The other day I was rooting blindly through the back of my night table drawer (which needs a very thorough sort, as I've discovered) desperately looking for Chapstick, when my hand closed around a little pink notebook tucked beneath some papers.
I had a vague sense that I knew what it was when I pulled it out, but opened it anyway.
Inside were notes from our baby classes scrawled in My Beloved's handwriting. I guess I must have figured that since I was making the baby, taking notes in class was his responsibility.
The first few pages listed breathing exercises and labour tips. Then there were some doodles he drew while we were in L&D the week before Thomas was born, including one of a little baby saying "Hi Ma!" and waving. That was the day they told us they were too busy to admit me - even though my blood pressure had spiked high enough for my OB to send me there with the intent of having me induced - and sent us home.
The last page with writing on it simply listed numbers. Contraction intervals.
I closed the book, put it back and left the room; the wind knocked out of my wheezy sails.
It seems like a lifetime ago.
Huh. I guess it was. It was.
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Friday, March 23, 2007
Great minds
I was whipped up into a pretty fantastic frenzy by about mid-day yesterday. Anyone who has ever suffered from anxiety attacks will understand the shaky, light-headed, slightly out-of-body feeling that clung to me most of the day like some sort of horrendously putrified stink.
I reeked of fear.
But the thing is, it wasn't so much about the lap itself as it was (as it is) the fear of being a patient in a hospital again. I've thought long and hard about this - about why this fills me with such dread - and aside from the obvious reminders of Thomas' birth and death that will be all around me in sight, sound and smell, I will be powerless. I will have no control over what happens to me once I sign the consent form and lay down on the operating table. Things will be done to me, just like they were two years ago, and I can't control any of it. I will be voluntarily giving up all control - and control over myself and my body is something I've spent two years fiercely protecting. And reveling in.
The moment I shuffled through the doors of the hospital 5 days after Thomas' died, I reclaimed my independence and have not relinquish that control to anyone for more than the briefest of moments since.
Yes, I've been poked and prodded and tested and medicated through the fertility clinic on and off for the last 9 months, but I go there voluntarily and I am still in control 99.9% of the time. And when I'm not, it's for just a moment - long enough for them to inject sperm into my uterus or get a read on a growing follicle or draw a vial of blood. All very manageable lengths of time.
But Thursday I will be at the mercy of my OB and his team in a way I haven't been since I was in the hospital with Thomas.
I remember one awful night laying splayed out on my hospital bed with nurses working both arms trying to find a vein that wasn't collapsed in order to reinsert my IV, while a miserable little shit of an OB put in an extra staple to close a leak in my C-section incision (which, to My Beloved's horror, had been oozing blood for close to two days).
I was utterly powerless and completely vulnerable both mentally and physically. And all I could do was lay there and cry.
I know this is a different situation altogether. I know this surgery won't be like the last one. It's quick, relatively painless and, as I said before, there isn't a dead baby involved here. Not before and not after.
But I still have to give myself over to the kind of people who played a such a key role in the horror show that was Thomas' birth.
Being reminded of that day - and the days that followed - in such an assaulting way is going to be hard. Impossibly hard. And adding the notion of complete and necessary submission to the mix makes it very, very frightening for me.
It's not the pain. It's not the fear of dying. It's the fear of remembering too much too vividly.
It was My Beloved who was finally able to talk me down. He and DinoD (who left a comment here yesterday) both had the very same suggestion.
Why not look at this as a trial run for the next hospital visit (which we hope will be a successful, healthy, happy-ending C-section). Exposure therapy, DinoD called it. Better to face my fears now when it's just simple day surgery, and be that much stronger if and when the time comes to return to the hospital for the birth of another child.
It made so much sense when My Beloved made the suggestion. I felt my shoulders ease and my breaths deepen. I felt my body unclench and my mind clear, just a little bit.
It gave the fear purpose. It gave meaning to my light-headed terror, and in doing so made so much of it go away.
Today I am afraid. But I'm stronger too.
Already I'm stronger.
I reeked of fear.
But the thing is, it wasn't so much about the lap itself as it was (as it is) the fear of being a patient in a hospital again. I've thought long and hard about this - about why this fills me with such dread - and aside from the obvious reminders of Thomas' birth and death that will be all around me in sight, sound and smell, I will be powerless. I will have no control over what happens to me once I sign the consent form and lay down on the operating table. Things will be done to me, just like they were two years ago, and I can't control any of it. I will be voluntarily giving up all control - and control over myself and my body is something I've spent two years fiercely protecting. And reveling in.
The moment I shuffled through the doors of the hospital 5 days after Thomas' died, I reclaimed my independence and have not relinquish that control to anyone for more than the briefest of moments since.
Yes, I've been poked and prodded and tested and medicated through the fertility clinic on and off for the last 9 months, but I go there voluntarily and I am still in control 99.9% of the time. And when I'm not, it's for just a moment - long enough for them to inject sperm into my uterus or get a read on a growing follicle or draw a vial of blood. All very manageable lengths of time.
But Thursday I will be at the mercy of my OB and his team in a way I haven't been since I was in the hospital with Thomas.
I remember one awful night laying splayed out on my hospital bed with nurses working both arms trying to find a vein that wasn't collapsed in order to reinsert my IV, while a miserable little shit of an OB put in an extra staple to close a leak in my C-section incision (which, to My Beloved's horror, had been oozing blood for close to two days).
I was utterly powerless and completely vulnerable both mentally and physically. And all I could do was lay there and cry.
I know this is a different situation altogether. I know this surgery won't be like the last one. It's quick, relatively painless and, as I said before, there isn't a dead baby involved here. Not before and not after.
But I still have to give myself over to the kind of people who played a such a key role in the horror show that was Thomas' birth.
Being reminded of that day - and the days that followed - in such an assaulting way is going to be hard. Impossibly hard. And adding the notion of complete and necessary submission to the mix makes it very, very frightening for me.
It's not the pain. It's not the fear of dying. It's the fear of remembering too much too vividly.
It was My Beloved who was finally able to talk me down. He and DinoD (who left a comment here yesterday) both had the very same suggestion.
Why not look at this as a trial run for the next hospital visit (which we hope will be a successful, healthy, happy-ending C-section). Exposure therapy, DinoD called it. Better to face my fears now when it's just simple day surgery, and be that much stronger if and when the time comes to return to the hospital for the birth of another child.
It made so much sense when My Beloved made the suggestion. I felt my shoulders ease and my breaths deepen. I felt my body unclench and my mind clear, just a little bit.
It gave the fear purpose. It gave meaning to my light-headed terror, and in doing so made so much of it go away.
Today I am afraid. But I'm stronger too.
Already I'm stronger.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
News and other scary things
Soooooo, big news. (No, alas, not THAT big...). I finally got my laparoscopic surgery date set. D-day is May 18th at 1:00PM.
Oh good God.
The call came a week ago. I suppose it was partly because it was Thomas' birthday week and I was already suffering from a hefty dose of mental angst, but hearing the date - writing it down in ink - made me feel thoroughly light-headed and decidedly sick to my stomach. For quite some time.
Surgery confirmed.
SURGERY!!
After the last one (which ended so poorly in so many ways), I'm just a wee bit gun-shy. After much deep soul searching and introspection I've determined that it's not the surgery itself that's freaking me out (I will, after all, be asleep through it this time, not to mention the fact that there's absolutely no possible way that there will be a dead baby at the end of it). No, it's the very idea of being in a hospital again that has me shaking in my boots.
The sights, the sounds, the smells - putting myself in the hands of brusk, busy nurses and doctors who won't understand what I've been through and therefore can't possibly fathom my anxiety. Being in an operating room. Remembering. Being in a recovery room. Remembering - remembering, remembering, remembering.
It has to be done. I know I'll regret it if I don't. But oh Lord, I have no idea how I'm going to muster up the necessary courage.
Thank goodness My Beloved will be there with me, even though it sickens me to have to put him through this (stupid fucking body that won't fucking work!!!!). As hard as it was going through what I did when we lost Thomas, it had to be a thousand times worse for him because he had to helplessly watch me physically suffer - and he had to worry too. Which he did. A lot. A whole lot, poor boy.
The night the nurses and the OB came flying into my room to respond to my dangerously high blood pressure and rising fever (neither of which I was aware of, in such a stupor was I) my poor, poor Beloved nearly had a stroke. He had been asleep on an awful make-shift cot at the end of my hospital bed and he flew out of it like a man on fire, his face drained of colour and his eyes literally popping out of his head.
He was terrified. He'd lost his son two days earlier and, for the second time, thought he was going to lose his wife too.
What hell must that have been? It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Remembering.
See? It's the remembering bit that does me in.
I know the lap is a very quick, very simple and very minor surgery, but nothing minor has ever happened to us at the hospital and wrapping my head around this is going to be very hard.
Even now just writing about it I'm feeling a little woozy.
Oy. This is so not good.
Oh good God.
The call came a week ago. I suppose it was partly because it was Thomas' birthday week and I was already suffering from a hefty dose of mental angst, but hearing the date - writing it down in ink - made me feel thoroughly light-headed and decidedly sick to my stomach. For quite some time.
Surgery confirmed.
SURGERY!!
After the last one (which ended so poorly in so many ways), I'm just a wee bit gun-shy. After much deep soul searching and introspection I've determined that it's not the surgery itself that's freaking me out (I will, after all, be asleep through it this time, not to mention the fact that there's absolutely no possible way that there will be a dead baby at the end of it). No, it's the very idea of being in a hospital again that has me shaking in my boots.
The sights, the sounds, the smells - putting myself in the hands of brusk, busy nurses and doctors who won't understand what I've been through and therefore can't possibly fathom my anxiety. Being in an operating room. Remembering. Being in a recovery room. Remembering - remembering, remembering, remembering.
It has to be done. I know I'll regret it if I don't. But oh Lord, I have no idea how I'm going to muster up the necessary courage.
Thank goodness My Beloved will be there with me, even though it sickens me to have to put him through this (stupid fucking body that won't fucking work!!!!). As hard as it was going through what I did when we lost Thomas, it had to be a thousand times worse for him because he had to helplessly watch me physically suffer - and he had to worry too. Which he did. A lot. A whole lot, poor boy.
The night the nurses and the OB came flying into my room to respond to my dangerously high blood pressure and rising fever (neither of which I was aware of, in such a stupor was I) my poor, poor Beloved nearly had a stroke. He had been asleep on an awful make-shift cot at the end of my hospital bed and he flew out of it like a man on fire, his face drained of colour and his eyes literally popping out of his head.
He was terrified. He'd lost his son two days earlier and, for the second time, thought he was going to lose his wife too.
What hell must that have been? It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Remembering.
See? It's the remembering bit that does me in.
I know the lap is a very quick, very simple and very minor surgery, but nothing minor has ever happened to us at the hospital and wrapping my head around this is going to be very hard.
Even now just writing about it I'm feeling a little woozy.
Oy. This is so not good.
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