2018 has been a relentless year for our family. After enduring an extremely difficult pregnancy, our son was born and required 3 surgeries (1 planned, 2 emergency) and spent 6 weeks in the NICU. And, now, I’ve experienced my first surgery, which was an emergency surgery performed a couple weeks ago after a visit to the ER.
The weekend we brought Sam home, I wound up on our bathroom floor, violently throwing up and experiencing excruciating pain. I probably should’ve gone to the ER then, but I didn’t because we just got Sam home and the very last thing I wanted to do was see the inside of TMC again. Plus, I was still in that very real post-NICU fear phase of “What if I mess up my baby or something goes horribly wrong and I have to take him back?” I just wasn’t willing to risk it, so I chalked it up to food poisoning.
These sessions of getting violently sick happened a couple more times. At first, I thought it was food poisoning. Then, I thought it was anxiety. I felt sick all the time. It was easy for me to be like “well, okay, stress” because the sick sessions started after bringing Sam home. When we brought him home, he was barely cleared to not be under constant watch. He’s had struggles with his health since his first day of life and I doubt he will ever have a day where he’s not struggling on some level. All that is extremely stressful as a parent because how do you know when to take him to what doctor for a new health-related problem that you’re not sure is normal or not for his condition? What if you don’t take him in time? What if you’re not paying close enough attention and you miss an important detail? It’s hard being a first-time mom and trying to keep tabs on whether or not your child is in mortal danger or if it’s normal baby stuff, especially when you already have an anxiety disorder.
As the weeks passed and I still couldn’t go a day without feeling detrimentally nauseous and miserable, I began to question the “anxiety theory”. I’ve had anxiety since I was a little kid. And, when I say anxiety, I mean the real deal psych disorder. Sessions of getting violently sick – throwing up so intensely it came out my nose and dealing with horrible back and stomach pain for days after – were never an occurrence. In fact, I hate throwing up. I hate being nauseous. I hate these things so much that I fear them.
Typically, my anxiety always manifested as insomnia, nail biting, and migraines. I’ve definitely been in states and situations of extreme stress before. The NICU and Sam’s condition were not the first horrific and traumatizing situations I’ve experienced. So, that’s where I began questioning things: Why this reaction now? After all these years? It just didn’t line up.
I told myself that the next time it happened, I’d go to the ER. Honestly, I should’ve just insisted on a PCP appointment, but they didn’t have anything till the fall. I could technically have gone to my OB since I was so recently postpartum and they should be keeping tabs on things that might be birth-related, but I didn’t trust her to at least give an attempt to discover the underlying cause. She’s very much the type of doctor to hear one symptom and prescribe a pill and I hate that.
I was hoping that it wouldn’t happen again. But, I was nauseous and in pain all the time. Of course it was going to happen again. When it did, I didn’t hesitate. I told Josh that I needed to go to the ER. We packed up Sam and headed out in the early morning hours of a Wednesday.
I barely remember talking to the nurse at the front because I was so dizzy. She had me head back immediately and I was being handed a gown 10 minutes later. An ER doctor quickly assessed me by doing palpitations. She told me that she thought it may be my gallbladder, which caught me by surprise. I dismissed her diagnosis because I’m young, it’s probably a stomach thing, and ER docs are used to seeing traumas and big scary things. They gave me morphine and anti-nausea meds while I waited to be taken to ultrasound to confirm GI issues.
Though I hate needles and I hate hate hate IVs, I had no complaints. I didn’t realize how much pain I was in until the morphine took it away. I felt like myself again. I was able to sit Sam on top of my lower abdomen while they wheeled me in the hospital bed to my ultrasound, which he loved. He was all giggles as they rolled us down hallways. It’s hard to feel scared of anything when you have a giggling baby on top of you having the time of his life. There was even a woman, who was getting violently sick, that stopped mid-puke as we passed to laugh. The kid has a hilarious screech laugh!
And, of course, the ultrasound confirmed what the ER doc suspected. I was brought back into the ER to wait for the on-call surgeon. Once he arrived, he explained that my gallbladder had to come out and that the situation had caused my pancreas and liver to become inflamed. He also said that stones had backed into the common bile duct. That’s when I started to get nervous because I knew it must be bad if it affected that many things and especially because they were considering it emergent.
They wheeled me into my room just long enough for Josh set down all the baby stuff before being wheeled over to pre-op. Josh and Sam sat by my bedside while doctors, surgeons, nurses, and the anesthesiologist ran through a long list of questions and quickly typed it into my chart. After they got all their info, there was about an hour of waiting while the OR was being prepped. Sam started to get antsy until Josh was able to place him on top of me, where he stretched into a big hug. We both fell asleep until the surgeons came in to alert us that the OR was ready.
The anesthesiologist pushed a sedative before leaving the pre-op room, so I barely remember being wheeled into the OR. I can’t really tell you how I was able to go from hospital bed to OR table without toppling over or ripping out my IV, but I can tell that I probably forgot that my gown was open the back and the entire OR got an excellent view of my butt. Snaps for me. 🙂 I also remember the anesthesiologist trying to put the oxygen mask over me, but I had such a coughing fit at the dry air that I tried swatting away the mask in my delirium. At that point, they pinned my arms so they could put on the mask and I was out.
Post-Op
I was in a pretty deep sleep for several hours after the operation. I do remember Josh and a nurse trying to wake me by calling my name. But, at the point, the anesthetic was still strong and I eventually threw in the towel, said “screw it”, and decided to go with it. I knew I wasn’t dead. I also knew that I hadn’t slept well in ages, so I was going to take full advantage 🙂
I actually didn’t mind my post-op recovery time in the hospital. Normally, I avoid hospitals and doctors and all the tests to see if you’re dying or not. But, things change when you’re a mom. Since becoming a mom, I’ve found that people are incredibly more sincere and helpful. I’m not going to lie: I was soaking it up. The nurses on my case were fantastic. They were always in and out, making sure I had water and pre-heated blankets. I didn’t even know pre-heated blankets were a thing until they brought them in so I could “rest well”. Suddenly, I want to be the ass that has blanket heater at home and I wouldn’t even be sorry about it. I also got the calf things put on me that give you a delightful little calf massage. They would give me little mommy pep talks and melt into puddles when Sam was brought in. I was almost sorry to get discharged the next day!
Once I got home, it was a different story. Josh had to go back to work right away, so I was home with little Sam and making sure he was taken care of while trying to heal from major abdominal surgery. Fortunately, the timing of the surgery hit right when my best friends were planning on coming to town.
To be honest, I think I went too hard and too fast. Like I said above, I’ve never had surgery before, so I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t know how I should heal. The doctor told me two things: 1) he wanted to see me two weeks post-op to check up and 2) I should be back to eating “normally” in no time.
Well, I haven’t eaten normally in a year. I’m not sure if I even know what that is anymore. I’m almost two weeks post-op and still experiencing nausea and dizziness. Granted, not as bad as before, but I still have “omg I’m going to puke” moments. I was freaking out until I talked to a couple other women who’ve had the same surgery and they said it’s normal and it’ll take about a month before all that goes away.
I’m hoping that this is the end of a long road of unexpected medical emergencies. That once I heal from this, we’ll be all good. I just wanted to pop on here and give you all the massive update because I haven’t had a chance to say much of anything other than “hey I had a surgery” and then disappeared!
We’re doing okay. We’re all on the mend. THANK GOD for amazing friends who come across state lines and friends who drop all their evening plans to come over a help us. And THANK YOU to all of you who wrote in and telling me your stories with gallbladder surgery. I’ve read them all and they were all ridiculously helpful and helped keep my anxiety at bay. You guys are great. See you around!