My hospital ordeal...

Before I even start: I just typed up this whole thing. Then my computer froze & it all got erased. I was on the last paragraph & now I am starting all over. F***. And I am actually finishing it now at 3.40 in the afternoon because I couldn't get it done this morning!



Yesterday, well technically 2 days ago now because it's already Friday morning, I woke up and I had this stabbing pain on my right rib underneath my boob area. I figured I'd just slept wrong or something and got over it. It didn't get better the whole day so I took some Tylenol for it and a hot shower, which seemed to help. I figured I'd just be able to sleep it off and wake up and be fine. Wrong. I woke up yesterday and the pain was so much worse than the day before. I couldn't take in a deep breath without it feeling like somebody was stabbing my lung. Still, I figured I could just ignore it and get on with the day until it got to the point where I could no longer sit or lay down. You know that little inhalation breath you take before you sneeze? Yeah, I had to stifle 3 sneezes because I couldn't catch that deep of a breath. So of course I surf the internet for rib pain during pregnancy. The best I came up with was slight rib separation, baby's foot stuck, gallbladder problems, or just "pregnancy pains". Eh. That's probably what it was; pregnancy pains. So I tried the heating pad. Nada. Frozen corn used as an ice pack.... still nothing. Eventually I ended up calling the Marshfield Clinic Midwives (my pregnancy care providers) to see what they thought I should do. When they finally got ahold of this dum-dum (it took her 12 minutes to answer her pager and even the receptionist was annoyed) she didn't tell me any breaking news. Had I taken a warm shower? (check) Tylenol? (check) Sleep? (impossible) or how about an ice pack or a warm compress? (check, check!) Obviously nothing had worked for me and that's why I was calling. She asked if I remember doing anything that could've set it off..... nope. Nothing at all? Well, I did bend over to get my blowdryer, but that's about it. I said that.... mostly as a joke but apparantly to her that was the lightbulb! It MUST have been the darn blowdryer and now I had a muscle strain. Ding, ding, ding NOT! Yeahhhh.... must've been my 1/2 pound blowdryer that caused this, right? Considering I woke up with the pain. Sure. Whatever. It was useless continuing to talk to her so we just got off the phone and I just agree with her. Doesn't help that she talked at speed of snail.... Well, just to humor one of her suggestions I tried taking another hot shower for 20 min. Guess what didn't help? The hot shower?!? No way.



Next I skipped a step and just called the Sacred Heart ER and they told me to go ahead and come on in. Easier said than done. The car ride was hell. It hurt so bad to sit there I was in tears. Thank God Sam was driving. I just wanted to scream. Inhaling literally just hurt so bad it was taking my breath away. After what seemed like forever we finally get to the hospital. Check in & that takes 15 min. Then of course because I'm pregnant they send me up to the 3rd floor: Labor&Delivery, even though this had nothing to do with labor and delivery. They put the baby on the monitor and he was great, which was a relief to me. He was healthy and kicking and moving. They also picked up my contractions which were irregular. 11 minutes, 6 minutes, 14 minutes, 4 minutes, and 5 minutes apart. I also got to have the super fun VAGINA exam where she jams her fingers into your cervix to see if you're dilated. That's bad enough alone but add that to laying down in excuciating pain and I could've kicked her in the face. I wasn't dilating at all, which was good. But they couldn't do anything for me up there so they had to send me back down to the ER. Hm. Go figure. 2 hours later.

Ok. So now it's midnight. Checking in again took another 15 min. It was alright though because I got to stand at the front desk vs. sitting in the waiting room and that felt alot better. Sam was dozing off. I felt bad, he was so tired! Finally we got called back. They wanted to run some bloodwork on me to see if it was my gallbladder. Pregnancy can affect how your gallbladder works and gallbladder inflammation and stones runs in my family anyways. Ugh. I hate hospitals so much. We were put in a room. It only took 45 min. for the lab tech to draw my blood. I was in so much pain sitting there but I didn't want to take painkillers yet in case they had to do an ultrasound. I wanted to be able to tell them where it hurt. Well, they decided they could try this one shot that was supposed to help with the GI tract/gallbladder. I had to get the shot in the top of my butt.... ow. It burned alot. Not only that, but it didn't help. 2 oclock the doctor came in with the results of my labs. Turns out a couple of the enzymes associated with the gallbladder were elevated so they were going to go ahead and do the ultrasound. 2.30 a.m. the woman from ultrasound came to get me. Sam was zonked out. She just wheeled me and the whole bed to the room. I wanted to scream. It hurt so bad to breathe and then I had to lay down for the procedure and that just about put me through the roof. She had to hold the ultrasound transducer on the spot that was sore and I wanted to shove it down her throat. Omg.... I seriously was just laying there crying.... it sucked. =( Then I was supposed to lay on my left side but.... yeah. That wasn't happening. I half screamed and then I just couldn't breathe at all because it hurt so bad I was gasping for air. It's just the worst feeling. So she took me back to the room.

Next came another hour long wait. The procedure was inconclusive because they couldn't really get a good view of my gallbladder. I was unable to take deep breaths (obviously!) so really it was kind of pointless. The doctor came in to talk to me. She thinks that it's probably still the best bet that it's the gallbladder. Pregnancy causes gallbladder stuff anyways & that makes sense. It just means that basically there's nothing they can do for me. Which is just so frustrating beyond belief. All those doctors and all that time in the hospital and basically they just chalk it up to "pregnancy pains" and unable to do anything for it. Sucks. The only thing that will clear it up is delivery. Ugh. So not much longer. They tried giving me some Tylenol-3 for the pain which is really just strong Tylenol with a little bit of Codeine, but that's it. I can't even take over the counter ibuprofen. Basically I'm just S.O.L. So that was it. The only thing they gave me were 8 prescription Tylenols. EIGHT. How many are in a dose? 2. How many uses is that? 4. how many days will that cover at the MOST? 2. Great. Good thing it only hurts when I sit, lie down, and what's the other one? Oh yeah!! BREATHE! ugh... Then we went home. The car ride home sucked even worse than the one there. I was in tears the entire time and it's just soooo frustrating because I want to know what's wrong and I just want it to get better. All I wanted to do was sleep.

Got home. Tried taking another shower / bath. No luck. The baby was moving around so much, the most he's ever moved before. Every time he moved he pushed on my pelvis and my thighs cramped up. Maybe this whole hard time breathing thing is just my body getting ready for labor, which I don't think will be too far away. I tried sitting up & eventually found a good enough position where it wasn't excruciating. 6.30 a.m. & I caught a couple winks. Finally. I just can't take any deep breaths. Shallow is the way to go. As long as I don't raise my voice or talk loudly it doesn't agitate anything, either. So, looks like that's what I'll be doing. However they were talking about early induction for medical reasons. I just want to know what's going on before I go into labor otherwise I have no idea how that's going to work. If I can't breathe, there's going to be no way I can deal with contractions or push. Whenever I have a contraction it irritates the rib area and that doesn't feel very pleasant. If this is still acting up by the time I go into labor I'm forgetting the waterbirth. I'm just going to take the nicer, more pain-free way and get the demerol until the epidural. I'm overall just kind of frustrated and exhausted with the whole thing. I want it to be over, or at least feel better. Christopher is a little fish in there, too. That's not helping. He moves my whole belly around and consequently pushes on the sore spot. But it's ok. He's the only one I'll let push on it and get away with it =) Well. My brother and my mom are coming up tomorrow. That'll be nice. I think they'll take my mind off of stuff and mom's going to help me with a couple of things around the apartment hopefully. So, I'll just be kind of taking it really easy for the time being. Nothing exciting. No funny movies because laughing is off limits. Maybe I'll get to catch some sleep eventually when I just crash!