I don't know why, but this maternity leave has presented more issues than I care to admit. It started out with double mastitis, and this past week, it ended up with unscheduled surgery.
Last Friday, our family went to a corporate peon event - a backyard BBQ (except this backyard was like the kind of backyard you see in home and garden magazines where you wonder, who the hell has a backyard like that?? Well, this person did.). That night, I started getting horrible stomach and lower back pains. I had actually been having these bad stomach episodes throughout September but I put off checking it out, just chalking it up to tiredness and possibly postpartum kinks working themselves out. Well, this time, the pain was something awful. There was no position, no antacid, no pain reliever that was working. I decided I should go to the hospital, but fully believed that I would return home sheepishly after being told it was just a bad stomachache or maybe food poisoning.
Around 4 AM, husband and I walked me to the emergency room of the hospital which is 4 blocks away from our place. And once again, we felt how lucky we are to have my mother here since she was able to stay with the kids while we went. I was in a lot of pain by then, and nurses kept asking me to judge my pain on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst pain I can imagine. Personally, I find this pain scale ridiculous because pain is so subjective. I mean, to me, 10 would be like getting a limb severed or something, and so I would always just answer 4, because seriously, this hurt a lot, but it wasn't the
worst kind of pain I could imagine, and I had had two kids after all. However, the first nurse who looked at my face judged me to be in such pain that she thought I should have immediate pain relief with morphine.
That helped, haha.
Long story short, I ended up getting an ultrasound, and being diagnosed with an inflamed gallbladder, lots of gallstones, and one large stone lodged and immovable from one of the gallbladder ducts leading to the intestines. Ouch. What was supremely annoying was that the situation was bad enough that the doctors would not release me, told me that I had to have surgery as soon as possible, and that I had to remain in the hospital until the surgery could be scheduled. And on top of that, I was told that I could not eat anything until the surgery occurred since it would just irritate the gallbladder even further.
How could this be?? I couldn't believe that I had the same condition that led to my husband's same exact surgery over a year ago. Apparently, this condition is highly genetic and also influenced by diet. But, I eat healthy and there is absolutely no one in my family that has or had this condition. Just bad luck, one of the doctors said.
Anyway, I was hospitalized around 7 AM Saturday, got surgery Monday morning, and came home on Tuesday late afternoon. So let's see - here are the highlights of my stay:
1. Between Saturday and Tuesday, I was starving! One nurse took pity on me and snuck me a popsicle. Between Saturday and Tuesday morning, I ate two popsicles. I guess, in some sort of sick way, this jump started my post baby weight loss.
2. I got poked 6 times to get in one IV line because my veins are deep set and small, and ended up with an IV in my wrist, a very painful place.
3. As I woke up from the anesthesia, apparently I immediately called out "Where's my baby??" over and over. I was disoriented and I guess I thought I had just given birth again! The funny thing is, I remember the post-op nurse saying "Your baby is fine,
she is at home" and then me replying "But, my baby is a boy, where is my baby??"
4. On the night after my surgery, I tried to go to the bathroom, unhooked the IV stand from the wall, walked to the bathroom and got the IV stand caught on the mesh top part of the draw curtain in my hospital room. I was too short and too sore from the incisions to unhook myself, so I stood there stranded for 5 long minutes, away from the nurse call button, trying to get the attention of the nurses at the nursing station right outside my door, but was ignored until a random doctor making some rounds walked by my room and I yelled out for help. He unhooked me, but I felt like an idiot.
5. One nurse, as she was helping me turn over in the bed post surgery, saw my ass (not weird given her profession), but then immediately commented that I had nice skin. Awkward.
6. The attending doctor told me that I was a tough woman, taking the pain of the gallstone attack and the post surgery recovery extremely well. This was further confirmed by husband, who reluctantly admitted that I handled the immediate post surgery recovery in and out of the hospital much better than he did for the same surgery. Face!
7. I am really proud of myself for maintaining breastfeeding throughout this process. I had to keep pumping to keep up my milk supply while at the hospital before and after surgery, but had to dump all the pumped milk because of all the meds in my body. Pumping after surgery was painful, sitting up to pump every three hours, and nursing Ethan was painful for a couple of days after the surgery since my stomach was so tender and he would sometimes deliver a not-so-well placed kick while nursing!
8. I am truly grateful for modern medicine. I was able to get laparoscopic surgery, instead of having to be cut open. The recovery time is quicker and the recovery itself is less painful.
I will go to the surgeon's office this Wednesday to get the dressings removed from the incisions (4 holes and one through the bellybutton) and to get the all clear. All in all, I am so glad this too has passed and that I am feeling pretty good.
