Vibes

A month ago I went in to hospital to have my hernia repaired.

It was supposed to be day surgery but I packed a bag in case.

Juffin would say that I'm a pessimist but I'm actually a realist.  I've been to hospital many times before.

My hernia was much larger than they thought, no shock to me.  I was under for several hours and spent the afternoon feeling pretty fucking miserable in the planned procedure unit... which is not meant for overnight stay but apparently there were no beds. I had two drains because of the hole left behind after they stuffed my bowel and small intestine back where it was supposed to be.

I stayed there for two days.

At this point I would like to make an observation, please be nice to nurses. They're not arseholes sent to fuck with you, they're just doing their damn job and trying to look after you.  Don't be a dick.

I had sporadic phone reception, one book that I'd finished and no TV.  I was literally starting at the walls.  Juffin was busy kid wrangling and because I couldn't really reach anyone, and had no idea how long I would be there, I didn't reach out for entertainment.  It was the longest two days of my life.

Upon my return home, I realised how much fun it is recovering from major surgery with two children who constantly want to be on you and pull the tube that is still hanging out of your guts.

Yes.  I had to go home with a drain.

The following week I start to feel shady as shit.

I spend Tuesday night in a fever soaked delirium whilst also trying to deal with my teething 15 month old.  Life is good..

On Wednesday, the day my Mum arrives, 9 days after operation, the acute care Nurse who's been visiting me at home, tells me that I look like crap and if my temperature doesn't decrease I should go to the hospital.  After midday Juffin tells me it's time after taking my temperature and it's somewhere in the high 37's.  I text Mum and tell her we're going to Emergency and throw a book, nightie and undies in my bag.  Lucky.

In triage my temperature is 38.9.

Time to invest in a new thermometer.

I spend a few hours in ED, then the Short Stay Unit where I go to have a CT scan, then onto SCDU which means something like surgical criticial decisions unit or some such rubbish.  They're not sure if they need to open me back up see....

I'm taken up there pretty late, around 10ish or something, and the old dude they park me next to gets all ornery and keeps yelling out 'NURSE!  KEEP IT DOWN'.  Oh the irony.  He snores and wakes up frequently asking for coffee/orange juice/sandwiches at regular intervals.  He's an arsehole. If I hadn't been feeling so crap, I would have told him to keep it fucking down.

I spend another night in feverish delirium with Doctor's coming to see me as my temperatures spikes again up near the 39 mark.  I have cold sweats and then shiver uncontrollably.  It's pretty rubbish.

The next day I see my lovely surgeon again who asks me what the hell is going on, I joke and tell him he should have done his job properly so I don't have to be there again.  He puts me on hella IV antibiotics and I get the good drugs and am told I don't need to have more surgery, just need to rest, rehydrate and kill all the bad bugs.

I spend the rest of my time up on Surgical Ward One, in, get this, MY OWN FUCKING ROOM.  I was stoked.  The SCDU nurses said it was because I'm such a good patient, but I think it's because that's all they had, see?!  Realist.

I go home five days later, with the drain still in, yes, I hate that fucking drain.  My Mum is here, Juffin is best fiance/baby daddy ever, and my friends and work colleagues have sent flowers, food, chocolate...

Fast forward to today and I'm feeling beyond defeated.

I had my drain out 12 days ago and was feeling pretty good.

Now I'm not.  I went to my GP this morning as my guts has swollen up again and is tender AF, my legs are aching, I feel fatigued, dizzy spells, I'm not sleeping well and get up 4 times a night... things have gone downhill, again. GP recommended another 2 weeks off work and more rest but here's the kicker, Juffin got a job!  Yes!  And we're so fricking excited and proud of him but he starts next week and I can't look after the kids on my own and my MIL is away. I'm working on shuffling things around but he'll have to drop the kids off at daycare at 6.15 as he has to be at work by 7.  

I need to get better.  I'm sick of feeling like crap.  I'm over Juffin having to do everything while I roll around looking on and feeling helpless.  I feel like a useless turd.  This was supposed to be a day procedure and here I am a month later still feeling like absolute shit.  If I watch any more Netflix I will turn into the Cable Guy.  

Look I know I need to put things in perspective and I know that I need to stop feeling so sorry for myself but I'm currently spending most of my time on the couch watching Mad Men or in bed watching Mad Men and I could really do with some good healthy, healing vibes at the moment.  

And cigarettes.

And Canadian Club.

Ok, maybe not the cigarettes but yes to the Canadian Club.

Leaving hospital for the second time...

Hospital Stay

The rest of my hospital stay goes by so quickly.  I alternate between moments of extreme panic and serene calm.  I try and get rest when I can and listen to my instincts re looking after the Mushroom.  Thankfully there's no horrid nurses or Doctor's telling me that I'm doing this wrong or that wrong and the consensus seems to be go with your gut.  If Mushroom is crying and trying to shove his fist in his mouth, he's probably hungry (go figure) so try and feed him.  Still upset, wet nappy?  Still upset, cuddles and try feeding him again. It doesn't seem like rocket science to me.  It's not until late Wednesday afternoon that a midwife makes mention of waking him up to feed...  and I'm like what?  Apparently you should be waking your newborn every 3 to 4 hours to feed.  No-one  has told me this before so I start taking note of the time that he feeds and try to do that.  Reality is quickly sinking in.  Getting myself up so regularly is freakin hard.  My lower abdomen is really sore.  Like really.   I think about what my vjj would be hurting like if I'd managed to deliver naturally and this is a minor consolation.

Aside from the waking to feed thing, our Mushroom is doing really well.  Apparently.  I have no idea but everyone keeps telling me that he is.  I'm really worried about his skin as he was born with baby acne, and it looks worse and worse.  I'm thinking that there's no possible way a 2 day old baby can have acne but apparently it's the real deal!  A midwife sees my concern and gets the Doc to come check him out and make sure it's nothing more serious.  On advice from the Ped and a lovely midwife, I just have to squirt some boobie juice onto his face and rub it in, and that'll clear it right up.  Juffin has already googled and told me this information but it's always good to hear from the professionals as something about squirting milk from my breast directly onto my newborn son's face sounded akin to Juffin's idea of amusement.  "Look at Jess the human milk hose!"  Chump.  It already looks better by Wednesday evening.

As my time in hospital goes on, I start to feel much more confident.  Perhaps I can actually do this motherhood thing after all.  Mushroom seems to be relatively easy going for a baby.  Though have nothing to compare it to so who knows?  Basically he doesn't do too much crying or carrying on so that has to be a good thing!  We have the first bath time in hospital with Juffin at the helm.  Mushroom gets his ears tested, a big fat pass, he has some injections and barely crys, tough nut, and because things are going so well, I tentatively put forward to the staff that I might be ready to go home the next day.

Reasons for this include:  It's getting easier to get around... yes, it's true that the bed is electronically able to push me from laying to sitting, which is kind of cheating I guess, but you know what I mean.  I can stand up by myself and even go to the toilet... huzzah!  Mushroom and I seem to be getting the hang of the breastfeeding thing, though my milk is not in yet and, although mega awesomeness, I'm still all alone in my room, who know's how long that will last?!

To make matters worse, Juffin has been busy at home washing all the Mushroom's new outfits, moving our bedroom around to accommodate me and putting the car seat in the car.  I feel so helpless as every time he visits the hospital he has more to do and I wish that I could help.  The hardest part about this whole thing, aside from being cut open and all that jazz,  is not having Juffin there all the time and being away from him.  I just want to get home, get into a routine, have Juffin included.

On Thursday morning the Midwife on duty advises that they'll try and have me out of there that afternoon but there's a mass exodus so have to be patient.  I'm so ready and sure enough, by 5pm we're going home!!

Hearing test - passed with flying colours!  

Next time:  We're home, we're all alone... now what?!

Pincushion

Juffin, Mushroom and I are wheeled onto the ward at around 7pm.  Well the Mushroom and I are wheeled.  Juffin is quite capable of walking.  There is another woman in my room but she is on the way out.  Not like actually on the way out, as in dying, but on the way out as in exiting the hospital.  I digress.  We are wheeled into the room and the midwife draws the curtains for us.  It's then that I notice I have various tubes coming out of my body at different points.

I have all the routine stuff going on; my epidural is still in, the catheter that you have to have when you have an epidural, a cannula feeding me God knows what and, as an added bonus, a lovely drain as I was bleeding quite a lot so they've left that in my 'wound' as it shall henceforth be known as.  I have bags of undisclosed liquids hanging all around me.  At the risk of sounding like a teen, it's pretty gross.  To make matters worse, shit is starting to hurt.  Like a lot.  I have a button that I can push that will release more drugs but I don't wanna dose myself up, pass out and miss cuddles with Max.

I think it's around 6.30pm or so as it's dark outside but we're still allowed visitors on the ward.  Enter my Mum, sister, niece and bff.  I realise then that I must look like a damn horror show.  I have been up for over 24 hrs, hair sticking out all over the place, eyes glued together, puffy skin and general disgustingness.  Poor Max is probably thinking 'what the hell did I do to receive a mother who looks like that?' My family and friends are so excited though and if they're horrified by my appearance, it's not mentioned out loud!  My niece is pointing at things and asking what's this, what's that, whilst my sister tries not to freak out if she touches anything.  Max is given lots of cuddles by his new Auntie and Grandmother and Juffin gets to dress him for the first time.  Thank God my friend gave me some 0000 grosuits because I only bought 000 ones!  They kept telling me that I was having a big baby, I think I said that already, but obviously they confused belly fat with actual baby cos this little guy is not 10 pounds!!!  As Juffin is trying to dress our tiny son, my lovely little niece, Miss R, is on hand to advise him on how to do it.  Cute alert!  My visitors don't stay long, only half hour or so, which I'm grateful for, and further concretes the fact that I look like hell and they're all thinking holy shit Jess, get some sleep gf! What a bunch of stars!

Night is marching on and visiting hours are nearly over, when the woman in the bed next to me vacates.  I'm now flying solo in room 9/10 Maternity Ward.  I can't help but cross my fingers that it'll stay like that, at least for tonight anyway.  This is the part of the hospital stay that I've been dreading, as I've heard through quite a few people that it's shit, quite frankly.  I haven't seen any evidence of crapness yet, aside from the being sent home for the second time at Birth Suite but let's just try and put that behind us.  Everyone so far has been extremely lovely. The ward staff are on hand to check me every half hour, they take my blood pressure, temperature, check all my various tubes and coo over the mushroom.  Apparently he's gorgeous and I advise them that I'm really not that stupid to think that they don't say that to all the new Mum's!

It's past 8 o'clock and my Juffin has to go home.  I'm getting really nervous as I can't even move properly to attend to Max if he needs me and I'm a bit lonely and scared.  I've never been in hospital before, let alone had an operation, so the hormones start going wild.  I'm a little teary as he cuddles me goodbye and I don't think he wants to go either.  We toss up hiding him under the other bed but as my obs are being done every half hour we're not sure that we'll get away with it... a midwife comes and checks on me again and says gently to Juffin that visiting hours are over.... it's time to go.  My poor man also looks like death warmed up and could do with a shower and a good night's sleep, though, because he's wonderful and perfect, he assures me that this will be impossible without me by his side.  What a lovely, lovely man.  I watch him go and then I stare at my son in the tiny crib next to me and think holy fuck, I'm now a mother.  This is actually happening!

Mushroom looking at me from his hospital crib!  

Next time:  Tube removal and the best shower in the world!