Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Seriously?

So here I sit in my room dripping like a leaky faucet.  I wish I could explain what I was feeling.  Hmm.  Sort of a cross between extreme, seeing-red-type anger and pure, honest fear.  Jason got off the phone and wrapped a cloth around my incision.  The doc said to come straight to the office. Seriously? 

Jason dressed and packed up the kids while I stood there seething.  When they were all in the truck he came back for me.  We drove the half hour in silence only interrupted by me cursing under my breath.  At this point I have pushed the fear behind and focused on my family.  Here we are, not even home for 24 hours and I am again throwing my kids into chaos.  My anger was close to rage.

We got to the docs office and were taken inside.  The nurse got me up on a table and a different midwife came in behind her.  Edie is her name, and I looked to her for hope.  I figured that Sherry was great so Edie must be good too.  WRONG.  This ex-hippie chick made me feel awful!  She looked at the incision and told me to chill out.  "There are only small openings."  Look, if you go in for surgery that digs deep into your body ANY openings will cause you stress.

"How many?" I asked.  She told me there was only three.  One on each side and one in the middle.  The side openings were huge! I told her to close them, asked about infections, complications etc. and she just rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, relax, this happens all the time."  I screamed, "Not to me!"  That is when she got really pissy.  Now, let me explain something.  I do NOT do well in a situation where someone is trying to demean my emotions.   Truthfully, at this point I was so filled with anger and fear I couldn't think straight.  I was actually speechless.

The nurse called in another nurse to take the kids out of the room.  Edie then started to pull a jar from the shelf and from that jar pulled a really awful smelling length of brown gauze.  Not explaining what she was doing, she started to stuff this crap into my incision.  It hurt like hell!!!   She seemed to be angered by my flinching.  Through my clenched jaw, I asked her what the hell she was doing.  "Fixing your problem," she said.  I was about done with her attitude.  "Where is Sherry!"  It was her day off.  Great. 

After Edie was done torturing me, the nurse dressed my incision and told me to come back the next day.  I asked her what the hell was going on and she told me that sometimes an incision will re-open but usually it is only the first two layers deep.  "Don't worry about it, just keep it clean and call us if you have any strange pain." 

Seriously, STRANGE pain?  This is strange.  I got a prescription for antibiotics and was told to be in about the same time tomorrow. 

I still couldn't think straight.  I was in pain, scared, tired and felt just lost.  Jason got us all home and I took Lilian and went to my room.  I slept and breastfed for the next 24 hours.  When we got back in to the doc's office I told the girls at the desk that I must see Sherry, no more Edie. 

The nurse called me in and we started the whole process again.  This time I got more info from her.  Apparently I was to spend the next 4-15 weeks coming in to get this nasty gauze stuff changed until the incision healed on it's own.  My jaw dropped to the floor.  "Most times you only come in daily for about 6 weeks, then it will be every 2 or 3 days."  My jaw made it halfway to China!!

I decided to wait to see Sherry.  She will make it better.  She will explain what is going on.  Edie walked into the room, "Sherry had left on a weeks vacation."  So I was stuck with the psycho Edie. 

Edie did her "stuffing" thing.  Again, it hurt like hell and she acted as if I was a big baby.  We went home again with instructions to return the next day. 

Our third visit didn't end well.  Edie and the nurse did the gauze switch and then announced, "your blood pressure is too high.  I think you have post-eclampsia so I want you back in the hospital."  Holy Shit People.  I just about lost my mind. 

So I get another night in the hospital. 

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