Finally, I get a few minutes to play catch-up. I know I should be working, but oh well. I'll just spend a few minutes on this, and then I'll get back to work.
My pregnancy started fine last fall, and everything was going well. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes at the end of September - my insulin wasn't dealing with sugar well enough. (I barely failed this idiotic test.) When the ultrasound tech measured Jakob, he was in the 30th percentile for abdominal size, which I was happy about since it meant that my (non-) diabetes hadn't yet affected him. But, the doctor ordered ultrasounds for every month until the birth. I talked him out of one, the December one, because I knew I'd have a fight with my insurance company to get them to pay for it. These tests are at least $150 each - actually, the first was $300, but the insurance company has to pay for that one. The booklet says they pay for others that are "medically necessary". Well, if a mother has uncontrolled diabetes, the baby's abdomen grows so fat that:
1. the internal organs are underdeveloped
2. birth may be difficult, leading to broken collarbones on the baby or a ripped vagina in the mother
So, these monthly ultrasounds were medically necessary.
I tried very hard to follow the prescribed diet, but it was hard. I had to test my sugar twice a day (four times the first two weeks - I finally convinced them to stop that since I wanted to avoid eating just to avoid pricking myself). I gave in to my craving about twice a week - chocolate milkshakes. (I knew I shouldn't, but oh well. The calcium couldn't hurt.) The November ultrasound was fine, and the insurance company covered it, no questions asked. The January one, on the other hand, wasn't. Jakob was then 65th percentile (still not "huge" by any account), so the doctor put me on a medication to control my blood sugar. All it did was give me low blood sugar attacks. The February ultrasound was fine, although they didn't tell me what percentile he was. Anyway, about halfway through February I get my statement from my insurance company, saying they're not going to pay for the January ultrasound unless they get a copy of my medical records and the ultrasound report to "prove" it was medically necessary. Why the hell would I get it done if it wasn't medically necessary? No, I'm spending all this damn time at the doctor because I want to. I'd rather be in bed! Actually, in January, I was trying to rush around to get my dissertation experiments up and running and get my advisor's experiments running so that I could take half the semester off to have a friggin baby. I was doing twice as much work as normal just to fit it in half the time. Anyway, so I had the doctor's office photocopy my stupid chart and the ultrasound record for the January ultrasound (and the February one, since I figured they'd have issues with that one as well) and mail it to them. $5.38 to solve a $300 bill. And it just pisses me off because I (and Penn State) have been giving them money for FIVE YEARS (a lot of it) and the ONLY thing I've used them for until I got pregnant was my yearly pap, two or three doctor visits, birth control pills, and like two prescriptions. Thank God my husband and baby are on medical assistance, because they provide secondary insurance for me as well. Anything MEGA doesn't cover, PA does.
Anyway, the birth went alright, but it could have been better. I saw the doctor on March 5 and she asked if I'd been scheduled for induction yet. I said no, should I be? I asked, I know there's no way to know for sure, but in your experience can you estimate how big the baby's going to be? She said, well, you're measuring enormous. Is this something to say to a 9-month pregnant woman two weeks after a Mexican woman gave birth to a 15 pound baby and a Hong Kong woman gave birth to a 14 pound baby? Needless to say, I scheduled myself for induction on the 7th. My cervix was 1 cm dilated already, so I figured that it should be a piece of cake. Was I wrong! They induced me at 8:30 am on the 7th and I didn't even "start" labor until 3:40 that day, and as of 6:30 the NEXT MORNING I was still only 4 cm. The pain had started at 10:45 pm the 7th, and it wasn't because of the contractions. It's because once they start the Pitocin they don't let you out of bed except to go to the bathroom. And they have to monitor the baby constantly (fidgiting with the damn machine for 20 minutes after going pee, that's fine, but heaven forbid you want to get out of bed for 20 minutes!). Jakob was pressing into my back so hard that I had extreme back pain, and they wouldn't let me get out of bed. Finally, I lied and said I had to go to the bathroom, just to get out of bed. The pain stopped the instant I stood up. I knew labor was going nowhere. Finally, at 6:30 AM, after 8 straight hours of pain and only two shots that were *supposed* to numb the pain but didn't - they just knocked me out - I gave in and hollered for the epidural. Why the hell didn't I get that sooner. I felt like a failure, though - I wanted to experience the birth and experience the satisfaction of being able to push Jakob out. I didn't get that. At 2:30 PM the 8th, after almost 24 hours of being "in labor" (and being at the hospital for 31 hours - they made us get there at 7:30 am on the 7th), the doctor said I was still only 4 cm and Jakob's head was swelling really badly. So, I consented to a c-section just to be done with the whole business.
The surgery (my first) went better than I expected. The incision got infected, but I was on antibiotics so I was fine. Jakob was having a hard time eating though. He wouldn't open his mouth wide enough to get a good latch. I had milk, but he wasn't getting enough and after the first two days he started getting really hungry and would cry and cry and make me cry. The nurses (overwhelmed by an influx of 13 babies in two days), threw a nipple shield at me and told me to deal with it. Well, they handed me a piece of paper that told me (which I didn't read until two days later - who friggin has time to read with a newborn baby???) that the nipple shield doesn't stimulate the nipple in the same way the mouth does, so my milk supply was decreasing and Jakob was eating so often I couldn't possibly pump in between him eating. I wouldn't get any sleep at all. He kept losing weight and I kept getting frustrated at night. He'd fall asleep while eating and would eat so damn slow that I honestly got nothing done for the entire time I was nursing (about three weeks). The nurses actually made us start supplementing with formula in the hospital, because Jakob dropped 12 ounces in the hospital. Two good things came from using the formula - Jared could feel him, giving me and my nipples a break, and the formula made Jakob sleep a LOT longer than the breastmilk - four hours sometimes, even as a newborn. That sleep time was a Godsend, because my health problems were just beginning.
The doctor took my staples out on March 16, 8 days after surgery. He threw some steri-strips over the incision, which happened to be a vertical one (which, given my fat roll, wasn't the smartest of ideas, I don't think). Once I got home, I examined his handiwork in my full-length mirror, and geez, you'd think the guy would take a little pride in his work. I tell people lovingly about the J for Jakob he inscribed on my belly. It's a good thing I wasn't a bikini model - my career would be shot.
Anyway, I felt pretty good. Two nights before the staples came out I had a nightmare. In this nightmare, my incision came open, my insides were hanging out, and my mother wouldn't take me to the hospital. It freaked me out, but my staples were still in and the incision was intact. Fast forward three days, March 17, happy St. Patrick's day. I wake up at the crack of noon (Jared fed the baby formula, allowing me to sleep from like 8-noon), and I go to the bathroom and as I'm sitting there I decided to examine my incision to see if it has healed any. So I pull out my hand-mirror and see to my horror a one-inch opening, with red goo coming out (please don't vomit). I called down to Jared, "Uh, honey, I think I need to call the doctor." He came upstairs and said, "What's wrong?" I showed him the incision and he started freaking out and called an ambulance. I've never ridden in an ambulance, but what I didn't know is that a cop arrives just before the ambulance. So here I am, on the toilet, in my bra and underwear, and there's a cop and two medics coming up the stairs. They ask if I can walk, since our place isn't exactly designed for easy stretcher access. I grab my robe (so short it barely covers my ass) and throw on some sandals (in March, mind you), and hobble out to the ambulance, with a maxi-pad covering the incision. I get up on the stretcher, beg them to get me in the vehicle before my neighbors see (they're a nosy lot), and then on the way, the medic looked at my incision and said, it's a good thing your husband didn't drive you to the hospital - the incision opened all the way up while you were going down the stairs. So here I am, at the ER (my first time at an ER for me since I was like 6), freaking out because I think my insides are coming out and one of the obgyns comes in and is nonchalant about it. She wipes me down with iodine and packs it with gauze and says to meet her at the office the next day (Sunday - she apparently had to meet another person there - I hope not for a similar thing). I had never heard of incisions "opening up". I figured that if they thought there was any risk of it they'd have sewn me up instead of used staples that had to be removed. I don't know.
Anyway, so I had to have home nurses come in for awhile to clean it out, and they had to show Jared how to do it because medical assistance only covers so much (and my other insurance doesn't cover it AT ALL. Screw making sure my skin closes up - put a band-aid on it I guess. 17 friggin centimeters long, 8 wide, and 5 deep.) Anyway, after about two weeks of daily changes and once-weekly "debriding" which basically involves scraping off the dead cells and some healthy ones nearby with a scalpel, the doctor orders a special WoundVAC to close up my wound. It works by sucking the air out of the wound (after being stuffed with foam) and the low-pressure promotes tissue repair. I thought, great, 'cause I don't want to be all open throughout the summer - had to do work.
One day after the nurse hooked me up to the WoundVAC (I think March 28 or so), I was going to the bathroom and Jared was about to leave for work. All night I had had a dull pain in the upper-right side of my back, and when I awoke at noon I was sitting on the side of the bed and I suddenly got incredibly sick to my stomach and felt like I was going to have diarrhea. (I had eaten a couple poptarts, but I'd never had that reaction before.) I ran to the bathroom, and while sitting on the toilet, I held Jakob's baby bathtub under my mouth in case I vomited, but nothing came up or out. I sat there, in pain, and suddenly I got very dizzy, lightheaded, and warm. I laid down on the floor because the tile felt so cool and nice. Jared came up to say he was leaving and found me there and he freaked out. I asked him to look up the symptoms for a heart attack, since I knew they were different for a woman than for a man, and when he returned with the list, I knew I wasn't having a heart attack. Jared called the on-call nurse at the medical assistance office to ask whether we should go to the ER or not. The nurse recommended going to the ER. Well, it took the ER 8 hours to get me in and do several tests. They did a pee test (which they had to catheterize me for, since I still had the lochia), a blood liver panel, and an abdominal ultrasound. They found several small gallstones and recommended I follow-up with my regular doctor and have the liver panel re-tested within a week since several of the enzymes were off normal. Well I don't have a regular doctor, so since I was seeing the obgyn the next week for debriding, I figured I'd ask him to order the liver panel. He threw a fit, but did. I then had to go through the process of going back to a doctor on campus, and that was a nightmare since I couldn't *legally* park on campus during the day, and leave it to Penn State to put the medical building in a place without any student parking nearby. As if I'm going to park in the commuter lot and ride a 15-minute bus to get there with a one-month old baby in tow. Yeah right.
Anyway, the doctor says huh, I want you to heal up a little and then re-take the liver panel. I think stress and the healing process is making your liver go haywire. OK. Well, on May 8th I had another gallbladder attack. Except this time they didn't do shit for me. The "doctor-in-training" said well, it's a vagal nerve response - you get sick because of the pain. No, the sickness started first that time. Anyway, whatever. The doctor decided after that attack to refer me to a gastroenterologist to deal with it. HE decided to run several blood tests and a really expensive test (thank God for multiple insurances), scheduled for June 4th, with a follow-up appointment on June 13. Well, the pain started the night of June 3rd, and I told myself I would put up with it and just go to the stupid test to prove I was having gallbladder problems. Well, at 6:30 am June 4th I was moaning on the side of the bed and Jared wouldn't let me wait until the 11:30 exam. I told the ER what test I was taking, and they gave me a pain reliever that wouldn't interfere (supposedly). (I had to wait 45 minutes for the nurses to stop drinking their damn coffee to give me the shots, but that's another story.) Those shots hurt like hell AND didn't help with the pain. AND, I still couldn't take the test later that day and had to reschedule. Bastards! Originally, they were going to wait and schedule me for June 15th and I said HELL NO! It's this hospital's fault I can't take it today. I starved myself all morning so I could take this damn test and I'm going to take it! So they rescheduled it for June 6th, two days later. My back still hurt from Monday. I figured they'd call with the results but they never do. I figured I'd find out June 13th when I met with the GE.
All is well, right? No. June 12th my back started to hurt at about 5:45 at night. Jared had just made dinner (lasagna) and he gave me some. I was in pain, but I decided to eat a little because I was STARVING. Anyway, the pain got a lot worse and by 7:30 I decided to go back to the ER. I don't know if it was the fact that Jared launched a complaint after the last time, or if it was the fact that the lasagna came right back up in their waiting room trash can and in the disposable baggie the nurse handed me, but I got right in. This time, they took me in for another ultrasound (and a chest x-ray, because who knows it could be something else I guess, even with my history) and found a stone stuck. Of course they did. I friggin passed three of them before this point. Anyway, they took me into surgery the next morning at 10:30. I didn't wake up until 2:30, although the surgery didn't take that long. They opened me up laproscopically, but couldn't find the stone, so they opened me up horizontally just above my belly button and still couldn't find it. Yeah, I passed it in the night. I do that. My stones weren't big enough for a complete blockage but they were the exact same size as the opening to get out of the gallbladder. Wouldn't you assume that they therefore were able to get out, AND that they wouldn't cause a complete blockage?
Anyway, I was so happy to be done with that, although I now have a fully-capital J on my belly, with the crossbar and everything. Luckily, I had no problems with the staples after that surgery.
So, it's been two months since then. The only other medical issue is that re-taking the glucose tolerance test six weeks after Jakob showed I was still diabetic, but my doc scheduled me for the A1c, the more standard test, and I'm only a 5.7. Which means I'm NOT diabetic (have to be above a 6 to be diabetic). But, FOR THE HELL OF IT, he put me on a pill already. I said whatever. If taking a pill means I can eat more carbs, whatever. I'm not into this whole one-serving of carbs for breakfast nonsense. I want a friggin bowl of cereal, not a slice of bread with egg and cheese or a slice of bread with egg salad or HALF of an English muffin. Not going to work for me. And the nutritionists PISS ME OFF. I've had to talk to three, and there's not a healthy-looking one among them. Why do nutritionists always look so sickly? It's one thing to be healthy and fit, but nutritionists just look so pale gray and too-skinny. I know! They're ALIENS!
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