Eleven years ago

I found this old entry I wrote when Janie was about 9 months old... Over eleven years ago!!!

10.12.2004 @ 10:57 am

everyday



janie is growing more and more curious every day. she can even stand up by herself now! well, maybe that isn't exactly correct... i have to stand her up, but she can stand there once someone else stands her up. understand?

she is also getting closer and closer to standing on her own literally. she will pull up to her knees. or she will put her hands down in front of her and straighten out her legs so that she is bent in an upside down "v". i keep worrying that she is going to topple over head first, but as far as i know, that has yet to happen.

she is getting more and more beautiful everyday.

Apparently I had an aversion to using any capital letters when I was blogging back then.  It is so very strange to look back at entries from my old blog. It goes from 2004 to this year. Thorough the births of 2 children and two marriages. Through 2 c-sections (one very uneventful and another almost too eventful). Through 3 different jobs and a hundred different friends.

There are so many things that are different, but yet so many things are the same... It doesn't make me sad to read through my old entries, but it does make me feel as though I have grown. Grown as a teacher, as a wife and especially as a mother. It has a been an amazing journey so far and I can't wait to see where it goes next!!

C-section scar problems

Today it got up to 84 degrees in my classroom and that was with the air conditioner on 60 degrees. Gotta love the heat of an Alabama spring...

I am beginning to have problems with my c-section scar because of how the wound healed. It is actually because of how the doctors put me back together and all of the problems I had immediately after Si was born. 

I have some options...

Deal with it. Continue to bandage my scar for the rest of my life and fight off infection as best as I can.

Or...

Have it surgically fixed. 

The issue with the surgery though, is that I will need to lose a good deal of weight before having the revision. Otherwise it would most likely do no good. They removed fatty tissue from below my incision and that is what is causing the problem now.

Like I've said before, this body is not my body. It's not the one I had before Si was born by a long shot.

My mother has told me that I am going to have to have the problem fixed. I don't think she understands what all that entails. 

So for now I will continue to bandage the area and diet.

What else can I do?

Doctors, doctors, doctors

Two doctors appointments yesterday. One with my OB-Gyn and one at the wound care center. My OB expected my incision to be completely closed. But it's not. So she's not releasing me to go back to work until the beginning of December. (I should probably add here that she wants to make me as happy as possible because all of this is their fault -- their as in the doctors who performed the c-section and later on did not do what they should have to stop the bleeding...)

The doctor at the wound care center changed the type of dressing that I will be using. It's some type of special pad that will help absorb the excessive drainage and blood that it has been producing. It definitely feels different. It is supposed to pull the skin towards it, helping it to close faster.

We will see...

My grandfather fell two nights ago and cracked his hip. The bad hip that he broke about 5 years ago. So in between my doctor appointments Jason and I went to Spring Hill to see him. I assumed they would do surgery, but since it is only fractured part of the way through, they are going to keep him through the weekend and release him Monday to rehab. 

So this completely changes things that my mom had planned for November. She was going to Dothan and taking Janie this coming weekend for the Peanut Festival, but now, probably not...

Ahh well.

More blood

Well my incision is now 9 centimeters across and .9 centimeters tall. There is absolutely no depth to it at all :) 

I've come a long way since this first began back in August. Then it measured over 22 centimeters wide, 7-8 centimeters deep, and at least that tall.

But here's the strange thing... it is bleeding more now than it was a week ago. 

When I stepped out of the shower this evening, blood ran down my legs and onto the floor. And it just kept pouring. 

Jason got me some paper towels to clean up most of the blood, and he's not concerned. The nurse did say that as long as it's bleeding that means it is getting good blood supply which it needs to heal.

I just don't understand why there's more blood...

There should be less.

Two month shots

Si slept from 9 o'clock last night until 4 o'clock this morning! I am still amazed... 

He had a doctors appointment for his two month shots yesterday and I had an appointment at the Wound Care Center in Mobile yesterday, so we spent all day down that way. Jason and I went on down to Gulf Shores for the Shrimp Festival. But that wasn't Si's idea of a good time... it was also hot as 3 hells outside... so needless to say, we didn't stay very long.

Jami and Emmie came home yesterday also :) I love that kid! She is a handful but she is so hilarious! 

I've got to take pictures of Janie and Si sometime this weekend so I can get started on our Christmas cards. My sister has already ordered hers!

I should probably get some sleep since Si may be back up in a couple of hours. I still cannot believe that he slept for 7 hours straight...

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.

No more vac!

No more wound vac!!!!!

I'm not completely healed by any means, but the doctor said I didn't need the vacuum anymore :D

I am a happy camper :) :) :)

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. 

Gotta love technology

Today was definitely a Monday. My cell phone service was completely gone this morning. Which meant that I couldn't get in touch with the home health nurse to find out when she would come to my house. It also meant that I didn't know when or if I could take a shower before she showed up. AND I couldn't call my mom to come stay with Si so that I could take a shower and have the nurse change my wound dressing. 

Thankfully I was able to use Facebook to contact my sister-in-law and get her to call my mom for me.
Gotta love technology :) even when it causes problems you wouldn't have had without it ;)

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡

I remember missing Janie being a little baby that I could rock to sleep. I absolutely adore rocking Si :) 

Granted, I adore it most when I am well rested and least when I am tired. Such as between the hours of midnight and 5 am.

;)

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.