sick sick sick

I've been sick for six days now. I went to the doctor on day 3. It's 3:45 in the morning and I just stopped crying because the pain medication finally helped the pain in my face to subside a bit.

This sinus infection has caused almost every part of my body to hurt. Earlier I was shaking all over because I was so cold. My teeth hurt so bad I wish I could pull them out with a pair of pliers. This is becoming ridiculous. I should be feeling better, not worse.

I'm sure Jason thinks I am being a baby about all this...

I wish I had a cigarette...

pain meds

I'm feeling better. A lot of this emotional craziness is from all the pain I'm in from surgery. I haven't wanted to take my pain medication because I know when it's gone, it's gone. But I shouldn't let myself get to hurting so bad that I feel like I did earlier.

Tomorrow I plan on going to work. Not to teach, because it is an in-service day, but to get assignments ready for my students while I am out this week. Janie will go with me and I think Jason plans on taking Si to Mrs. Donna. So we will get to have a mommy-daughter day :) maybe we can go get pedicures together :)

Tuesday I have a doctor's appointment with Dr Hussain in the morning. Ms Pat will also be here that day so I hope to get some stuff done around town while she is here. I'm not sure why but I feel uncomfortable being here when she's here. When I see Dr Hussain I am going to ask him to refill my pain medication prescription. I hope he will...

Si is being stubborn and doesn't want to take a nap. I really want to take one.. lol

I love nap time :)

alone

Sometimes I feel so absolutely alone. When Janie is gone with Chris, and Jason and I aren't seeing eye-to-eye it feels like there is no one else in the whole world that cares.

Alone.

Hopeless.

Empty.

Collapse

this week has been crazy... it started out normal. i took pictures of hailey (not many though, because it started raining) sunday afternoon. they turned out pretty good :)

then came monday. my back started hurting on my right side. i immediately thought it was my kidneys (because i know i don't drink enough water and i drink absolutely too much coke zero) so i started drinking water and taking cranberry pills.

by early evening, i was crouched over on my side in agonizing pain...

and the pain seemed to spread. from my back into my right chest and arm. i tried to sleep, but laying down was more painful than sitting up. i found one pain pill and half of an ambien and knocked myself out for the night.

tuesday morning i went to the doctor. they did a ct scan of my whole abdomen and chest. they also did a urinalysis and drew blood.

they didn't find any infection but they did find that my right lung is partially collapsed.
collapsed.

as in closed.

as in it is very painful for leigh to breathe.

i cannot lay down without being in pain. and i cannot talk very much because it takes so much breathe to do so. 

the doctor prescribed me percocet for pain, and a muscle relaxer. Also, an antibiotic to help speed along the process of helping my lung to heal.

it takes one to two weeks for a partially collapsed lung to heal.

i probably shouldn't be at school but i am. i don't have many sick days left and i don't want to use them unless i absolutely have to.

the pain in my back/side has diminished a great deal, so now all i am dealing with is the lung problem. the muscle relaxer makes me sleepy so i cannot take them during the day. the percocet makes me a little drowsy, but nothing compared to the muscle relaxer...

si stayed with jason's parents last night. i cried at one point because i missed him so much :( but i know it was the best thing to do. i need rest and so does jason. but jason had better be bringing him home today! i can't take another evening without my baby si...

I miss her...

I shouldn't care. I absolutely should not care at all.

But I do...

I was so unequivocally over-joyed today when the doctor took me off of the wound vac that I couldn't think of anything else. I immediately began sending text messages to my friends and family telling them that the doctor had taken me off of the vac. I cannot begin to explain how wonderful it felt all day not to be tethered to that confounded thing.

And tonight, I was able to take a shower. Like normal people do. I didn't have to wait until a day that the home health nurse would be coming (as I have been having to for over the past month). I can take a shower now any time that I want :) 

It is amazing the things that I use to take for granted that I haven't been able to do.

Shower on a regular basis.

Drive my car.

Go to the grocery store.

Walk distances longer than 100 yards.

And now I can start doing some of those things again. The stamina thing will be something that will happen over time. I don't plan on running any 5Ks anytime soon, if you know what I mean...

But the thing that I will never get back...

The way I was.

The way I use to look.

I've never had an awesome body. But it was MY body. And I knew every inch of it.

Heck, I've had it for 34 years, right?

But now... I have the beginnings of this hideous scar.

And not only a scar. It has actually changed the way my body is shaped. I hope I will be able to hide all of the disfigurement when I am clothed. And that is all I should care about, right?

Well, that is easier said than done...

I stood in the shower tonight and cried...

I cried so hard that my Janie came to the door and asked me if I was alright. She could hear me in the next room. I thought the noise of the shower would hide my weeping, but I was wrong.

I feel so shallow. So vain... 

But I just want my old body back.

The one that I wasn't even that proud of.

But it was mine.

I cannot even continue to type this entry. The tears are beginning to well up once again. I am better than this. I am stronger than this.

But I still want to be able to feel like Leigh again. I miss her.

Should I post pictures?

I have numerous pictures of my incision that we started taking about 5 weeks ago. I haven't posted them anywhere because they are pretty graphic and gruesome. 

But I am thinking about posting them here... I'd need to upload them to my Flickr account and embed them in an entry here... I'm not sure yet though... graphic images of an open c-section incision... 

Too much??

Another couple of weeks

I am so absolutely ready to be done with this wound vac. I have had it for over a month now. And at my last visit to the wound care center I asked the doctor how much longer I would have it. He said another couple of weeks... I seem to remember someone saying that to me a couple of weeks ago...
Tomorrow is Monday so Juanita comes (she is my home health nurse) and my mom will come sit with Si while she changes my wound dressing.

I really look forward to being normal again one day... this is so very tiresome...

Bottles

I am sitting on the bed, holding Si and rocking him. He woke up at 3 wanting a bottle and since it had only been just over 3 hours since his last bottle, I made him a 4 ounce bottle instead of a 5 or 6 ounce one. 

I wish I had blogged more when Janie was this age. So I could compare more... I know that I shouldn't compare my children, but there are so many things I cannot remember. Little things. Like how old she was when I upped her bottles from 4 ounces to 5 or 6.

Jason's mom thinks we should try putting Si to sleep on his stomach and maybe that would help him to sleep better... because of him having his days and nights mixed up. But after going through him crying for hours during the day, him being mixed up on days and nights isn't as big of a deal to me...
Yesterday was the first day out of the previous 6 days that Si didn't cry for at least 3 hours.

And I'm not talking about that mindless tearless screaming that newborns do randomly in short bursts when they are cold or hungry.

This was a gut wrenching, fearful cry that actually produced tears that streamed down his beautiful cheeks. The kind of cry that hurts a mother's heart because she cannot figure out what to do to help her baby stop hurting. 

So I am dine with being up with him in the middle of the night. If that's what it takes to keep him from crying during the day. 

At least there's usually Law & Order reruns on all hours of the night somewhere on satellite ;)

Sleep

I have spent the majority of today asleep. Si has been having problems with his tummy :( and I stayed up all night with him night before last and I was up all day yesterday also because of going to Mobile.
It has been a long past few days...

Jason has taken care of Si all day. And I just laid him down.

So I am going to try to go back to sleep. Because I have a feeling he won't be asleep all night...

Stroller

So... yesterday I made my first excursion out of the house with Si without having Jason with us. We went to the school to turn in the sick leave request. I decided to take the stroller so that I could just stroll Si around instead of carrying him the whole time.

It was a good idea, in theory anyway...

Since I picked up the stroller to put it in my car and to get it out of my car, I haven't been able to move as freely today. I haven't been experiencing hardly any pain for over a week and this is a sharp stabbing burn in my abdomen.

From one side to the other and all throughout my incision. 

So... yeah...

Not my best idea as of late...

Sick leave request

I finally finished the letter I am turning in to the board requesting my coworkers to donate sick leave days so that I can stay off from work...

On August 10, 2013 I had a C-section. Initially, the surgery went smoothly and Si was born at 11:32 am. That evening around 7 o'clock I was in more pain than I have ever experienced in my life. I had every nurse on the floor in my hospital room at one time. They even called the doctor who had performed the C-section back to the hospital because of the amount of pain I was in. After four hours of crying, begging, having an anxiety attack, and my blood pressure plummeting to 65/30, they determined that I had a hematoma in between two of the layers of stitches. 

I was told that they were hopeful that the hematoma would resolve itself over time. This is not, however, how things worked out. I was released from the hospital on Wednesday, August 14th. By Friday, August 16th my incision had started to pour blood. I went back to the doctor on Tuesday, August 20th and found out that the hematoma that formed the night that Si was born after my C-section has burst through my incision. And that is where the blood has been coming from. I also found out that it will take much longer for me to heal from this surgery because instead of remaining sewn together, the doctor had to cut through most of my stitches and pull out as much of the old blood from the hematoma as possible and pack the wound with gauze. And my husband has to help me by packing the incision with gauze two to three times a day.

I went back to the doctor on Thursday, August 22nd for her to try to scoop out the blood from the hematoma. Very painful is an understatement. After laying there through agony for about 5 minutes (which I promise seemed much longer than 5 minutes) she asked me about having surgery the following morning to get the rest of the blood out. This means I would be put to sleep and she would really be able to get in there and clean all of it out. So I was scheduled for out-patient surgery at 8:30 the following morning, Friday, August 23rd.

After being home for less than 24 hours, the home health nurse called the hospital to have me re-admitted for pain management and to be outfitted with a wound-vac. I was also given 4 units of blood because my hemoglobin level had fallen to 5 (a normal level is 12). I have fought off two infections through all of this. I have been admitted to the hospital a total of 3 separate times. A home health nurse comes to see me at my house every Monday and Wednesday to change the gauze from my open C-section incision and re-hook up my wound vac. Every Friday I make a trip to Mobile to the Wound Care Center to see the doctor there and have them re-evaluate my incision and redress my wound. 

I have been told by the doctor at the Wound Care Center, that I will need a minimum of 2 more months off from work, and I will exhaust my sick leave well before that time comes. I hope to return to work by November 6th. I would much rather return to work healthy than stay where I am presently, but to make that return a reality, I would really appreciate any donated days my colleagues would be willing to spare during this difficult time. 

Days and nights

Si has his days and nights mixed up... and it is becoming miserable for me... now that Jason has gone back to work I am the one who must get up and stay up with him in the middle of the night. It should be easier than this, I swear...

I have started driving again. It had been over a month since I last drove anywhere. It felt strange to be driving again. I was so uber careful I'm sure I aggravated the people behind me because of my lack of speed ;)

According to the doctor and nurses at the wound care center I am healing at a very fast rate. I have got the letter for the school board asking for coworkers to donate sick leave days to me almost ready and I hope to finish it tomorrow. This blog helped me tremendously in writing it. I was able to pull from the writings right after Si was born for most of it.

I had better get some sleep while Si is asleep. Maybe tonight will be better...

Photog slacker...

Si is one month old today. I haven't even taken my camera out of its case in over a month. That should prove how sick I have been... I have taken pictures with my phone but it just isn't the same. Maybe tomorrow I will take a one month shot of Si... 

I am starting to feel like a slacker... in more ways than just a photog slacker...

Walking

Tomorrow Jason goes back to work. He has been off with me for the past four weeks. It will definitely be different without him here, but I'm sure I can handle it :)

The home health nurse is scheduled to come tomorrow so I will need someone here to stay with Si while she changes the dressing on my incision. Either Jason will come home then or his mom will come over. Both Si and I have doctor appointments on Wednesday in Mobile and then I have to go back to the wound care center in Mobile on Friday. I can already tell there is an air leak around the port for the vac this time. It started yesterday and has gotten a little more noticeable today. I am hopeful that it holds until the nurse comes tomorrow. 

We went walking today. Just up the street and back but it was a good feeling just to be outside for a change.

So much more

I just laid Si down from rocking him to sleep after he finished his bottle. Jason is asleep beside me. He goes back to work on Monday. So I will be doing all of this on my own. He has been getting up with Si every night since he was born because of how sick I have been. He really is an awesome daddy :)

Still no word on my sick leave. I need to contact the insurance company about my short-term disability... since this whole ordeal has been much more than a routine c-section. Maybe they will agree to pay me more than the standard 8 weeks. I sure hope they do.

I remember after Janie was born being ready to go back to work. I think becoming a mom was overwhelming for me then. Also having to do so much by myself because her daddy was always gone working away from home didn't help much either. But this time I am not anywhere near being ready to go back.

I would love to be a stay at home mom. I do miss the people at school. But I live being here so much more :)

17.5 centimeters

I had an appointment at the wound care center today. It went much smoother than last week. No tears at all today. The pain has become much mire bearable than it was in the beginning and I can move around so much easier. It is amazing how much better I am now. Last Friday my incision measured 20.5 centimeters across. Today it measured 17.5 centimeters across. It has closed 3 whole centimeters!! Which is awesome!!

The depth of the wound in the center is 6 cm which is about the same as it was last week. And the goal of all of this is for it to heal from the inside out without leaving any voided space that could become a problem later (such as an abscess).

I am still looking at being off from work for 2 more months. And I don't even know if my sick leave has been approved... I simply cannot go back to work like this. I surely hope that it is approved soon...

Today I took the breastfeeding pump I had rented back to the store. It kinda made me sad... to know that I really absolutely would not be pumping any more. I had wanted so badly to do it this time. But it just didn't work out that way...

Looking forward

I sincerely look forward to being able to walk around my home without having to unplug this wound-vac.

I look forward to being able to go into the Post Office without having to worry about people staring at me because of this clear tubing that runs from under my shirt to the little black purse I constantly carry on my left shoulder.

I look forward to not having to wait for the days that the home health nurse is coming for me to be able to take a shower.

I look forward to the day that I can go to Mobile with Jason for a reason other than a doctor's appointment or hospital admission.

And I will never forget this journey. Because I have learned a great deal about myself and about the people closest to me. Some good, and some bad. But I think I have learned the most about myself.

Antibiotic

The doctor at the wound care center was blown away that I'm not taking an antibiotic to prevent infection. But that also means that some of the medicine could get into the breast milk that I pump for Si. So it looks like I won't be pumping much longer...

He said I could continue to give Si the milk, but I would have to watch him closely and check for signs of a rash...

Nope.

It's not worth making him sick. I've been able to pump and give him milk for 3 weeks. And that's all I can do. It does make me sad, though. I had really wanted to do this. But pumping also puts a strain on my body and could cause it to take longer to heal.

So it makes sense to stop, right?

Wound care center

At this very moment, Jason and I are at the wound care center. This is quite possibly the scariest place I have ever been... there are elderly, sick people everywhere. I am the youngest person here, save the two young children running around in the waiting room... I would never bring Janie or Si here if I could help it.

I think it's time for another Percocet... I wish I had an Ativan or a Xanax... I may need it to make it through this appointment...

Duration

Today has been a much better day than yesterday. My outlook in life has returned to normal. So I don't feel hopeless, at least today I haven't.

Jason's parents got us a king sized bed for the living room because I cannot make it upstairs to sleep in our bed. This is the first night in a month that I will be sleeping in a bed next to my husband.
It is an awesome feeling :) I didn't realize how much I had missed sleeping next to him until I could actually do it.

Today when Brooke and I were having a random text message conversation, I realized something. Since I walk so slow now and so stooped over, and I always carry this little purse with me everywhere I go (even to the bathroom) I bare a stark resemblance to Sophia from The Golden Girls...

And that is proof that I have kept my sense of humor through all of this ;)

I hope I am able to keep it for the duration.