Quite the week

This past week has been quite the experience. I thought I would share with everyone my experience this week and although I'm sure some of you already know the drama that happened, I still wanted to document it for my personal memory. (Side note: I don't have very many pictures for this entry. I'm sure when you get to the end of it, you'll be glad there's nothing visual for you to see besides how awesome I look when I'm drugged up and totally out of it. )

This past Tuesday (6/14) night at about 11:00 pm I my lower left side started to fill with protruding pain. My first thought was, "oh man, I shouldn't have eaten those beans." I really thought I just had gas. With those thoughts the pain started to move towards the middle of my abdomen and from there to my right side and up my right set of ribs, my chest and above my right collar bone. At this point I was convinced that this could merely be the worst case of gas bubbles I had ever experienced. There was no way it could be anything else since the pain was moving around in my abdomen. The pain still hadn't gone away by the time of 4:30am had arrived. At this point, I could no longer breath and started to hyperventilate. Trev and I were both at the point of having no idea what to do.

When I physically couldn't breath anymore because of the pain in my chest, Trev finally called 911. We were beginning to realize it had to be more than just gas. The paramedics showed up, gave me some pain meds, hooked my up to an IV and took me on one of the most expensive rides in the hospital's infamous ambulance. I kept trying to tell everyone that it must be gas. I didn't want to show up in the ER to have the doctor tell me it was just that. A few hours later of pain and irregular breathing, with a CT scan and lots of drugs, the doctor finally came to tell us what was wrong.

I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured and damaged a nearby artery and I was bleeding internally. My abdomen was filling up with the blood as we talked about the options I had to fix this problem. The only option that seemed the most logical was surgery. They admitted and prepped me for surgery. 2 hours later, I was all stitched up and brought to my room to recovery. I was pretty out of it that day. I don't remember much about that day except for the pain and the feeling of having no control over my body. The nurses were great. There wasn't enough room in the regular recovery so they admitted me into the pediatrics floor. It was fabulous, I pretty much got treated like a little kid. Exactly what I needed, if I do say so myself.

The nurses proceeded to explain to me what exactly happened during the surgery. They sliced open my stomach just like they would for a c-section, filled my abdomen up with air -so they could see what in the world was going on- stitched up the protruded artery, removed the cyst and then proceeded to remove the remaining blood that was causing all the pain. They told me they removed almost a litter of blood. I know a little graphic but now you all know that you don't want what I had :). During a lot of this explanation, there was mention of the Dr. removing my entire ovary...I about fainted...Don't worry, they cleared all that up. Sheesh, they scared the heck out of me. I guess it was some incorrect information and I still have all my lady parts:) Thank goodness! Here's a video that Trev took on day 2 at the hospital. (Link below) 

The Hospital

These are my awesome pictures Trevor took...Kind of pathetic how nasty I look. Trev just kept telling me that my bow looked pretty...his nice way of telling me that I've looked better:) Now that I can see the proof of how I looked, I don't blame him for saying such things.

The next day got a little better but then I had to face a lot of the financial issues. I finally came home on Thursday night. It was still tough and Trev was exhausted as well so that night was hard.

Trevor's mom, Traci, was sweet enough to watch McCoy during the entire thing. She kept him occupied enough that I could relax and recover.

Things have gotten a lot better since those few days. I can move almost as normal, the stitches are out, and I can pick up my little boy up again--kind of. I still have a lot of pain where the incision is but I am no longer short of breath and it doesn't take me 20 minutes to lay down.

It's been quite the week and hopefully we'll get a break from the hospitals for a while. I'm glad to be healthy again and I'm also very grateful for doctors that gave away a great portion of their lives to learn how to treat patients like me. How amazing it is that they know exactly what to do with such a complicated body. It's a miracle and I'm more than grateful for their expertise.

The end!