Happy Birthday John

I miss you so very very much. Love you.

My story

Well I guess my story really begins with my husband, Ethan. On Monday E became very ill. He was vomiting, dizzy, confined to bed with chills and miserable. So on Tuesday when I woke up feeling nauseous and dizzy I knew I had caught his bug. I stayed home from work. I did however go to a doctor’s appointment at 1:45pm to do a follow up on my ectopic pregnancy. I had an internal u/s done. They checked my uterine lining and both ovaries and said all was good. I talked to my doc who went over my blood results with me. I have been going for weekly blood draws to follow the level of hcg in my system down to zero. He expressed some concern over the slow (however steady) decline and expressed the importance of following to zero. I agreed and told him I was on my way to get this week’s blood draw. And then I went home. I continued to feel like crud into Wednesday and took that day off from work as well. E was home with a relapse after going to the ER unable to breathe from the night before. I was coughing so much I was vomiting and E had to catch me in the hallway at one point when I passed out. My body started to really ache and I was feeling so sore and miserable. I figured I had pulled and strained all of my muscles with coughing and vomiting. One important pain I was having was a sharp pain midline in my belly every time I coughed or turned over in bed.
On Thursday I did not want to go to work, but I knew I had to. I pulled on my jeans and was quite surprised when I could not button them, especially after being so sick. I figured it was bloat and chose to wear different pants. I worked Thursday although it was tough and I was really hurting. When I got up on Friday I again pulled out those jeans and they still wouldn’t button, but I needed to wear something so I sucked it in and buttoned them up knowing they would loosen up in a couple of hours. I parked about 3 blocks away from the entrance to my building and went into work. Each step I took was causing pain in the center of my back and my abdomen. I figured I really did a job with all of the coughing. A couple of hours into work I was debating whether I should call the doc. The pain seemed wrong and I thought maybe I had an UTI (never had one before so I had nothing to compare it to). I kept feeling like I was going to pass out also. I ended up going to Employee Health Services where we discovered my blood pressure was 60/40. Not good. It was determined I was dehydrated and I started drinking. I also decided to put a call into the OB’s office just to run things by them in case it was a UTI, with it being Friday I didn’t want to have to wait the whole weekend.. At this point in time I had to keep my pants unbuttoned. The office had not returned my call prior to me leaving the health services. I walked back to my car and was very worn out by the time I made it there. Since I live more than a ½ hour from my doc’s office I decided to swing by rather than get home and have them call me in. After a nurse dipped my urine it was decided I should go to the ER.
So I drove myself to the ER in tears. I pulled up and looked for the valet parking but didn’t see anyone. A security guard asked me what I wanted and I said I had to get into the ER. I wonder if I looked pretty poor b/c he opened a barricade and had me park right there.
I didn’t have much of a wait before getting into the ER, but then that is where I stayed for the next 8 hours or so. A lot of this is a blur to me. I let E know where I was, but we both knew if he left his job he might not have one when he went back. Since I didn’t know what was going on I made him stay there. I was a little nervous being there by myself. I’m not sure how long it was before I was wheeled off for u/s, but the u/s’s themselves took forever and were incredibly painful. It was at this point that I heard words like “debris” and “pockets of fluid”. I guess I knew what I was facing right then. When I was returned to the ER my SIL and BIL were there. Apparently MIL was so worried about E being upset that he couldn’t be with me she sent them over. I thank her. It meant a lot. Mil showed up and I was able to send Bil on his way home to his own son. Meg, my SIL had packed me a bag with toiletries and whatever else I might need. I talked to E around 9:30 and told him they were keeping me overnight and he thought he could get there within an hour and a half or so. When he showed up MIL and SIL left and within 20 minutes the docs came in and said I was going to surgery. They gave us about 5 minutes together before they had me stripped down and I was bawling. I was so scared and I cannot imagine what E was feeling. They wheeled me away.
The surgery went well and I remained incredibly stable given the amount of blood I had lost. My doc did a bikini cut and said she was scooping out soft ball size clots of blood. My right tube was ruptured and they had to take it. After my surgery they told E I would probably need a blood transfusion given the amount I had lost, but I lucked out and didn’t need one. I am now home and thankful to be alive. I walked around for 2 days with a ruptured tube and my belly filling up with blood. All of my symptoms were masked by my bug and I was very fortunate that I made the decision to have it checked out. So that’s my scary ectopic story.

Rupture.

I am pretty beat, I just wanted to update that the ectopic ruptured. I will tell more of my story when I am feeling better, I just wanted to tell you that my flu like symptoms were masking the fact that I had ruptured and made me doubt myself. PLus I had a clear u/s on Tues. and it looks like I ruptureed on Wed. The one thing that bothered me was that my pants wouldn't button closed. I am glad it bothered me b/c it saved my life. I had surgery Friday around midnight. I lost a lot of blood and my right tube, but I am still here.