It’s been a week today since I was sitting in the hospital, waiting to have a procedure done that might tell us more about what exactly has gone wrong with my body in this caesarean recovery, and how we might move towards fixing it. I figured I should give a little update for anyone following along and curious as to how it all went.
After lazing around, reading my book on the hospital cot, a nurse got me all hooked up with an IV. Another nurse came by to pick me up and I got to enjoy a thrilling ride through the hospital all while laying on the stretcher, making me feel like I should be more sick than I was. I guess they don’t like to have patients with IVs in walk the halls.
In the radiology department, with scary caution signs all around, I got all settled in a cold-looking room filled with technology. The nurses (orderlies? I’m not sure these suited up professionals titles) pulled out catheters and started calling the pharmacy and labour & delivery ward, to get my questions answered about the safety of the drugs they would give me as painkillers if they needed to.
Then the big guy came in. Actually, he was of average size, but his demeanor suggested “I’m a big important doctor”. He introduced himself as such and proceeded to check out my belly.
Apparently there was a miscommunication between himself and my previously consulted OBGYN. He had expected an open wound where the dye would be inserted, and instead all he saw was a nearly-year-old scar from all the craziness that happened last year. He suggested that perhaps my doctor had figured we would just make a hole, but he had some concerns about that.
Do you know when you’re at the dentist, or a doctor, or any other professional that obviously should know far more than yourself, yet you keep thinking that they’re wrong and you know better about whatever it is they’re doing or saying? I find myself in this situation often, but try to relax and think “They know better than me. They are the professionals.”
Except, sometimes you are the right one.
Before confirming and heading to this angiogram appointment, I was very nervous. I felt that perhaps things had taken a turn for the better, as I haven’t been experiencing much in the way of troubles since the last ER trip early in the year. I thought that since it took such a long time for us to get to this point, I may have finally begun healing on my own, and worried that poking more holes in me would cause more problems. Wasn’t that the initial reason for this whole mess?
But I sought out a second opinion, who suggested it would be wise to follow my consulting doctor’s advice, pulled up my big girl pants (maybe I was just putting off a foreign and frightening experience) and went along to the appointment.
So here I am, lying on a table in this unnerving room of catheters and radiology equipment, and the specialist explains his concerns, which were that he was hesitant to cut more holes into me and go poking around and causing pain and stress, which was the initial cause of my problems to begin with – exactly what I had been thinking! Not to mention another uncomfortable recovery. Surprise! I hadn’t been made aware of it prior to coming to the appointment, but today was also supposed to be an attempt to drain the infection after mapping out the channel it took to escape out my belly those two incredibly enjoyable times.
Since it would be unethical to simply tell me what I should do, especially after the OBGYN sent me here for this, he offered me some choices.
a) We could poke me a new hole through my old scar, inject the dye I still wasn’t certain I wanted coursing through my body, then – if they found the channel to the infection source – insert some tubes into my abdomen to drain, which would stay there for a few weeks
or
b) Go get dressed and go home, and if the infection opened me up again naturally, they could go in then much less invasively.
Although I have always thought octopuses are pretty cool, I would rather steer clear of extra appendages dangling from my midsection. It didn’t sound like the most comfortable of times, even without a tugging, kicking, pulling and wiggling toddler around. BUT… I had come all this way and it had been going on so long, and had taken so long for me to get this appointment, I worried that I would be making a mistake to walk away. I shared my concerns with the specialist, and said that I would feel much better making the decision if we had an idea of what was actually going on inside me. My last ultrasound had been done around 5 months ago, and I had been feeling so much better since then. I had been trying out some therapeutic grade essential oils that had been suggested for helping me with some of my issues, and was curious if perhaps they had been helping, since I had started to feel better and noticed some big changes shortly after I started using them on myself. Of course, we could never know if they were the real reason for my imagined improvement, but I did find the timing very interesting.
So Mr. Specialist pulled over the ultrasound machine and took a look inside my belly. He showed me what he saw – a small pocket of infection – and measured it out. When compared with the numbers I remembered from the last ultrasound, it was obvious that the pocket had shrunken considerably. That was enough for me, and I ran on out of there.
Actually, I had to be wheeled out into the hall on the stretcher again, and waited for another nurse to come down and take me back up to my floor, but you know.
Hopefully everything keeps moving toward recovering itself back to some sort of post-partum wellness that I can live with. I know I’ll never be the same again in so many ways – growing and birthing an entire human being really does mess a body up – but I am setting my intentions for the best, and carrying on with life.
Let’s hope this really is the end of the C-section disaster.