Surgery

Without going into too much detail I want to write down what I've been going through lately. But I'm not a TMI kind of girl so it shouldn't be too bad.

On Monday, March 21st I started my menstrual cycle. I was surprised by this and thought it was only a couple of weeks since my last one had finished. Unfortunately, I didn't write down when my previous one was so I couldn't be sure. So, I chalked it up to my crazy cycles and didn't think much more about it. Then on Thursday, March 24th I was driving in North Carolina when all of a sudden I had crazy crazy cramping in my stomach. It was so bad that I had to wake Chris up to drive for me because I was afraid I was going to pass out. Not good. After about an hour the severe pain stopped and I was able to lay down without crying. For the rest of the day I was still in pain when I walked, sat down, stood up, stretched for things, but if I was laying still I was OK. It was much better on Friday and I was able to drive again, thank goodness. I talked to my sister Shian on Friday and she said "I wonder if you've had a miscarriage?" I didn't really think this was likely but she looked up the symptoms of a miscarriage and I seemed to have them all. On Monday, I was talking to Tiffany and she suggested I take a pregnancy test. She said my hormone levels would probably still be high enough to let me know for certain. So on Tuesday morning (the 29th) I took a pregnancy test and yes, it came back positive. Now, this is going to sound a little weird but instead of being sad, Chris and I were actually really excited that we had managed to get pregnant in the first place. I think most of that was because I didn't know I was pregnant until after the fact so there was no emotional attachment to the baby. I think that might sound bad to some people but that's just the way it is for us. So, we called up the family and told them "we know this is a little weird, but we're excited to tell you we had a miscarriage." Luckily, our family understands us. I asked Shian how to know if I needed to go in for a D&C (which I've heard of, but don't exactly know what it entails). She said if I was still having symptoms by the weekend then I should probably get checked out. So, by Saturday I was feeling really good and thinking "I'm not going to have to go in. This is great." Then it hit. Saturday night was terrible. I was up every hour, rolling around and moaning. Chris wasn't able to get much sleep because I was in so much pain and making so much noise and practically thrashing in the bed. I could only lay on my left side because every time I rolled to my right side the pain was so much worse and had moved into my chest and right shoulder. I couldn't take deep breaths and couldn't relax my body. I would last maybe one minute and then I'd have to roll back on to my left side. All of the rolling hurt and it would take several more minutes to relax enough to sleep for one more hour. Finally, around 7:30 Sunday morning (the 3rd) I rolled onto my right side for the umpteenth time. When I still couldn't lay there more then a minute, I knew I had to get up. When I got up, I was extremely light headed and almost passed out on the bathroom floor. Chris had had about 5 hours of very interrupted sleep (and 5 hours the night before) but he got up and gave me a blessing. We decided that, clearly, I needed to go the the ER. Unfortunately (fortunately?), this is the weekend we were adding several more trucks to our company. Chris had so much work to do to get the trucks legal that it was very daunting. He wanted to take me to the hospital but knew that would mean he couldn't get the trucks up and running and we had drivers waiting to start work on Monday. We called Tiffany (Wonderful Blessed Tiffany!) to see what she suggested and she agreed that I needed to go to the ER. I told her we were going to call my mom and have her come down from Cache Valley and Tiff offered to take me if I wanted to go in sooner. What a sweet girl she is. So around 8:00 in the morning she came over for me. After I hung up with Tiff, Chris called my mom. I heard him talking to her and then he was quiet for a long time and I looked over and realized that he was crying. Really serious crying, I've never seen him cry like that. It broke my heart. I knew he was upset, he had told me earlier "I should be the one taking you to the ER and staying with you through this." I completely understood the reasons why he couldn't but it made me feel so good in a very sad way to see him crying because I knew how much he loved me. Seriously, teary-eyed as I write this. Anyway, he couldn't even talk and so I had to tell my mom what was going on and asked if she could come down to be with me so that Tiff wouldn't have to be there all day with me. She left the family (who were up for general conference) and came to spend the day with me.

Tiffany showed up about this time and Chris realized that he wasn't going to be able to concentrate even if he stayed home so he drove me to the ER. We checked in (luckily, there was no one else there when we arrived) and they took me to a room right away. I was hooked up to an IV just in case they needed to give me some pain medication. By this time, the pain was there only when moving around so it wasn't too bad. Except when I would laugh or cry. Then I would have shooting pains up into my chest and right shoulder. They drew some blood and then I waited for the doctor. Chris stayed for about 2 hours until the doctor came and determined that I wasn't dying. Then, when my mom showed up, he left to hopefully get some work done and just checked in with me a lot. The doctor did an exam and an ultrasound. He decided I needed to go to radiology because they had a better ultrasound machine or something. When they were getting me ready to go to radiology Tiff had to leave to go feed her baby Alex. Thank you, Tiff! So Mom stayed and waited for me. I was pretty upset when they said my mom couldn't come with me for this ultrasound (by the way, it's an internal ultrasound they did, not comfortable!) and started to cry which hurt my shoulder. But I survived that exam too. After that one, they brought me back to the ER room and we waited some more. Mom and I tried to watch some of conference but the volume wouldn't work on channel 5. All the rest of the channels you could hear just fine but not conference. We decided it was a conspiracy. So, we listened to it on my phone and read the subtitles on the TV. I wasn't really able to focus though. Finally, an OB doctor came in. She did a 3rd exam (BLAH!) and then told me it appeared I had an ectopic pregnancy (the egg had implanted in my fallopian tube) and there were three options that she was going to discuss with some other OB doctors. More waiting. Finally, all three OB doctors came in. They were all very nice and I felt very comfortable with them. They said there were really two options for me and although they had one they preferred, I could choose what I wanted to do. The first was to take some medication in the hopes of flushing the "conception product" (that's what they called it)out of my system. I would have to stay there at least 12 hours and probably 24 so they could monitor things. And in the end I would likely have to have surgery anyway. Or option 2 was I could have the surgery to fix the problem, be in and out really quick and quite possibly go home that night. (It was about 5:30 in the afternoon by this time). I asked what the recovery time was like for a surgery like this (I had told them about my work) and they said I absolutely could not go to work this week and possibly not the next week. That's when I started crying. A little weird, I know. The thought of surgery, having my fallopian tube removed and possibly an ovary removed didn't really bother me, but the idea that I would have to tell Chris we couldn't work this week and feel like I was disappointing him (don't misread this! He wouldn't have been upset with me, I just felt like I was letting him down.) made me start to cry immediately. This, once again, caused the severe pain in my right shoulder. One of the doctors said, "that right there, the pain in your shoulder, is why I think you need to do the surgery now". I guess it's because there was blood around my diaphragm and somehow that relates to pain in the right shoulder. Not sure how, but I believe them. So I called Chris and told him I wanted to do the surgery. He was concerned about if we needed to contact our insurance before something like that was done but it turns out that we didn't. An ectopic pregnancy is potentially fatal because it can burst and cause internal bleeding and other things that I didn't want to listen to. The surgery is considered an emergency surgery and apparently it's something they would bump other surgeries for. Good to know. So we decided to go ahead with the surgery and just get it done and over with. That was what I wanted to do so I was relieved. I didn't even have time to be nervous. They called to put me on the schedule and it turned out they could get me in right then. Seriously, I called to tell Shian that I was going in for surgery and while I was still on the phone with her, the lady came for me. Wow. It was fast. I was happy about that. I am a big baby when it comes to blood and guts kind of stuff and so I didn't want to have time to think about it. They wheeled me down in my bed, started to give me some anesthesia and I was gone!
This is me being wheeled into surgery.


When I woke up, Chris was there. I had no idea he was coming. I guess he told Ryan (Tiff's husband) that he was driving as fast as he could to get there before I went in to surgery but he just missed me. So he had dinner with Mom in the cafeteria and was there when I woke up. It was so wonderful of him. So unexpected and I know he paid for it later but it made everything OK. I love him so much! Apparently the surgery went well. The doctor removed my right fallopian tube but was able to leave the ovary. They said it shouldn't affect my fertility much at all (which is good since my fertility is still very much in question). I wasn't nauseous from the anesthesia which was nice. Chris stayed for another hour and a half or so. Once they decided that I could, in fact, come home that night he left to get more work done. Wonderful Mom was still there with me. I ate a little food, took some Lortab and was finally released just before midnight Sunday night. Holy cow that was a long day. I have three small incisions. They're all covered by bandages, thank goodness, so I'm not exactly sure what they look like but one is over my belly button (in my belly button?) and one on each side above my pelvic bones. I think they each have one stitch. I was blessed that they didn't encounter severe bleeding because then they would have had to cut me open more and they said the recovery time on that would be about a month. Yikes! When we got home I took a shower (what a beautiful thing) and Chris gave me another blessing. I took a couple more Lortab and slept nine hours straight.

Just some of my bruising on the left side.

Mom stayed with me overnight and all day Monday. She washed all the bedding and towels she used and cleaned the guest bathroom. She is so fantastic. Plus, she did dishes and pampered me all day. Thank you so much, Mom. I'm so blessed to be your daughter! Chris ended up working all night through. Seriously, he came to bed for an hour and fifteen minutes and then had to get back up so he could be to the Tax Commission by 7:00 in the morning (so if you're counting, that's 11 hours of sleep in 3 days). Then was up all day finishing paperwork and stuff so our trucks could be on their way. Finally, Monday night, when I was all drugged up he was able to get some sleep.

I feel like I've been recovering quickly. Today, I've only taken Ibuprofen. Tomorrow, I think I'll actually make it to the store. No promises though. Yesterday, my sisters Shian and Camey came and brought all my nieces and nephews to visit. It was so fun to see them. We walked to the park (half a block away so I could do it) and enjoyed the sunshine. It was great. I've been spoiled with dinners and flowers and visits. Thank you to everyone for your concern and care and prayers. We are so blessed. And hopefully this won't happen again. We are so blessed that it happened on a weekend and that we were able to get medical care. We were blessed that we were able to stay home this week while I recover. We have faith that it won't mess up the growth of our company. It's just a trail we have to learn from and get through. We are so blessed to have the family and friends that we do. Our blessings are really too numerous to count. Thank you to our Father in Heaven for all He's done for us. And hopefully He'll bless us with a family in our future.

My beautiful flowers. The tall ones are from a wonderful friend Catherine, the tulips are from my sister Shian and the yellow/purple ones are from my visiting teacher Jodie. I love them all and have seriously been taking them downstairs for the day and back upstairs in the evening so I can enjoy them all the time. Ü