Also known as “Can we get frequent flyer status at the hospital?”, “Thank God for health insurance,” and/or “Gramma Camp is the best.” Warning: this is a long one.
Let me tell you, I am very familiar with our local hospital. I can answer the COVID screening questions real fast, I have a preferred parking area, and I know exactly how many minutes it will take me to get to the OB/GYN office from the parking garage (three, unless I run into someone slow on the stairs). Rick is more knowledgeable about the cafeteria offerings, though I do have some pretty strong opinions about the tapioca (amazing), BLTs (delightful), and the grilled cheese (very disappointing).
I’m a little type A. I love having a routine – I am CIA-assassin’s-dream-level predictable most of the time, so having appointments on my calendar is pretty thrilling. You can imagine my joy to have set monthly, then twice-monthly, then weekly doctor’s appointments all planned out in advance. I ate it up. Then my blood pressure decided it wanted to reach for the stars and I found myself going in for not just a weekly quick “Yep, you’re good!” appointment, but a multi-hour process including a variety of tests. We can get into the specifics another day, but suffice to say that the shine wore off just a bit. Still, I had an excuse to hear baby E’s heartbeat and see her wiggle every week, so I couldn’t be too upset. Ultimately, we decided that induction at 39 weeks and 3 days would be the best course of action and I was admitted to the hospital for the first time ever and went home two days later with a happy, healthy baby girl (again, probably more on that another day – it was a wild ride). Cool, good deal, see you next time I decide to have a baby, right?
Unfortunately, not so much. I got through the postpartum pre-eclampsia risk period (perhaps by sheer force of will), baby girl’s checkups, and my own postpartum appointment at six weeks. Cleared, good to go, sweet. Then, somewhere around a week later, I began to get a fun gnawing pain under my ribs. I don’t know how to describe it other than a grumbly hungry stomach that would not be satisfied by food and, in fact, seemed pissed if I tried to eat. Great! I Googled, of course and determined that I probably wasn’t dying but might have an ulcer. Have some Tums, they said. Great! I did that, no dice. Have some Prilosec, they said. Great! I did that (I was well-stocked on both of these items due to my periodic fires-of-Hell heartburn episodes while pregnant) and it seemed to help a little. Deciding that anxiety was probably only exacerbating the issue, I decided I simply wouldn’t worry about it any more and the problem would go away. And it did, for a few days.
Over the next week and a half, I had a few more bouts of pain here and there, but kept pushing it away and popping Tums like it was my job (I kept saying I felt like a shady businessman type in a movie, trying to cover his misdeeds – that should have tipped me off). My breaking point came after spending three hours in the middle of the night alternately curled over and sitting up as straight as I could while I fought through a particularly bad wave. I emailed my doctor and made a plan to go in the next day. I went in and we agreed that an ulcer was probably the most likely scenario. I resigned myself to avoiding coffee, carbonated water (nooo!) and anything else fun for the foreseeable future while getting it under control. I agreed to up my Prilosec, gave some blood for testing, and carried on my merry way.
That night, I started to get really itchy, like I had hives. So, you know, I Googled some more. I went down a rabbit hole of potential issues (adverse reaction to the Prilosec, liver problems) but told myself to calm down and stop with the internet medicine. You can imagine my surprise when I woke up to repeated calls and texts from my doc telling me that my blood work came back abnormal, my liver enzymes were off the charts, and I needed to go in right now (on a Saturday morning) for an ultrasound. Great!
The rest of Saturday was a mess. I had my ultrasound, got word that I had at least one gallstone and got sent in to the ER. We spent about five hours in the ER, during which time I was (sort of) mentally prepared for emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder. Around hour four-and-a-half, after being told that my “abysmal” lab work was starting to normalize and the ER nurse repeatedly poking my stomach and being incredulous that I was not in serious pain (at that point, I wasn’t), we were given the option to go home and schedule surgery another day. I cried. I was so frustrated, feeling like I had wasted everyone’s time, been away from my baby all day for no reason (thank God for Gramma Camp) and now had to mentally psych myself up for who-knows-how-many more days. We did decide to go home, though, and it was one THOUSAND percent the right move. Spending the night alone in the hospital just waiting for surgery? No, thank you.
I went on a little-to-no-fat diet (brown rice and raw fruit, delicious). Monday I had a consult with the surgeon, got pre-surgery labs (still abnormal, but better), and got COVID tested. Pro tip: don’t have a screaming baby in the back seat while getting drive-through COVID testing done. She was crying, I was crying, it was a whole thing. Luckily, the test came back negative. Wednesday afternoon, I went in for surgery. My big takeaway was that I have never been cleaner than I was that day, and that you haven’t seen true love until your husband helps you wipe down with surgical wet wipes according to a color-coded diagram. Big fun all around. The surgery went well, though I woke up in a surprising amount of pain – having had a blissfully easy postpartum recovery, I was shocked that I was hurting as much as I was and, honestly, still am days later. I got out of the hospital as fast as I possibly (safely) could, and am hoping not to have to go back for a good long while. Well, except for my follow-up next week. But after that, I’m done!
Here’s the thing about all of this, and the reason that I think it’s important: I could have very easily had much bigger problems than I ultimately did. Some of it was luck, but a big part of my problem was that I neglected to follow the airplane oxygen mask rule: put on your mask before helping others. I was so terrified at the thought of not being able to take care of my baby that my plan was to just will away what was at best a very painful ulcer. As you can see, not my best plan. So, learn from my (very long-winded) cautionary tale – don’t wait to put on your oxygen mask.
Hickmans at Home 