Author: laranettle

First normal temperature in days!

The scene – the hospital room of a woman who has recently given birth to two dead babies. Present, the woman, a friend of hers, and the two year old child of the friend.

A wardsman enters to take the woman for a chest x-ray.

Wardsman (to woman, indicating two year old): He’s a bit big for a newborn!

Woman: No, that is my friends toddler.

Wardsman: Where is your baby?

Woman: My baby died.

Wardsman: Oh. Oh well, it could have been worse, it could have been twins.

Woman: It was twins. They both died.

Wardsman: Oh. Sorry about that. You know, my dog is always peeing on the carpet, but I can’t toilet train him, he’s too old. What do you think I should do?

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This is pretty much a word for word transcript of a conversation I had this week. It seems unbelievable, but I assure you, I have a witness that was a lot more lucid than I was at the time, and she assures me that my recollection was correct. He also kept talking about his dog and cat peeing on the carpet the WHOLE WAY down to X-RAY, where he then left me alone for a minute, and then came back and harassed me about the pee until I was saved b the X-Ray technician.

At least I have a sense of humour!

Roshni said today that if I am not significantly better by Monday, they will talk to me about doing an “aspiration under guided ultrasound” – stick a needle in me for drainage while using the ultrasound to guide what they are doing. Sounds like all kinds of fun, and there are risks involved, but there are bigger risks involved in having these horrendous fevers that don’t stop.

Sorry if I owe anyone an email, I am just having to manage computer time very carefully in my lucid hours.

So. The infectious diseases team hold the strong opinion that I should be cut open and drained.

And the obstetrics team seem to think that cutting open a uterus that has been through what mine has been through is just asking for trouble. The obstetrics team also seems to understand that although I am not ready to make the decision about having more babies – I am also not ready to have that choice taken away from me.

So they have decided to change to a funky new antibiotic, increase the dose of another one, and just keep pumping me full of drugs until I start to feel better.

But I am expecting that won’t be any time soon. Today was a nasty shock. Again I went from perfectly fine, to very, very sick in about 30 minutes. Shaking and sweating and sobbing and hallucinating. After my fever had started to break, it was measured at 39.9. Finally, I think my doctor is realising that I am not getting better quickly. And no, I won’t be going home tomorrow.

So while I am loving the visitors (really really), not knowing when I am going to have one of these attacks is quite scary, and it’s not the sort of thing that is fun to watch, so I think it might be best to give me a call before you come.

As of right now, I am feeling fine – but for most of today I have been feeling extremely poorly. If I continue to feel as well as I do right now, party in my room tomorrow 😉

That despite my fever spiking again at 39.2 this afternoon, I am going to respond to the antibiotics, and will be able to go home on Saturday. I have been afebrile for most of the afternoon and evening, but woke up about an hour ago needing pain relief with another temp, 38.7 this time.

Not hopeful for Saturday yet.

Id once more like to mention how lucky I am to have such great friends. My room looks like a florists shop, and I barely have time to feel sorry for myself because of the constant influx of visitors. There may come a time when I will need some quiet, but for now, constant love and affection is keeping me breathing. I know what has happened to me is really, really shitty, but I still feel blessed to know all of you!

Oh, and we have met with the funeral directors – a lovely company that do at cost services for neonates (bless them!), and have set arrangements in place. We wont set a date though, until we are sure I am well enough to leave hospital, and stay out.

After my second round of 48hours of broad spectrum antibiotics, I am still febrile (temp over 37.5 – actually around 38.3 for the last 24 hours), so they have finally done an abdominal ultrasound, and found what looks like a pocket of ooze (that is a technical term), and also what looks like a significant abscess.

I haven’t spoken to Team Lara (Roshni, Rena and Armani, my gorgeous doctors), but I am assuming this means more surgery.

I told them I was sick!

Yesterday I woke up feeling crappy. Fevers, bad pain, shivers, cold. Spewy.

Turns out the infection hadnt cleared. I was told I would need another 48 hours of antibiotics before I could leave, now I am being told I need to be afebrile (no fever) for 24 hours before they let me go home.

Which I am kind of happy about, because I would hate to leave only to have to come back again.

So I am still felling physically terrible, which leads having the sads quite bad – so I am loving all the visitors. Thank you to all my lovely friends 🙂

I have a fever, chills, nausea and bad pain. Another 48 hrs of IV anti biotics at least.