mrmph
ok, i know it's been a while (i say that a lot), but things have been hectic. let's see, where to begin?
ok, since my miscarriage, things were looking up (kinda). i still felt like crap, but i had a trip to my mom's to look forward to, so that was cool. i spent the month of April at my mom's, part of it in Kansas/Minnesota visiting my brother and my new nephew :D. got home about the 3rd of May and spent the next 2 weeks feeling so sick i just wanted to curl up into a tiny ball and disappear.
so about 2 weeks after i got home (almost to the day), i woke up around 6:30am feeling kinda icky. felt really bloated/gassy, sick to my stomach. i'd been dealing with this off and on for the previous 6 months or so, so i took some mylanta and thought nothing of it. i had to go to Malmo to renew my resident permit (which is another whole story in itself), and couldn't be bothered with a little gas.
by the time we got to the train station here in town, i felt like someone had stuck a very dull knife into my back and, just for fun, was twisting it around every 3 minutes or so. i suffered through the train ride to Malmo (45 minutes on a train while feeling like a hot water tank that's about to explode is not my idea of fun), then suffered through a bus ride from the train station to the migrationsverket building (basically the people who handle immigrants).
the bus rides were awful, btw. it felt like the driver was going about 80mph and swerving to hit every bump. i was in agony.
so we get to this place and i start filling out the papers, then we find out i need my personbevis, which is basically the swedish version of a social security card. it's a piece of paper that says i'm for all intents and purposes a swedish citizen. only thing i can't do (i think) is vote, at this point. anyway, i digress.
by this time it's around 11:30am and i'm in so much pain it's taking everything i have to keep myself from crying in front of all these complete strangers. i told Bjorn that really, all i wanted to do was curl up into a little ball and cry, and could he please take me home. i knew i was running out of time to renew my permit, but at that point i couldn't think of anything but how much pain i was in and how much i just wanted it to stop. so i suffer through another bus ride, we get on the train, another 45 minutes back to Hassleholm (which i blissfully slept through most of).
we got off the train at the station and i said i'd had enough. i needed to see a doctor or something because i just could not stand the pain anymore. it took us nearly 20 minutes to walk to the healthcenter near the train station (normally only a 5-10 minute walk for me, depending on the day). i didn't even make it past the waiting room. they took one look at me and sent me to the ER (there is a point to all of this, i swear. i just like having something to update with LOL). well, the ER is on the other side of town. Bjorn went to the train station to hire a taxi, they swung by the healthcenter to pick me up and the taxi driver spent the entire drive looking over his shoulder to make sure i hadn't died in his car. i'm guessing i really did look that bad.
so now we're at the ER. for the record, i love Sweden's healthcare system. i wait a max of about 8 minutes, then i'm shuffled into a nice, quiet little room out of the way, where i spend the next 6 hours writhing in pain, alternating between sobbing and begging someone to give me something to make it go away (Bjorn was wonderful through all of this, but at the time i just wanted to strangle him. never tell a woman in severe pain to "just wait, they'll come back soon" lol). So finally, FINALLY, they come in again and tell me that a) they're giving me something for the pain and b) they're transferring me to Kristianstad because that hospital has a surgical staff. waii...wha??? surgiwha?? ok, don't care, just give me painkillers. i'll figure out the rest later.
so this nice guy comes in (his name is Mathias. he recognizes me by sight now, because of the number of times i was in there throughout my miscarriage, and now this LOL) and sticks a needle in my butt. about 5 minutes later the toast i'd eaten at 7am decides it doesn't want to live in my stomach anymore and left by the only means possible. all of it. i won't gross you out with the rest of the details, but suffice it to say, something was not functioning properly.
after puking sporadically for another hour or so, they finally declare me stable enough to be transported. they stuck an IV in me first. oh how i hated that. it was a toss-up between not caring because i was in so much pain and ignoring the pain and saying i was fine so they wouldn't put that damn thing in my hand. i say goodbye to my husband (he had to go home and let his dad know what was going on, we'd told him we would be back around mid-afternoon and by this time it was like 6pm), they stuff me into an ambulance and off we go.
on a side note, ambulances in sweden are kinda cool. it's almost like being in the back seat of a car, but the roof is higher, and there's a person sitting on a chair next to me. not at all like ambulances in the US. it was a comfortable ride for the most part. i spend a lot of it dozing off, still in pain and still sick to my stomach, but she gave me oxygen for that. man, if i'd known it would work that well, i would've started using oxygen to alleviate motion sickness years ago. but again, i digress.
half hour later, we arrive at the hospital in Kristianstad where i promptly throw up all over myself nearly the instant the oxygen flow stops. then they tuck me into a little cubby hole and forget about me. okay, to be fair, it was kind of a busy night. but i was still in intense pain and still throwing up, and i was feeling selfish and all i wanted was to be able to sleep. but it hurt so bad i couldn't sleep. it was probably about 8:30 or 9pm when a doctor came to me and said "okay, we can give you something for the pain now, and then we'll be moving you to a room where you can sleep". so a nurse comes by (i never did get her name), shoves a needle into my stomach, pats me on the shoulder and about 15 minutes later, i was blissfully unaware of, well, just about everything. i dozed off and on (pure heaven at that point) until they came to take me to the room. i woke up enough to transfer myself to the bed in the room, they hooked me up to a bag of Ringer's, gave me a phone so i could call my husband and left me to my own devices.
i know this is pretty long, so if you're still with me, kudos to you for continuing to read LOL i'm almost done, i promise.
i slept very well that night, probably the best sleep i'd had in ages. the end result of all of this: apparently i had Acute Pancreatitis due to gallstones. ouch. it's sort of hard to describe the pain, but in comparison, i'm actually looking forward to childbirth (yes, it hurt that much). i spent the next 2 days in the hospital to make sure i didn't have another attack, then they sent me home and said i'd have to come back for surgery within a month. on May 29, i had my gallbladder removed and have spent the last few weeks recovering from my surgery. i'll write about the surgery later, but they did tell me i had about 10 more stones in my gallbladder when they took it out. i feel worlds better now, though my sleep schedule is all skewy. i didn't have another gallbladder attack between the hospital stay and the surgery, so that was good. although all i could eat was rice and steamed vegetables. blegh. i like rice, but i haven't gone near the stuff since. now i can eat whatever i want again. i'm trying to stick with my diet tho. i've lost about 14 lbs since the surgery. go me :)
total out of pocket cost for this grand adventure? About 100USD. give or take. i love sweden :)
alright, that's enough for today. i know it's a lot of reading, but i have to catch you up on like 3 months worth of stuff. and i didn't even talk about my trip! saving that for another day.
ok, since my miscarriage, things were looking up (kinda). i still felt like crap, but i had a trip to my mom's to look forward to, so that was cool. i spent the month of April at my mom's, part of it in Kansas/Minnesota visiting my brother and my new nephew :D. got home about the 3rd of May and spent the next 2 weeks feeling so sick i just wanted to curl up into a tiny ball and disappear.
so about 2 weeks after i got home (almost to the day), i woke up around 6:30am feeling kinda icky. felt really bloated/gassy, sick to my stomach. i'd been dealing with this off and on for the previous 6 months or so, so i took some mylanta and thought nothing of it. i had to go to Malmo to renew my resident permit (which is another whole story in itself), and couldn't be bothered with a little gas.
by the time we got to the train station here in town, i felt like someone had stuck a very dull knife into my back and, just for fun, was twisting it around every 3 minutes or so. i suffered through the train ride to Malmo (45 minutes on a train while feeling like a hot water tank that's about to explode is not my idea of fun), then suffered through a bus ride from the train station to the migrationsverket building (basically the people who handle immigrants).
the bus rides were awful, btw. it felt like the driver was going about 80mph and swerving to hit every bump. i was in agony.
so we get to this place and i start filling out the papers, then we find out i need my personbevis, which is basically the swedish version of a social security card. it's a piece of paper that says i'm for all intents and purposes a swedish citizen. only thing i can't do (i think) is vote, at this point. anyway, i digress.
by this time it's around 11:30am and i'm in so much pain it's taking everything i have to keep myself from crying in front of all these complete strangers. i told Bjorn that really, all i wanted to do was curl up into a little ball and cry, and could he please take me home. i knew i was running out of time to renew my permit, but at that point i couldn't think of anything but how much pain i was in and how much i just wanted it to stop. so i suffer through another bus ride, we get on the train, another 45 minutes back to Hassleholm (which i blissfully slept through most of).
we got off the train at the station and i said i'd had enough. i needed to see a doctor or something because i just could not stand the pain anymore. it took us nearly 20 minutes to walk to the healthcenter near the train station (normally only a 5-10 minute walk for me, depending on the day). i didn't even make it past the waiting room. they took one look at me and sent me to the ER (there is a point to all of this, i swear. i just like having something to update with LOL). well, the ER is on the other side of town. Bjorn went to the train station to hire a taxi, they swung by the healthcenter to pick me up and the taxi driver spent the entire drive looking over his shoulder to make sure i hadn't died in his car. i'm guessing i really did look that bad.
so now we're at the ER. for the record, i love Sweden's healthcare system. i wait a max of about 8 minutes, then i'm shuffled into a nice, quiet little room out of the way, where i spend the next 6 hours writhing in pain, alternating between sobbing and begging someone to give me something to make it go away (Bjorn was wonderful through all of this, but at the time i just wanted to strangle him. never tell a woman in severe pain to "just wait, they'll come back soon" lol). So finally, FINALLY, they come in again and tell me that a) they're giving me something for the pain and b) they're transferring me to Kristianstad because that hospital has a surgical staff. waii...wha??? surgiwha?? ok, don't care, just give me painkillers. i'll figure out the rest later.
so this nice guy comes in (his name is Mathias. he recognizes me by sight now, because of the number of times i was in there throughout my miscarriage, and now this LOL) and sticks a needle in my butt. about 5 minutes later the toast i'd eaten at 7am decides it doesn't want to live in my stomach anymore and left by the only means possible. all of it. i won't gross you out with the rest of the details, but suffice it to say, something was not functioning properly.
after puking sporadically for another hour or so, they finally declare me stable enough to be transported. they stuck an IV in me first. oh how i hated that. it was a toss-up between not caring because i was in so much pain and ignoring the pain and saying i was fine so they wouldn't put that damn thing in my hand. i say goodbye to my husband (he had to go home and let his dad know what was going on, we'd told him we would be back around mid-afternoon and by this time it was like 6pm), they stuff me into an ambulance and off we go.
on a side note, ambulances in sweden are kinda cool. it's almost like being in the back seat of a car, but the roof is higher, and there's a person sitting on a chair next to me. not at all like ambulances in the US. it was a comfortable ride for the most part. i spend a lot of it dozing off, still in pain and still sick to my stomach, but she gave me oxygen for that. man, if i'd known it would work that well, i would've started using oxygen to alleviate motion sickness years ago. but again, i digress.
half hour later, we arrive at the hospital in Kristianstad where i promptly throw up all over myself nearly the instant the oxygen flow stops. then they tuck me into a little cubby hole and forget about me. okay, to be fair, it was kind of a busy night. but i was still in intense pain and still throwing up, and i was feeling selfish and all i wanted was to be able to sleep. but it hurt so bad i couldn't sleep. it was probably about 8:30 or 9pm when a doctor came to me and said "okay, we can give you something for the pain now, and then we'll be moving you to a room where you can sleep". so a nurse comes by (i never did get her name), shoves a needle into my stomach, pats me on the shoulder and about 15 minutes later, i was blissfully unaware of, well, just about everything. i dozed off and on (pure heaven at that point) until they came to take me to the room. i woke up enough to transfer myself to the bed in the room, they hooked me up to a bag of Ringer's, gave me a phone so i could call my husband and left me to my own devices.
i know this is pretty long, so if you're still with me, kudos to you for continuing to read LOL i'm almost done, i promise.
i slept very well that night, probably the best sleep i'd had in ages. the end result of all of this: apparently i had Acute Pancreatitis due to gallstones. ouch. it's sort of hard to describe the pain, but in comparison, i'm actually looking forward to childbirth (yes, it hurt that much). i spent the next 2 days in the hospital to make sure i didn't have another attack, then they sent me home and said i'd have to come back for surgery within a month. on May 29, i had my gallbladder removed and have spent the last few weeks recovering from my surgery. i'll write about the surgery later, but they did tell me i had about 10 more stones in my gallbladder when they took it out. i feel worlds better now, though my sleep schedule is all skewy. i didn't have another gallbladder attack between the hospital stay and the surgery, so that was good. although all i could eat was rice and steamed vegetables. blegh. i like rice, but i haven't gone near the stuff since. now i can eat whatever i want again. i'm trying to stick with my diet tho. i've lost about 14 lbs since the surgery. go me :)
total out of pocket cost for this grand adventure? About 100USD. give or take. i love sweden :)
alright, that's enough for today. i know it's a lot of reading, but i have to catch you up on like 3 months worth of stuff. and i didn't even talk about my trip! saving that for another day.