How Rude!

I remember standing in the “weight loss” isle of our largest pharmacy chain store back in South Africa, looking for some cheap and nasty way to get rid of the extra weight I had so happily gained justifying my short and deluded pregnancy.  I wanted all evidence of the heartbreak and disappointment gone, I wanted to forget.   

I was reading the back of one package when an old, busy-body shop assistant put a motherly arm over my shoulders and said, “Forgive me dear, but if you are pregnant you cannot take any of these supplements”.  

Stupid old cow, how I had wished I could find a witty comeback; but I was so taken aback by the inappropriate comment that all I could do was stammer and mutter, tears running down my fat cheeks.  Dark days indeed!

I slowly got my life back after that and time marched on as it does.  Early the following year (about eight months later) I discovered that I was pregnant again.  This time I told no one, I went to my doctor alone and had the tests and only once I had confirmation that everything was ok did I tell anyone.  Haydn and I agreed, we kept it between us for a while - just to be safe.

Nothing but Complications

Ironically, the worst physical injury that I sustained happened while falling as I was going down a marble staircase. I was going too fast in ridiculous heels.  My legs flew out from under me and I landed on what I thought was my tailbone.  But things are never that simple, I herniated one disc and bulged another which caused compression on the nerve roots and sciatica pain (the kind that starts in you back and ends in one or both feet and includes everything in between).  I was treated conservatively for about two years with traction and cortisone epidurals, this kept the pain “manageable”.  

It was only when we decided that we were ready to be a family that I had the discussion with my specialist.  Having a baby was the only acceptable reason to agree to allowing people to put you out and slice open your back and remove and replace bits of your spine.  Have a hospital stay for five days and wear a plastic and metal back brace for six to eight weeks. All in the name of being able to manage pain while a little life can grow within me.  Somehow it all seemed reasonable.  So away I went.

The first surgery was ok – I came away with a 6 inch cut that started mid lower back and ended somewhere just around the crack of my butt – just imagine the view those surgeons had!  I had a drain and a piece of foam glued to my back.  When I awoke in ICU, I was told that all had been a success.  

This is really hard to believe when you feel like you have been dragged by a truck through a cactus grove!  I remember the little milestones… being able to lift my head, turn on my side.  Yeah progress was slow but by day five, I could walk and even climb stairs!

Despite all the pain and recovery time, I did get better and was pain free for the first time in years!  It was almost 8 weeks to the day that we discovered that I was 10 weeks pregnant.  Sadly that meant that I was already a day or two pregnant when I had the operation that was to enable me to carry my babies to term.  The irony was not lost on me then.  Who knew that the early bleeding that I had experienced before the surgery was a sign of pregnancy rather than of menstruation!  Well the test was positive but the scan was awful – my uterus, which should have been a perfectly round little ball looked like a “pacman”.  My doctor frowned and looked at me worriedly, “It does not look great.” she said gently.

After qualitative blood counts showed no growth in the foetus, I was booked for a DNC.  This procedure hurt so much more than back surgery- on an emotional level.  I remember being so angry!  

Everyone wants to make you feel better by telling you “you can have another baby”, totally missing the finer point.  Sorry, never quite cut it, even when it was meant with the best of intentions.  I could not have that baby!  That baby had died and it was my fault for not knowing that I was pregnant and having a 4 hour back surgery and enough drugs for pain to kill a water buffalo!  That baby was lost to us, forever.  My heart was broken, ripped out and stomped on.  All this, for what – why did this have to happen?  What possible good could come out of this? 

Haydn was sad too but he managed to get over it, way before I could.  Even now, almost 15 years later I can so clearly remember feeling as lost, as that baby was lost to me.  Even wishing I could have died along with my baby.  Those were my darkest days, every time that I menstruated was a cruel reminder of the fact that I was not pregnant.

Haydn

We started dating when I was almost sixteen.  He had just finished high school, we had been in the same social circles for some time.  About five months before our actual first kiss, there were signs of mutual attraction but the fates were against us then.  Our birthdays are just six days apart but that year his party had been brought forward to the weekend before mine (my birthday is actually first, but he is two years older).  The night began full of promise and teenage angst.  When he asked me to dance, I knew that he was planning to kiss me, so with a belly full of butterflies I followed him to the makeshift dance floor.   As we walked in the music changed the slowed African rhythms of Mango Groove’s “moments away”.  He drew me into a gentle embrace and within minutes we were in our own little world and nothing else mattered.

When you know you have found your soul mate, what is the point of looking any further?  Both of us knew from that moment that we would be together, forever.  Six years later, we were married.  We have the kind of relationship that others look at with confused awe.  After all the production that is our life, we are still as close as we were on that night in the living room when he finally kissed me.  Granted the butterflies are harder to stir but the warmth and genuine love and affection we have for each other is still there.  Revoltingly sweet, I know but this is the one aspect of my existence that I can honestly say is as good as it gets.

This happiness did not, however, lend itself to any kind of resolution to my medical drama.  Yes, you may sigh now, I do it all the time.  From miscarriages to c-sections, kidney stones to back surgeries, I am a Doctors wet dream. 

Going back, the way forward.

Waking Up

You know the place somewhere between awake and asleep?  That was where I was.  Aware, but unwilling to take that final step into consciousness.  Unmoving, I knew that the moment that I opened my eyes, reality would begin to seep in.

I had endured this kind of thing before, but I was sure that this time it was going to be worse.  Somehow, this was definitely going to be worse, initially anyway.  More pain means more drugs, more drugs, less clarity.  Would it be worth it?  Would I be able to say that I was glad that I’d had it done?  Last time I did and I was, but it lasted just three years.  Three years of a relatively pain free existence, then I fell, again.  Falling is something I do.  

Have you ever noticed that once you have an injury you seem to aggravate it - all the time?  It makes you clumsy.  Every time I am feeling it (pain), I seem to instantly become super inept!  I used to call it the “dropsies” when my kids were younger, now I just call it a pain in the ass.  

My kids...  How are they?  What are they doing?  Who is looking after them today?  It’s a Tuesday, I think.  With the attention span of a fruit fly, I easily flit from one incoherent thought to another, maybe I doze off for a while.

I can hear the nurses talking, the machines beeping.  I hear a quiet sobbing not too far away.  The idea sets in and I can feel a burn on my face, is someone sitting here, watching me sleep?  I hate that!  (People, even loved ones, who come to visit and just sit there and watch you sleep).  Haydn wouldn’t do that; he would stroke my hair, kiss my forehead, maybe, hold my hand.  He would want to see me open my eyes.  I am pretty sure he is not here.  I wonder where he could be? 

I want to open my eyes now.  The urge to look is almost irresistible, almost.  But, if I do… open my eyes, I mean.  If I do and there is someone, here, just watching me sleep.  If I open my eyes and see someone, someone who will instantly arise and say, “Hey, how are you, you ok?  Can I get you anything?”  

I’ll have to smile and say something like, “fine, good, bit thirsty”. That’s always expected, being thirsty, it’s usually true too, and logical.  Before surgery you are not allowed to eat or drink anything for, what is it, 8 hours?  Then they do whatever it is that needs to be done, usually sticking tubes down your throat, up your nose, drying everything out.  

It is at this point that I begin to take stock of what I really feel like.  Crap.  Crap, with an oxygen tube in my nose, yeah, now I can feel that.  My nose is cold and dry.  My finger has a pulse monitor clipped to it, my left hand is cold and aching just a bit so I must have a drip in that hand.  My body feels heavy, a dead weight and I know that so long as I do not move at all it will stay that way.  I have that horrid bitter taste in my mouth, from the anaesthetic, my throat is definitely parched, I try swallow, ouch.  Yes, right now an ice chip or six would be heaven.  Maybe opening my eyes is a good idea.  I feel tired, like I am standing on the edge of a cliff and all I have to do is open my eyes.  Then, if I submit to waking, I know, I’ll feel like I fell off one.

I sigh and open my eyes, which takes a bit more effort that I had anticipated.  Quick assessment seemed to show that there was no visitor at my bedside.  Panning left I see a group of hospital folk in discussion.  Bleep, bleep went one of the machines and when I looked to the right a nurse smiled and spoke, “doctor she is awake”.  

My eyelids are heavy and I feel a bit sluggish.  As I watch the Doctor move out of the huddle and walk towards me.  “Mrs Skolmen”, he says, shining a too bright a little torch into my overly sensitive eyes, “you gave us all a bit of a scare” turning to the nurse, “please would you page Dr Barnes, and let him know that she is awake.”  His attention returns to me as he begins to check the various vital signs.  Without warning he pulls the sheet up from my feet to my knees.  I am now painfully aware that I am butt naked under this here thin, little, white sheet.  

“Can you feel this?” he asks running the back of something like a pen, down the inside of each foot in turn.  (Damn, I should have stayed asleep!  Actually Doc, I would rather like some ice chips and a familiar face!  That’ll teach me!) 

“Yes,” I mumbled, “Can I please get some ice?” I asked weakly.

“Does it feel the same on both sides and on both feet?”  Was he just ignoring my demands?  “How about here,” he asked, his pen, going further up my leg now.

“Hey Doc, I this isn’t even a date, careful where you put that thing!”  Crap!  Did I just say that out loud?  No, it seems that was in my head, that or the Doc is just pretending he did not hear me.  Good call either way!   

I wonder how much of this poking and prodding I am going to have to put up with.  Just then a vision in white breezes up to my bedside and in her hand is a highly coveted cup of ice chips.  Yes!  There is hope after all.  I tune out the Doc, who has now been joined by the anaesthetist and focus on my ice, “the precious”.  

As the first little sliver passes my dry cracked lips and tingles on my tongue, I hear muttering about how low my blood pressure had dropped.  They had battled to get me out of the haze of anaesthetic for an alarming period of time.  Who cares, I’m awake now and I have ice, yummy, scrummy wet and cold, ice is my new favourite thing. This time, I have a quick behind the lids re-run of Julie Andrews singing “my favourite things”.  Maybe... I am still too out of it.  I am having my own Ally McBeal moment, sans the dancing baby, no wait… why am I seeing a dancing baby?  Morphine probably.  All the while, that saintly being in white is still slowly slipping ice chips into my mouth.  I feel like a puppy, but I like it.

As I slowly rise out of the fug that is my doped up brain, I realise that I must have in fact dozed off again.  The doctor is gone and so is the lovely bringer of ice.  I drag my eyelids open again and there is “my Haydn”, holding my hand, forehead resting on the bar on the side of my bed.  As I wiggle my fingers he lifts his head and smiles.  I love him.  He rises and kisses me, just like I had imagined he would and I have a sense of déjà vu as he asks me the questions I knew he would ask...

“Yes, I am fine.  Can you get me some ice?” no surprises there.

Returning with the nurse and another cup of “the precious”, he smiles at me in triumph.  “How are you feeling now Mrs Skolmen?” the Nurse asks, as she pulls a file from the foot of my bed.

“Okay,” I say, “what time is it?”

“It’s around seven thirty” Haydn tells me, “You have been out of it for almost 12 hours!  We’ve all be so worried.  Your mom and dad are just outside - we can only be in here one at a time.  The girls are at home with Maria, they aren’t allowed into the ICU.  Probably for the best, you look a bit scary, all pale and tubey.”  He scrunches his nose.  Haydn has a thing for needles, tubes and hospitals.

I can see the concern lined in his face and just by the pace of his prattle I know that he has felt lost.  “I love you too and I’m glad I am back” I say, in my head.  I wonder if he knows that I am really battling to concentrate.  Is he still talking?  I fade back into oblivion.

Love this!

What is the point?

Aside from making fun of myself and keeping a record of what is happening in my life, there isn't really one.

I have made a commitment to myself to keep a written record of the things in my life that have either had something to do with my pain management or "soap opera value" .  This is a surprisingly long list and I will attempt to entertain my readers with some of my life stories.  In most cases the names have been changed to protect.... well, to protect myself.... from a lawsuit :-)

Every single person has their own battles to fight - life is never as easy as it should be.  The measure of success for me is how you handle your battles, not what they are.