up during the day to see if I was able to remain standing without fainting which would be the test to see if I could withstand such diminished blood levels. She indicated that it would take upwards of five weeks to regain the lost blood and thus I would be unfortunately living with symptoms akin to those with severe altitude sickness/anemia. She had to move on but said I would be in the hospital to be monitored for a few days.

The day progressed tediously. As the news made its way around, the emails and phone calls became steadier. I began to grow weary and didn't want to talk anymore. The first time I got out of bed, I just wanted to go and yet,my mind and body no longer work in tandem. It took me small scoots just to make it around sideways to the edge of the bed and then with much resolve I stood, I began to inch my way, begging for my innards to stay "in" as the unnerving feeling of pressure made my body feel otherwise. I felt woozy and I had to concentrate way more than I anticipated to stay upright but I made it down the hallway and back. I sat in a chair for twenty minutes and I began to feel the slow, distressing and overwhelming wave of exhaustion setting in. My head was beginning to pound too. I called the nurse and made my way back into bed. I couldn't get comfortable and I knew this was the beginning of a long few days ahead. Dave had come back and played mission control as the phone calls and deliveries continued. I dozed off and on but didn't really SLEEP. I was on pain medication every four hours but it wasn't making a dent in the headache that intensified as the day wore on. I felt shakier now than I had in the morning and because of the headache I couldn't read or want to watch TV.

Dave left to pick up Cole from school, they would walk Tucker, have dinner and come to visit with me. The food was horrible at the hospital but it did not really matter as I had no appetite. My GI tract was responding to the anesthesia as it had with my original c-section, distending itself in protest and making me look sadly (and ironically) like I was 7 months pregnant. The gas cramps were starting too and between them and the still mounting headache, lack of rest and just overall weakness, I was certainly not a happy camper.

Cole and Dave arrived and Cole refused to come into bed with me. He was afraid of it and the strangeness of the whole room. His structured world had been upended. He was reluctant to engage with me at all, wanting to play in the bathroom and with the pull out chair instead. I thoroughly understood his distance with me but my motherly instincts craved the desire to just hold him and snuggle with him, holding back more tears, I enjoyed his presence instead. A three-year old in a hospital is not a good mix and thus their stay was brief.

After they departed, I put on the TV and attempted to watch in the dark of my room, begging sleep to come. They were giving me ice packs for my headache which dulled the pain by about 10% *sigh*. The nurses reminded me that the headache was a side effect of the blood loss because I was half joking with them that I could swear that a blood clot was forming and that it was going to explode. I awoke every hour or so, unable to remain comfortable. I couldn't sleep on my side with all the paraphernalia I was attached to and my neck and back were beginning to ache as well. The night wore on and the crushing headache literally became the bane of my existence. I had endured migraines most of my life but this headache was simply excruciating.