A note to my readers
Luke and I have been going through the most serious part yet. I posted a blog on it on my myspace.com account that I will repost here. Please understand that there is more than one post as I have been trying to keep track of my feelings as this went on...
Friday, February 17, 2006
6:47 AM - If we had plans...
Current mood: numb
Cancel them. Yesterday was the wierdest day ever.
First of all I wasn't feeling good Wed. I thought I had the worst hangover...
Thursday morning I wake up with the worst "I have to pee" feeling in the world. I get up, try to pee, and... very little happens. But dear god it hurts! So I try to go back to bed. But the crampy feeling gets worse. I ask Luke to draw me a bath and give up his morning shower. He agrees and helps me into the tub. The pain becomes worse. I am yelling now. Filling the house with my discomfort.
"Couch," I say to Luke. "Please make this stop," I ask the ceiling... I can't stop screaming. I want to stay home and shake it off... I'm up for review this week and can't afford to miss work... Luke's eyes ask me to go to the ER. I can't say no. The worry in him is too great. I have him warm up the car as I try to dress myself. We leave.
I scream all the way to the hospital and through the front doors. The nurses quit trying to ask me stupid questions and begin to ask Luke. Words like twisted ovary and appendicitis begin to float around the room inbetween my screams.
Moriphine comes. That odd (doctors words here) "woosh" and then I feel okay for a minute. No screams. About ten minutes later I feel like I am going out of focus and then I begin to sweat. COLD!~ HOT! I tell Luke to get a nurse, I can't hold on. A doctor walks in...
"Your pregnancy test came up positive. We thing you have an ectopic pregnancy."
Joy at the thought of Luke and I concieving! I come back from the edge of unconsiousness. We hadn't even considered a baby. I just had my period on Monday... But wait... ectopic means outside the womb, unviable, not viable...
I hurt too much to cry even now.
Luke does it for me.
A nurse comes in with a wheelchair to take me to get an ultrasound. She leaves and comes back wiht a gurney. "You're just too pale," she explains.
The ultrasound nurses are just as kind as the rest of the hospital. She presses on my stomach with the rolly thing and it hurts so bad the screaming begins again. Luke holds my hand. She offers me more moriphine. "I can have more?" I ask. Turns out I can have more. Also turns out they have to take pictures from inside of my vagina looking up at my uterus. I definitely ned a LOT more. I get it. The pain subsides enough to have my "pictures" taken.
New room now. Don't remember much. They see I am terrified and allow luke to come to pre-op with me. New doctors, nurses, aides. All the same questions. I begin introducing myself as the last thing I had to eat, when it was, drink, then my name and birthdate. I notice how much my belly's been swelling.
I meet my anesteticians. Sooooo nice. Luke has to leave soon... He does as I get wheeled into yet another room. Mask over the face, I try to talk, let it go...
New room... Nurses trying to ask me stuff. I refuse to reply except to scratch out of my throat, "Luke." He comes. Tries to tell me stuff... Ruptured fallopian tube, uterus is okay, still kids in our future, lost a third of my blood to internal bleeding (that's why my belly was swelling), kept the ovary so my horomones wouldn't be thrown off... I went back to sleep...
Wake up to the nurse telling me that if I want to leave I have to both be able to pee and walk on my own. About five o'clock I can accomplish this. I can't breathe. Turns our they had to pump gas into my belly to do the surgery and some of it is still in there, moved up to my rib cage making it hard to breathe. Soon it's time to go.
She gives me my papers including miscarriage grief support groups. I ask Luke to go with me. He agrees wholeheartedly. She tells him to warm up the car and bring it around. So he goes. She brings my wheelchair. We begin to go.
I tell her about how I wanted to stay home but Luke convinced me to go to the ER. She says it was a good thing. About 90 minutes more of internal bleeding and I would have passed on. It was gushing pretty good twords the end. Luke saved my life with his concern.
We go home.
Chandra stops by that night. Danae texts me with concerns. Same with Luke's brother and a great many other friends. Thank you all. Concern saved my life yesterday and it still saves my heart today.
I don't know how I'm supposed to feel at this point. The pain in my chest has subsided a little, I can breathe more than shallow puppy breaths now. I can feel where they cut my stomach in three places. One for the light, one for the camera, and one for the tools they used in surgery. All small, about one inch a piece. My throat still hurts from where they inserted me breating tube but it is getting easier to swallow. Only soft foods until tomorrow. Pudding, mashed potatoes (Luke makes killer mashers by the way... maybe he's a good cook after all) lots of milk.
Doctors say it will be about 2 weeks until all my blood comes back and not to push working for about a week. Good thing I filed my taxes on Wednesday night when I thought I was just hungover. Should have known it was serious when my cat, the antisocial, evil, and yet loving but not affectionate, Piccolo decided to lay on my stomach and paw me until I no longer wanted to vomit.
Such a wierd day. At the end Luke was exhausted and upset because he felt he was being selfish by being tired when I was still to scared to fall asleep. I told him he was the best husband ever today and the point the nurse made about him saving my life. He felt better but still wouldn't go to bed until I did. So he stayed up with me until I could drift off. I had to sleep on the couch to elevate my chest and so he grabbed a bunch of blankets and slept on the floor next to me. Whenever I woke up I could hear him breathing and it soothed me nearly as much as the hydrocodone....
10:39 AM - Pain is my reminder
Current mood: depressed
I can almost forget sometimes. I can sit still and it nearly goes from my mind. Then I have to cough, stand up, or the nausea comes to remind me. The cuts through my stomach twich and rack me with this pain I thought would pass so easily. Then I remember. The loss. The heartache. The overwhelming feeling that I should have known somehow. I know my body didn't even know so how was I supposed to guess but still...
If I was healthier. If I didn't smoke maybe, or drink on Tuesday. If I ran a few miles a day or worked out at all. I could have saved it. I should have been paying more attention to my body somehow.... I have the crushing weight of my guilt pressing down on my aching head...
Luke says I'm being unreasonable, that's its not my fault. I know he's right, the doctor's right, the nurses are right... I know when we get to counseling they will be right too. I just can't shake the feeling that I killed something I wanted...
Then the pills kick in and I'm floatiung somewhere between guilt and release from this sadness... This need to absolve myself and the need to blame myself... Where does this end?
7:19 AM - What friends are for...
Current mood: thankful
Thank you to everyone who's been so kind in the last few days. This time has been incredibly hard for us and having you all to help us through it has been an amazing help, you have no idea.
Thank you for the letters, chocolates, flowers, phone calls, the company... Thank you all for your friendship... Never before have I had so many people stop by to wish me well. Your love has been almost (but not quite, lol) overwhelming and it touches Luke and I right down to our souls...
There are no real words to describe how thankfull for real friendship you really are...
10:22 PM - Denied
Current mood: awake
I sit here awake... My first day without the life easing pain killers... Funny expression that... Pain killers. As if through the painfull act of killing they murder my pain, therefore easing me into the inky darkspace of sleep. Where I am now afraid to dream.
So I type. Letters. Comments. Names I've been meaning to look up. Memories I don't want to fade and wither and die by lack of the sunshine of consiousness and the water of laughter.
BTW, I tend to wax poetic when I'm too sleepy to stay awake and too exhausted to sleep.
I also can't type very well...
I just want some more pills. Escape maybe? Who cares, as long as I can lie stil without the pain jabbing my belly straight into my visceral being. I know addiction isn't an option for me. Too expensive. Oh but if only I could ease it all away.
And I know part of this is my fault. At least today. I went out for the first time today. Too long I'm afraid. Went to work and saw some of my bosses. Their concern was too real. Went home, shocked at the looks in their eyes they tried so hard to cover... Then Sushi with Chandra and Joey and laughter, and jokes, and disgusting bodily conversations you can only have while eating if you are with really close friends. My soul felt the fringes of memory of a life without all this sadness that threatenes to overtake me at every turn. I know things will return to some semblance of normal, but when?
So I get out of bed. Too tired to sleep seeking some sort of confessional where I can rid myself of these turbulent thoughts. I know I should make this all private, my eyes only sort of thing but Fuck that! Someone out there knows how I feel right now and maybe this will help them too. Knowing the softness of a quiet soul listening or the crashing nature of a sympathetic heart screaming in vain, screaming the same words that struggle even now in the middle of the night to be born. Throwing an angry fist at the sky, the mirror, the one next to you, the doctors, at your own flat little belly.... at your quiet sleeping house... At the tears that threaten me with their tell tale electric pinch at the corners of my eyes...
But I'm writing again. Smoking more than I have in years, but writing. Better lyrics than I've written since I lived by myself on 16th street. And I'm booking again. We play March 30th with The Kris Lager Band at the Zoo Bar. Set up a sound guy to do live recordings for an all new demo and possible live release too. i guess it's that whole "I could have died" thing kicking my ass. I know we're all supposed to draw inspiration from our pain and trust me, I am, but I still get this feeling that I'm being trite somehow. I mean, I lived, right? This was all stuff I was working on before but now it has this fever to it... Like the itch on the stiches I can't scratch so I have to do this instead...
And then there's the silences... The people I thought would have cared enough to write but haven't yet... I am more thankful for this experience with them in mind. There are people who I figured for sure would have said something but didn't and that seems like a burden lifted somehow. Like, "Oh, now I don't have to worry about them." But that seems really self centered and self serving too. Because I do. And I will.
And the outpouring of love, no Love, with the capital "L", from my friends who have been by my side from day one. There still is a giant absence in the english vocabulary where our words of thanks should go...
So I guess I should try to sleep again. Wish me luck...
But I did get a little better everyday and now I only have a bunch of emotional stuff to deal with. That I am trying to deal with everyday. I have returned to work and I am starting a business.
I apologize that this is not the time for me to post happy memories. The exhaustion in my heart and soul is only matched by my physical self being worn to the nub.
