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Sunday, June 8, 2014

Emergency Room and Fertility Answers

Since my last post, I have been able to find out and discover more answers than I thought I would get for awhile. For that, I am extremely grateful. On May 12th, I left work thinking I had the flu. I had woken up that morning and was trying a new diet so I had eaten broccoli and eggs (I should know that broccoli is not my friend after multiple times of throwing it up over the years) and I wasn't feeling too well. I went to work thinking that it would pass but I noticed the nausea was just getting worse. I had a pretty important work meeting though so I stayed and went to it. In the middle of the meeting, I actually had to run out of the room to throw up in the bathroom. I never throw up.. It's not something that happens easily for me. I went back to the meeting and my body would not stop shaking. It was the type of body shakes that make your muscles ache. So, I decided to go home. I had to pull over multiple times to throw up and by the time I made it home I felt like death. I pretty much slept the whole day until Kyle came home that night with creamies and soup. Although I was starving, I couldn't eat that well. I'd have one bite and my appetite would just die.

I rested until Wednesday when I realized that it wasn't getting better. Usually the flu improves after the first day and turns to body aches and fatigue. I wasn't throwing up anymore but I honestly felt like my body was shutting down. So, I went to the emergency room (usually would go instacare but my family has hit our maximum out of pocket on our insurance ha ha). They tested me and found blood in my urine and assumed I had a kidney infection/UTI. They gave me fluids and sent me right back home. I still felt terrible so I was pretty unhappy going home. It was my typical experience with doctors. That night, Kyle brought me home food from panda express. Literally, again, two bites and I wasn't interested anymore. By this point, after being sick for only 3 days, I was already down five pounds. I ended up sleeping on the couch that night and was up all night because of a fever and my whole body hurting. I took an antibiotic and just hoped that it would stay down so I could start to feel better. I was pretty freaked out by this point because I knew it was getting to that point that I was dehydrating and starting to worsen. I told Kyle the next morning that I just wanted and IV again because I couldn't take care of myself haha.. so we went back to the emergency room at 4:30 in the morning and checked back in.

This time when they went to give me and IV it didn't go as well. I was not happy as they had to dig around quite a bit and I was pretty dehydrated and still feeling very ill. At this point they gave me morphine and the experience was much better for awhile. They were able to get all the blood they needed and once again collected a urine sample which did not look normal at all. My liver levels came back elevated so they immediately scheduled a CT scan. At this point they thought it was my appendix. The CT scan was pretty easy although it causes some pretty weird sensations if you have never had one. After the CT scan they found fluid in my abdomen so they decided to do an ultrasound. At this point, it was getting difficult because Kyle had to run to our house to accept a delivery from RC willey. My mom had just shown up though so that helped. The ultrasound ended up showing two things. The one that would have any impact that day was that they couldn't find my gallbladder. The one that would impact my life from that point forward was that my ovaries were covered in cysts. They figured that the fluid in my abdomen was from a cyst that had burst.

I knew something was wrong with my body and I've known for awhile, but I couldn't get any doctors to take it seriously because i'm young, healthy, and we hadn't been trying to have children for more than a year. I finally had what I needed to get help, but in that moment I was devastated. I've honestly felt like I am broken since I was 18. I have dealt with health issues that have affected my quality of life since then and I knew that this was going to be yet another one. The doctors did a physical to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong and I don't even think I was in my body. All I could think was that my body killed my baby, that it was my fault I miscarried. I know logically now that there was no way I could have known, but the emotional side of me didn't care.

I was still pretty sick so they decided to admit me until they could get me in for a hida scan that night. By this point I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 4:30 that morning so I was dying to get everything figured out. I was so swollen from all the fluids they were putting through my body I had to take my ring off and my wrist was starting to ache from holding my hand up lol. Finally they took me for a HIDA scan and I literally slept through that whole entire thing. You are supposed to hold still for like an hour and a half in a machine so I just relaxed and tried to ignore my body. They were still not able to find my gallbladder then even when they tried to stimulate it with morphine.

I ended up going into surgery that night at 9:30 pm to remove it. Usually I get nervous before going under but at that point I just wanted it out. When I came out of surgery I was so happy because I already felt better and I could finally drink water. I slept and drank water all night until they brought me food the next morning. As hungry as I was, food wasn't that great still but I was able to eat a little bit. The worst part of after surgery was every time I would stand up my lungs would freak out and I felt like I had a huge wave of air being forced through them. It was extremely painful and unfortunately didn't go away for about a week. I think it was from laying in bed so long  and then having surgery and not taking deep breathes. I was pretty much having to open my lungs again.

So, I finally know why I've been struggling to have kids and why I miscarried. Maybe I will post later about how I am handling that and what steps we are taking. As bad as that experience was, it allowed me to finally get help and to have answers. So, I am happy. And I am grateful.