Saturday, September 27, 2008

I knew it couldn't be that easy...

I knew the delivery went entirely too smoothly. Why, there were no major medical catastrophes at all! I thought maybe my body had FINALLY decided it had dished me out enough crap, and that all would go well for a bit, at least until the inevitable tussle with mastitis.

Wednesday afternoon, we had a diaper disaster occur -- the girls are TERRIBLE about taking off their diapers, and the nanny hadn't taped their diapers thoroughly enough. She had to leave early early that day, so I went up to get them from their nap, and the wave of poop smell hit me before I'd even opened the door. Little monsters that they are, they'd gone fingerpainting, and I had no choice but to bathe them immediately, before Daddy got home to help. I was sore that evening, but thought it was just because I'd lifted them into the tub.

I was a little worse Thursday morning, and I thought perhaps I might have a UTI. I called the doctor's office, talked to the nurse, and they called me in a prescription for it. I took Andrew with me to go get it, and we stopped into the Big Baby Store to pick up a few more clothes for him -- I had bought mostly 0-3 month stuff rather than newborn, and he's still pretty little. I put him in the sling rather than carrying around baby + carseat, but I was still pretty sore when I got home.

By Thursday evening, I was really starting to hurt badly, and Friday morning, I could barely move. I wasn't running much of a fever, though, and my external incision looked fine, so I figured it couldn't be all that serious. G nagged at me to go to the doctor, but I didn't want to make him leave work to take me, and I wasn't very keen about the idea of getting out of bed. I took some more pain medicine and stayed in bed with the baby all day, hoping I'd start getting better.

I didn't. I got worse instead, and by the time I felt like it might be a good idea to go see the doctor, their Friday office hours were over. I got a lecture from my husband, another one from my mom the RN, and a third one from my brother the MD, and they all made me promise to go in to the hospital if I wasn't substantially better in the morning. I wasn't, and we did.

Turns out I have a "mild" uterine infection -- mild because my white count isn't really elevated. However, I definitely have what the doctor described as "uterine tenderness", and I would describe as AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH STOP PLEASE OH MY GOD THAT HURTS. Seriously, I haven't hurt this bad since the ovarian hyperstimulation nightmare, which actually felt quite a lot like this. The pelvic exam left me sobbing and shaking, once I finished with the screaming and the moaning, so yeah, I guess you could call that tenderness.

I left with a prescription for a different antibiotic and for more Percocet, and I am a bit more comfortable now. The doctor didn't want to hospitalize me for IV antibiotics if he can help it, given that I'm nursing and all, but if I get any worse, that's the next option. Hopefully it won't come to that, but since this is me we're talking about, I'm not betting against it.

I swear, if I have to have any kind of pelvic surgery as a result of this, I will tell them to just yank the sucker out. Ridiculous isn't even the word for it.

5 comments:

Eva said...

So sorry, Emma. It does seem like nothing comes easy for you. I hope you have a quick recovery and are able to return to your normally scheduled program soon.

EAB said...

Y'know, Eva, sometimes I wonder if all you readers think I must be making it all up! The unending string of events does seem a bit incredible, even to me. (Sadly, my real-live friend Stacey can vouch for the ongoing suckage.)

I guess it's just my own personal curse -- balances out my parking-space karma, or something.

Jody said...

OUCH. I hope the medicine works FAST.

pinky said...

You have parking space Karma?

pinky said...

HOpe you are feeling better soon. Glad your baby is ok.