Yep.
It happened.
Some of you may be wondering where I've been.
Lemme tell you a story...
For the past few weeks I have been experiencing terrible nausea and vomiting, I honestly was chalking it up to morning sickness and was just counting the days until I was out of the hellish first trimester. None of the tricks worked, peppermint oil, crackers, carbonated soda, protein, ginger, different type of teas,any nausea treatment that was out there I tried to no avail and I was THIS close to calling my doctor for the suffering pregnant woman's best friend... zofran. But I solidered on...
Last Thursday started out rough, I choked down my peanut butter toast and got ready as usual, but as I was brushing my teeth I gagged a little and everything came right back up. I started crying. It was a battle anyway to eat at 5:30 in the morning, and now all that hard work was flushed down the toilet.
I went to work and just felt off all day, my stomach was killing me and no matter what I did I couldn't shake this persistant nausea, it was so bad that after my boss left at 4 that day I laid down on the newly installed carpet and tried not to move. When 4:30 finally came around I clocked out and slowly made my way to the car. I felt like a live round, any sudden movement and I would explode. We got home and I went straight to bed, then around 5:30 all hell broke loose. I couldn't get comfortable in bed, so I grabbed my robe and my pillow and decided to cut my vomit run distance from feet to mere inches. There is nothing like the bathroom floor when you are sick, especially my bathroom floor because not only is it bone chillingly cool but the heat vent warms it up frequently enough that you are never to hot or cold. Anyway, husband comes and checks on me and I just melt on to him. I knew I needed to throw up and that this was eminent but it just wouldn't come. It finally did and the momentary relief I felt was glorious, husband helped me to bed and moments later I was darting back to the bathroom... odd. I am usually I one and done thrower upper.
Husband fixed me some rice and mixed veggies because I wanted something bland and I had a few fork fulls and hunkered down for the night... problem was dinner wasn't sitting well. I was up and in the bathroom again. Then it hit me... I thought it was just pain from throwing up so much but when I laid back down my whole abdomen felt like a balloon ready to pop, I honestly felt like I was going to rip, right down the center. Husband and my mom got me back in to bed and all I could do was moan. There was a cycle now, throw up, feel ok for about 5 min, then the pain would start and I would writhe and moan for about 15-20 min and then I would throw up again. This was my hell from about 7-9pm. We called my OB because this wasn't morning sickness, we knew that now, but was it the flu, or something else? At this point I couldn't even hold water down and my mom and husband were on their phones, we called my OB and her answering service didn't pick up for some reason so we called my midwife, who thought it was the flu and sent husband out for fluids and some anti-nausea/vomiting meds, but when I threw that up I suggested calling my friends mom who is a nurse. She said get me to the ED regardless of what this was because I was going to needs fluids. In a last ditch effort my mom called my OB again and she echoed what my friend's mom said and she was even on call at the hospital and would be expecting us.
This is where I get on my soap box a get a little pissy.
I knew the ED was crowded, it kind of bummed me out because I knew that meant the possibility of a long wait was a possibility. We go through triage and I think to myself a pregnant woman complaining of abdominal pain and can't keep fluids down may help me get seen faster. We sat in the waiting room for 4 FUCKING HOURS!!!! I only say it angrily because there is a sign when you first walk in that says people aren't seen in order as they come in but in severity of state or something like that. Looking around the room there were people worse off than me and people that weren't. The ones that were worse, or course see to them first. At this point My body was so exhausted and there was nothing left in it to heave so my vomiting had stopped. But you can't tell me the woman that was bragging that she had already been to the emergency department at another hospital earlier this week, AND had only come because her daughter needed to be seen so she thought she would get her foot looked at was a higher priority than me. Not only was she seen a whopping 2 hours before me but she was seen even before her own daughter. I shake my head at whoever was doing triage that night. Shame on them, and I don't even mean for myself, there was a girl that was probably 16 or 17, in so much pain she was sobbing quietly in to her fathers arms in the waiting room. That shouldn't happen.
Anyway, I spent most of my time in a wheel chair in the bathroom, I know it sounds gross but it was quiet and the corner I was in was dark, plus I didn't want to vom in the waiting room. Finally, someone must have told someone that a woman was sitting in a wheel chair in bathroom because a nurse came in and very rudely asked me what I thought I was doing in there.
Me: I thought I was going to be sick so I came in here
Nurse: Ma'am are you ok?
Me: no, I am just waiting for my name to be called
Nurse: How can you hear it if you are in here? Your name has already been called.
Me (not liking the nurses attitude): Do you honestly think I am alone, my husband and my mother are with me and sitting in the waiting room. Somone will come in a get me AS SOON as you get to my name on this never ending list of people ahead of me.
Nurse:.... what's your name
She finally calls my name and honestly after the whole waiting room ordeal the staff was absolutely wonderful. I finally get a bed at 2am on Friday morning and things went from bad to worse. I threw up again... yay and they ordered me pain meds and anti nauesa meds and can I just get a WHAT WHAT for morphine!!! It was glorious not to be in pain anymore, anyway they ordered ultrasounds of the babes and of my abdomen and the babes was fine (heart beat was 167 and I got to see heshe's little arm!) but then came the ultra sound of my belly. There it was, a huge gallstone in the neck of my gallbladder.
When the nurse came back in she kind of nonchalantly threw "meeting with the surgeon" in to a conversation and I was all drugged up and agreed and then once it sank in was all "SAY WHAT!?!?!" My mom called my dad told him what was up and we spread the word to family and friends. They moved me to a little room in the Clinical Decision Unit ( I, for one had never heard such a thing) and there I stayed until the meeting with the surgeon. He came in and said by the looks of it he would suggest surgery but would confirm with his attending... now, after years of watching Grey's Anatomy... I knew what this meant. My husband and mom left to get me some socks (it is freezing in hospitals yo) and something to eat because the Doc said it would be 30 min. I try to get some sleep and here he comes back 10 minutes later asked if I wanted to wait for my family and I said it didn't matter "Yep, you need surgery." I was shocked. I thought I was just suffering some hyperemises and they were going to give me fluids and some stop vomiting meds and send me home... now surgery. I asked him to tell me in depth how this was NOT going to effect the baby and he obliged. I called my family let them know and then we waited.
Stay tuned for my shared hospital room antics, the nurses thinking I was a pin cushion, surgery and recovery.
