Concern
I can't recall if I posted about the difficulties I had following Serenity's birth, so I will share the background story of her birth and the complications which followed before proceeding with my current concerns.
Serenity was a c-sect birth. In the operating room, during the surgery, I felt tingling in my arms, fingers and lips as if they were going numb. I voiced this concern to the anesthesiologist who replied with, "If your lips are tingling I got the block a little high. ha ha" Ryan said he (the anesthesiologist) spent most of the time I was in surgery messing with his cell phone and not looking at me. This was very different from my experience with the anesthesiologist who took care of me during Julian's c-sect. He rubbed my shoulders, talked to me to explain what was going on. Asked me repeatedly how I was feeling and kept a very close eye on how I was doing throughout the surgery. I guess I have had the two extremes.
After the surgery, on the way back to recovery in the maternity suite, I told the staff of doctors and nurses that I felt "funny". They said it was the block wearing off and that they had some medicine for it. I continued to feel "funny" and just not right throughout the day. I shared this with my nurse repeatedly. I told her that I felt "buzzy" and that all of the sounds in the room seemed too loud. I was having difficulty concentrating on anything because the "buzzy feeling" in my head was too disctracting.
When the first nurse left for the day and staff changed, I told my new nurse, Joan, what I had been telling the first nurse all day. I told her that I was not feeling right and that I felt buzzy. I also told her that I was pretty concerned that something was wrong.
My Mom, who has a Masters in Nursing and has completed all but the state exam for a license toward being a Nurse Practitioner, suggested that they look at my blood count.
At this point, I no longer had any color under my fingernails or in my hands. They were completely white. My feet had turned grey. I asked Mom if my face looked pale. She said that it was very pale. She was very concerned as well. A devout Catholic, she began to pray her rosary as she sat vigil by my side.
When the nurse came back she said she would call the doctor and ask him to get an ultra sound approved to find out what was going on. I began to feel like I was fading.
This whole time Ryan and Serenity were in the room. Except for when Ryan went to eat and Serenity went to be checked. I was nursing her, or trying to, and holding her. It was odd because, though I was interested, my heart just wasn't in it. I was still quite distracted by the buzziness in my head. I felt like I was in a fog and I was so tired and weak.
The ultra sound was approved and the tech came in. She found fluid all around inside my abdominal cavity. There was fluid surrounding all of my abdominal organs. She shared her findings with the nurse who called the doctor. He set up a second surgery to go back in to find out where the blood was coming from.
I called all of my immediate family members to let them know how much I love them. I felt I was fading pretty quickly at this point, but was too tired to worry about it. I told my Mom, who was still sitting next to me, that I was going to be ok. I had to be, I had two children to care for. She was still praying. I thanked her for being there.
12 hours after the first surgery finished, I was back in the operating room for a second surgery. I remember them putting a mask over my face and asking me to lie back. My last though was, "I may never wake up."
A few hours later I began to hear noises, beeping, the sound of the nurses talking with each other, the florescent lights and so on. As my eyes opened to see the ceiling in the ICU where I was recovering, my first words were, "I'm Alive!" I had such joy! I was going to be able to hug my kids and watch my baby grow up (though I still could not envision that).
The next morning, after breakfast, they sent me back to the maternity ward to finish my recovery and to be with my baby. I was concerned about nursing Serenity, given the meds I had taken for the surgery, but the hospital nursing consultant assured me it would be ok.
I was pretty dry, I had been given a transfusion, but had still not caught up completely. My new nurse said she thought that they should have given me another unit of blood. I think they had given me two...maybe it was three.
My face hurt over the bridge of my nose and along my cheek bones. I had big bruises on my knees. It was as if the had pressed too hard while holding the mask on my face. My nurse said she thought they had held me a bit too tightly. She was upset that they had hurt me and she told me so. This nurse took very good care of me.
The hospital has a staff of massage therapists who come around to the patients in need, they came around daily while I was recovering, this was wonderful! The hospital food was very good. The recovery room was nice and large on the maternity ward, though I had to request to be left alone (twice) to get more than 45 minutes of sleep at a time.
I was quite happy to go home. Especially because the nurse on duty the last night I was there left me in my room for an hour after I requested help to get to the bathroom. I called Mom at two in the morning and asked her to come and stay with me to help me. By the time she arrived, I was in tears from the pain in my bladder. The nurse finally came in and helped Mom take me to the bathroom. That same nurse as to be my nurse again if I stayed another night. The doctor gave me a choice of going home that day or staying one more night. It would have been the first time I had the same nurse twice during my stay.
I was so ready to get out of there!
I went home to finish my recovery. My Mother-in-law, a truly wonderful woman, stayed with us for two weeks to help out as I got better. A couple of days after I returned home, I pulled the handle on the recliner and felt a "pop" in the lower right quadrant of my abdomen, just above my external scar line. I looked down and there was a pocket of skin bulging out in that spot. I called the doctor who asked me to come in so that he could check it out. They did an ultra sound and saw nothing unusual. It looked like a "fluid filled pocket", I was told, and that I should not be concerned. It hurt. I was concerned.
After a couple of weeks, when the "pocket" did not go away, I called the doctor back. He ordered a CT scan of the area. They found nothing out of the ordinary, though some level on one of my abdominal organs (kidney or liver, I can't recall just now) was on the high range of normal.
After a couple more weeks, I called my family practitioner to make an appointment for a second opinion, because I was still in pain and the bulge was still there.
She looked at it and ordered another ultra sound. Turns out, the ultra sound tech was the same one who came in to look at me the day of Serenity's birth when I was having complications. She was very thorough, having knowledge of my previous history, she did not want to miss anything. Everything looked normal to her and to the Doctor who reads the ultra sounds at the hospital.
I went home with a bulge and some pain and decided I might just have to live with it. After all, that's what my family practitioner had said in the follow up visit after the ultra sound was completed.
Fast forward to today --->
It has been nine month since the "popping" sound and the appearance of the bulge. I still have pain in that area that is at a fairly constant 2-3 on the pain scale. When I begin the day, my stomach is fairly flat, by the end of the day, I swell up like I used to in the week prior to my period. If I exercise at all, I swell more. The circulation in my legs is not right, and my toes frequently look grey or blue-ish. I am depressed because I can't exercise without pain, my clothes don't fit, I have constant pain, and I don't have the energy I need to keep up with my kids and play like I want and need to do.
I still have not had a period since giving birth a little over nine months ago.
This week the pain seems to have intensified. I called yesterday and made an appointment with my family doctor for Monday.
I wanted to have a record of all of this in one place.
Serenity was a c-sect birth. In the operating room, during the surgery, I felt tingling in my arms, fingers and lips as if they were going numb. I voiced this concern to the anesthesiologist who replied with, "If your lips are tingling I got the block a little high. ha ha" Ryan said he (the anesthesiologist) spent most of the time I was in surgery messing with his cell phone and not looking at me. This was very different from my experience with the anesthesiologist who took care of me during Julian's c-sect. He rubbed my shoulders, talked to me to explain what was going on. Asked me repeatedly how I was feeling and kept a very close eye on how I was doing throughout the surgery. I guess I have had the two extremes.
After the surgery, on the way back to recovery in the maternity suite, I told the staff of doctors and nurses that I felt "funny". They said it was the block wearing off and that they had some medicine for it. I continued to feel "funny" and just not right throughout the day. I shared this with my nurse repeatedly. I told her that I felt "buzzy" and that all of the sounds in the room seemed too loud. I was having difficulty concentrating on anything because the "buzzy feeling" in my head was too disctracting.
When the first nurse left for the day and staff changed, I told my new nurse, Joan, what I had been telling the first nurse all day. I told her that I was not feeling right and that I felt buzzy. I also told her that I was pretty concerned that something was wrong.
My Mom, who has a Masters in Nursing and has completed all but the state exam for a license toward being a Nurse Practitioner, suggested that they look at my blood count.
At this point, I no longer had any color under my fingernails or in my hands. They were completely white. My feet had turned grey. I asked Mom if my face looked pale. She said that it was very pale. She was very concerned as well. A devout Catholic, she began to pray her rosary as she sat vigil by my side.
When the nurse came back she said she would call the doctor and ask him to get an ultra sound approved to find out what was going on. I began to feel like I was fading.
This whole time Ryan and Serenity were in the room. Except for when Ryan went to eat and Serenity went to be checked. I was nursing her, or trying to, and holding her. It was odd because, though I was interested, my heart just wasn't in it. I was still quite distracted by the buzziness in my head. I felt like I was in a fog and I was so tired and weak.
The ultra sound was approved and the tech came in. She found fluid all around inside my abdominal cavity. There was fluid surrounding all of my abdominal organs. She shared her findings with the nurse who called the doctor. He set up a second surgery to go back in to find out where the blood was coming from.
I called all of my immediate family members to let them know how much I love them. I felt I was fading pretty quickly at this point, but was too tired to worry about it. I told my Mom, who was still sitting next to me, that I was going to be ok. I had to be, I had two children to care for. She was still praying. I thanked her for being there.
12 hours after the first surgery finished, I was back in the operating room for a second surgery. I remember them putting a mask over my face and asking me to lie back. My last though was, "I may never wake up."
A few hours later I began to hear noises, beeping, the sound of the nurses talking with each other, the florescent lights and so on. As my eyes opened to see the ceiling in the ICU where I was recovering, my first words were, "I'm Alive!" I had such joy! I was going to be able to hug my kids and watch my baby grow up (though I still could not envision that).
The next morning, after breakfast, they sent me back to the maternity ward to finish my recovery and to be with my baby. I was concerned about nursing Serenity, given the meds I had taken for the surgery, but the hospital nursing consultant assured me it would be ok.
I was pretty dry, I had been given a transfusion, but had still not caught up completely. My new nurse said she thought that they should have given me another unit of blood. I think they had given me two...maybe it was three.
My face hurt over the bridge of my nose and along my cheek bones. I had big bruises on my knees. It was as if the had pressed too hard while holding the mask on my face. My nurse said she thought they had held me a bit too tightly. She was upset that they had hurt me and she told me so. This nurse took very good care of me.
The hospital has a staff of massage therapists who come around to the patients in need, they came around daily while I was recovering, this was wonderful! The hospital food was very good. The recovery room was nice and large on the maternity ward, though I had to request to be left alone (twice) to get more than 45 minutes of sleep at a time.
I was quite happy to go home. Especially because the nurse on duty the last night I was there left me in my room for an hour after I requested help to get to the bathroom. I called Mom at two in the morning and asked her to come and stay with me to help me. By the time she arrived, I was in tears from the pain in my bladder. The nurse finally came in and helped Mom take me to the bathroom. That same nurse as to be my nurse again if I stayed another night. The doctor gave me a choice of going home that day or staying one more night. It would have been the first time I had the same nurse twice during my stay.
I was so ready to get out of there!
I went home to finish my recovery. My Mother-in-law, a truly wonderful woman, stayed with us for two weeks to help out as I got better. A couple of days after I returned home, I pulled the handle on the recliner and felt a "pop" in the lower right quadrant of my abdomen, just above my external scar line. I looked down and there was a pocket of skin bulging out in that spot. I called the doctor who asked me to come in so that he could check it out. They did an ultra sound and saw nothing unusual. It looked like a "fluid filled pocket", I was told, and that I should not be concerned. It hurt. I was concerned.
After a couple of weeks, when the "pocket" did not go away, I called the doctor back. He ordered a CT scan of the area. They found nothing out of the ordinary, though some level on one of my abdominal organs (kidney or liver, I can't recall just now) was on the high range of normal.
After a couple more weeks, I called my family practitioner to make an appointment for a second opinion, because I was still in pain and the bulge was still there.
She looked at it and ordered another ultra sound. Turns out, the ultra sound tech was the same one who came in to look at me the day of Serenity's birth when I was having complications. She was very thorough, having knowledge of my previous history, she did not want to miss anything. Everything looked normal to her and to the Doctor who reads the ultra sounds at the hospital.
I went home with a bulge and some pain and decided I might just have to live with it. After all, that's what my family practitioner had said in the follow up visit after the ultra sound was completed.
Fast forward to today --->
It has been nine month since the "popping" sound and the appearance of the bulge. I still have pain in that area that is at a fairly constant 2-3 on the pain scale. When I begin the day, my stomach is fairly flat, by the end of the day, I swell up like I used to in the week prior to my period. If I exercise at all, I swell more. The circulation in my legs is not right, and my toes frequently look grey or blue-ish. I am depressed because I can't exercise without pain, my clothes don't fit, I have constant pain, and I don't have the energy I need to keep up with my kids and play like I want and need to do.
I still have not had a period since giving birth a little over nine months ago.
This week the pain seems to have intensified. I called yesterday and made an appointment with my family doctor for Monday.
I wanted to have a record of all of this in one place.