I have, I mean HAD never heard of it, but let me just say, I'd rather be giving birth.
All of those who know me, know that I'm not very....um....graceful. Can you imagine me trying to get around on crutches? Let's just say it's not pretty.
About a week and half ago, I hurt my knee. It wasn't bad, just a little sore and for the life of me I still don't know how it happened. So I had been limping on and off, but it was only bad enough to use as an excuse not to do some of the daunting chores awaiting me at home. (Which I will add, right now I would much rather be doing. That's how much my leg hurts and how tired I am of lying around all day!) Saturday morning we were at a picnic and it was hurting more and more. Happy fourth to me. On the way home, the whole bottom half of my left leg started to swell instantly. It was painful, but more of an uncomfortable pain as in "what in the crap is going on with my leg?" So I just got some ice and tried not to move too much. We still went to the fireworks and I limped around as needed. By that night, I barely made it up the stairs to collapse on the bed. As of Sunday I could no longer move w/o tears of pain. So the only time I got up was to use the bathroom and go to bed. How sad is it to hear your baby saying "momma up" "momma up!"? Oh, that broke my heart. I, along with other family members, just assumed that I pulled a muscle so I just elevated and iced. Oh yeah, and added a few muscle relaxers and pain meds (not the good stuff, just OTC). So it was tolerable while just being a slothful mom on the couch.
By Monday morning I just couldn't take it anymore. Of course, thinking it was a pulled muscle I was trying to get an appointment with orthopedic doctor. When I called up there and the only open appointment they had was on THURSDAY it took all I had to hang up before I burst into tears and yelled at the receptionist on the phone. I at least needed to make it to some sort of doc for some real pain meds! So we go an appointment for an MD at Charmaine's regular office. I don't have a regular MD and I guess the good thing that has come out of this is that I absolutely loved the doc. She was great.
So at 2 p.m. I stood up to get ready to leave and had the worst pain rush since the start of this on Saturday. I had to sit right down b/c of the flush of nausea and dizziness. Then of course, here comes the gracefulness of the crutches...It had rained all day, but as an answer to my prayers, the sun came out right before we left. But not enough to dry off our porch. As soon as the crutch hit the wet and slimy porch, it went sliding. Luckily the wall caught it but not before I had braced myself with my bad leg and let out an un-lady-like cry of agony. Then I had to make it down the stairs and into the car. Whewwww....but then my leg was down and no hope of relief in sight (boy I didn't know the extent of it then). Charmaine had to run to her house for something and then we made it to the office. Then someone had a real emergency at the docs office and we ended up in the waiting room for a whole hour. When they finally called me back, something I was dreading happened. Not b/c I was scared of the number per say ;) but how in the world was I supposed to get up on the scale that's a half-foot in the air when I CAN'T WALK. The tech lady had absolutely no sympathy for me and just impatiently waited for me to hop on up. After that dreaded experience, I had to make my wake (on crutches remember) all the way up this long wheel chair ramp to the BACK of the docs office. Of course. Then the usual blood pressure, temp, etc. and with a "the doctor will be right with you" she was off. Ha. Why don't they change that to "the doctor will quite possibly be with you w/in the next hour"? I mean really. They just do it to be cruel right. Take you back to the room where you darn well expect to see the doctor soon, no matter what your common sense tells you. But still, there I was expecting her at any moment. Well after twenty plus angry texts to Greg about being in pain and waiting forever and thirty plus minutes later, here she is. All grins and politeness and all my anger dissolved away b/c no way would I really tell these people what I'm thinking. It's just not me. And at least I wasn't the one hauled away in the ambulance. Right??? At least that's what I had to keep repeating to myself.
By this time it was almost 5:00. She was confused why I had the crutches, I was like "pain!!!!!!!" Well she couldn't pull it straight w/o me screaming and she was barely there for like five minutes (but still enough for me to know I like her) before she ran out to call another office for me to get an ultrasound to check for blood clots. WHAT??? She's crazy, right? Anyway, we had to rush down to another docs office to get an ultrasound (not very exciting when you don't get to see a baby I might add) on my leg to look for blood clots. I so didn't think they were actually going to find anything b/c 1. I have a little boy and therefore don't sit down all the time. 2. There weren't any other signs of blood clots, meaning my leg was not discolored or warm to the touch. 3. I'm only 27 for crying out loud!!!!
So lying there (in A LOT of pain) on the table with the lady doing the ultra sound we were just talking normally about how she used to do OB ultrasounds and I was asking which she liked better, etc. Just normal chit-chat with no cause for alarm. When a doctor came in and was looking at the screen I was sort of curious why, but still not concerned. But then all casually he turns to me and goes "you have a lot of blood clots young lady." What else could I say but "really?" He didn't seem to look upset so I was trying not to let my brain get the better of me. Like all of the people you see and hear about dying on tv shows and movies b/c of blood clots. Or needing rushed to surgery right away. So I was at least thinking they were about to cut into my leg. He left w/o another word. So I at least asked the nurse if this was life threatening and she said no. I felt a little better, until I had to get up and crutch it out to the waiting room and wait for my doc to call and tell me what to do. At this point I still didn't know a darn thing. Well, I didn't get much from the doc either expect she was having me admitted to the hospital right away and not to go so long again w/o going straight to the doctor w/such pain and swelling.
So I finally broke down in the car and couldn't stop crying. I had to call Greg and hand the phone over to Charmaine as to not scare him so badly. Everything thus far since I had finally made it to "see" the doc, was just a rushed blur. I never checked out or paid co-pays at any of these places. They were all just rushing me out the door to the next location. I knew I wasn't going to die or anything, but I was on my way to the HOSPITAL. That's definitely not how I pictured my day ending. So we finally got to the hospital, took forever to check in (at least at this point I got to sit in a wheel chair and forgo the dangerous crutch adventure. I mean it really was only a matter of time before I fell on my face.) When we got to the room, the rude tech threw a robe at me and took my chair and said it was shift change. That was at 6:30 p.m. So the count was 4 1/2 hours of pain with NO relief. So I got all settled in and Charmaine and I just tried to chat as to keep my mind off what was going on. Greg was in class and I told him to stay put and not miss just to come sit there with nothing going on. Oh yeah...little man was with Mike and the boys. I was missing him like crazy, but there wasn't anything to be done about that. He was safe and being taken care of. At some point a random lady showed up to draw blood. Then they brought me some food. I was starving, but I really wanted some PAIN MEDS! Finally at 8:15 w/o being actually admitted with all the paper work and seeing a real nurse, I buzzed them. So another RUDE tech lady came in and said they were still doing shift change. Um....really? How long does that take anyway??? Then the doctor came in to tell me what was going on. Still no pain meds even though I was asking EVERYONE that came in. I had blood clots, or DVT, and had to take shots for one week. No, I mean give MYSELF shots for one week and take pills for SIX MONTHS. Oh my gosh. And absolutely no more birth control pills which is the only thing they can think of that did this to me. Finally a nurse came in and she was cool. The best one there. That I had anyway. She stuck me with the iv, asked aprox. 1 million questions then got my accurate weight for them to give me the right dose of meds. At least this one was floor level. She finally showed up with a pain killer at 10:30. I mean really....I was in pain at their hospital for FOUR hours and nothing was done, then to add to the whole time of pain, it was 8 1/2 hours. I am a big baby and don't handle pain very well at all. If you couldn't tell that by now.
She came back with the first shot around 11. Oh boy! It wasn't that bad, but still. They are blood thinners and apparently extremely dangerous (we don't even want to discuss how much it cost for a weeks worth of those). Greg left and I was still in pain. I had fallen asleep but some time before midnight she came in and put morphine into my iv. Wow. That was one heck of a weird trip! There wasn't much sleep. Boy THAT was a bad idea.
Anyway, I had to wait through the next day. Bad food, bad tv. Another shot. More meds. An x-ray of my chest to make sure nothing was wrong with my lungs, then a loud beeping iv that no one would come attend to. I get paging them, but no one would come. I guess they really like to ignore you! At least one nice nurse walked by and helped. I was then too tired to read. So slept on and off. Talked on the phone of course. Talked to another doctor. She told me about the dangers of the meds, etc. Not to eat Vitamin K, which means YAY! I have an awesome excuse not to eat collared greens! Then I got to home! Well, the in-laws home so they can take care of me and the baby. I could actually walk on my own for a few feet today, but not much more progress than that.
For all those who keep asking when we are having another baby... we can't. At least for six months. It is extremely dangerous to for a baby if I got pregnant on these meds. So, no more asking, please!!!!! ;)
