Sunday 18 April 2010

Tripping Out

After my operation I was kept sedated for 24 hours, to allow my body to recover, unfortunately my mind was still very much active and I can remember having the weirdest dream that I just couldn't wake up from.
I had Alexandra Burke's song Broken Heels on constant play in my mind with the vision of a spinning monkey's head with the skin being peeled from its face.

I can only guess that the song was playing on the nurses radio whilst someone was watching an Indiana Jones film, is it Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom with the chilled monkey brains???

Now if this ever gets out into the public I'm sure it will be grounds to admit me to the looney bin!

Oops it is public - I'll wait for the men in white coats then!

Wednesday 14 April 2010

The Next 3 Days ( and a week ) !

So I'll carry on.. where was I ? Oh yes, I had been discharged and my son had been moved to a hospital nearer to home.
I had to return to the hospital the next day ( which was a Friday ) for an injection to stop blood clots because I still wasn't fully mobile, my temperature was a little high but they put that down to the heating on the ward, they do like to keep maternity at boiling hot temperatures! so yet again I was sent home and a district nurse and midwife arranged to come and look after me.
I woke on the Saturday and followed the hospitals advice about scrubbing my c-section wound clean in the shower before the district nurse came to change the dressing, I was in agony with it - God only knows why people opt for this type of delivery, no way would I have a c-section again ( well not through choice anyway  ) Both nurses came on the Saturday and changed my dressings and took my stats, said I looked a bit peaky and they would keep an eye on me.
Sunday came, my mum and dad walked in the door and said I looked grey, OK I'll admit it I was feeling a bit crappy, district nurse came and wanted me to go back in hospital, I said I didn't want to because I'd only just got home, so she said she would wait to see what the midwife said. Midwife came took one look at me and said I was going back to hospital.
They admitted me to my local hospital's maternity unit and put through some very undignified tests, mums out there know there's no dignity in pregnancy but wowsers this was something else!
As it happened they couldn't find anything wrong related to my pregnancy, so decided to admit me overnight for obs until they could get a second opinion and I spent the night on the urgent care ward, that was like a ghost town, me on my own on a ward with 5 other empty beds and my own personal night nurse.
Morning came and the decision was made to take me back to the initial hospital, time to get prepped before being transported, had to have a central line put in my neck and another one in my wrist, oh the first 2 of many!
So, central line, oxygen tank & heart monitor attached, I was whisked down the motorway to what was to become my new home!

I settled into my new bed on the intensive care unit, private room with windows into the neighbours room & the main ward, apparently there was a window behind me to see the outside world but I never got to look out of it. By this time I was looking more pregnant than I did 3 weeks ago before all this happened!. An ultrasound scan showed a mass in my abdomen and under a local anesthetic a drain was inserted.

** people of a certain disposition may not want to read any further - also don't read whilst eating **

What came out of my abdomen is well and truly and unbelievably gross. 3 litres of the most foul smelling and pungent liquid known to man had been inside of me for God knows how long. This came out of me over the course of 2 days, but I was still feeling really poorly, so the next step was to open me up and see what was going on in there!

Friday 9 April 2010

In the beginning

Well it's been a long time since I've blogged so there's a lot to catch up on.
Here we go.......

After a long time of trying I finally fell pregnant in October 2009 and was overjoyed, OK I was still Fat Girl Thin but other than that I had no real complications with my pregnancy until the fateful night of 29th March 2010.


My pregnancy had gone fine and I was looking forward to decorating both mine and my future child’s bedrooms when suddenly I was rushed into hospital at 32 weeks. I wasn't due for another 8 weeks, not till the end of May, crikey, surely nothing serious was wrong, I hadn't even bought a cot yet!
I spent the rest of the night hooked up to a fetal heart monitor, drifting in and out of consciousness, the nurses decided to send my husband home for some rest of his own and no sooner had he gone they rushed me into theatre! I’d got a ruptured placenta and both mine and the baby’s lives were in danger. The last words I remember was the nurse telling me she was going to put a catheter in and then an uncomfortable feeling before darkness.



I don’t remember much of the next few days because I was so doped up on morphine, but I can remember every time the nurse came in to check on me she’d give me another shot of the stuff, maybe she was on commission from her dealer to push as much of the stuff through me as possible – we may never know.



I did come around 3 days later, long enough to be wheeled into NICU to see my new born child and to find out that I'd had a son, 3lbs 11 ounces. I could only stay a while because I was in so much pain and needed to get back to bed. After a few more days on the birthing unit, they decided that I should be moved onto the regular maternity unit and along came a big butch nurse to remove my drain and catheter, "this won’t hurt…… much" she said as she smiled pulling the tubes out of me. OK I aint no lady and have been known to say a few choice words at times but even I surprised myself that morning with what came out of my mouth!, they obviously don’t adhere to the “ violence and abuse against staff “ posters that are put around the hospital, because I should have been thrown out after what I called her!



To get her own back, instead of allowing me to go to the new ward in a wheelchair, she made me walk along the corridor, get in a lift and walk along another corridor to my new room. Part of the rehabilitation process she called it. This was where the fun really started. Major incontinence. Due to having a catheter it can take a while for the bladder to start working properly again, and being pumped full of antibiotics can cause bowel incontinence. I had to change rooms to one that had an en suite bathroom because I kept making such a mess, and was put on barrier nursing because my temperature wouldn't go down and I had suspected MRSA. I was shitting myself too much for it not to be caused by an infection. So all my family had to now kit up before coming to see me. It's not easy trying to hug and love someone when you have to wear an apron, gloves and masks, - All I wanted was a hug, cuddle and a kiss to reassure me things would get better but nobody could give that to me.Not once did any of the doctors seem concerned that I  couldn't go and see my son again nor the fact that I looked more pregnant than when I was! My stomach was swollen to twice its normal size, I was leaking ooze out of my c-section wound but this wasn't a problem, they just kept changing the dressings.



Strangely one day I was being barrier nursed and then the next I was ready to leave hospital and discharged, and my son was transferred to my nearest hospital so that I could possibly visit him now I was going home....... how was I to know this was the last time I would see my tiny little baby - no he didn't die - but I nearly did...again!
To Be Continued...............