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Libmom's Anatomy: the beauty and the horror

This was then . . .

and now is bigger and more fun:

Every day I remember how lucky I am to be alive and have healthy children. Considering how messed up I was after their birth, and how little the ladies weighed . . . wow.

I never really disclosed what happened to me after my emergency c-section. Back in August I wrote a pain-filled missive and never posted it. At the time it still felt really raw.

I'm over that now. I hope that putting it out there helps with the post-traumatic stress.

So here goes.

At the end of July 2006, my doctor checked me into the hospital for mandatory bedrest.

Within 10 days, I was induced and the ladies popped out via emergency c-section while I was in active labor. Memory: looking at Lisher right before he fell over a piece of equipment and asking, "am I going to get cut?" People running, "get anesthesia in here now" and a blue paper sheet going over my face.

Two minutes later, the ladies made their grand entrance. So teeny, they went straight to the NICU. All I remember is shaking from cold and being ridiculously elated.

Within 5 days, my stomach re-expanded, I could barely walk, started spiking crazy fevers and began barfing olive-colored bile.

Memory: The bitchy nurse on my floor asked me if I could "at least throw up in the toilet and not in the sink". If I could have looked askance and not just deathly, I would have. After that, they stopped giving me food and put me on IV liquids. No eating, no drinking. That lasted 8 days.

Because of the fevers, I couldn't see the babies, who were stuck downstairs in their incubators.

Ever hear of an NG tube? About a week after delivery, it gets shoved up my nose and down into my stomach, one of the worst things I've ever experienced while fully conscious. "Just swallow." "Okokok" (tearfully exclaimed while screaming).

For the next few days, I watch bile come out of my nose at all hours. I do this because I cannot sleep. I have at least 2 feet of plastic tubing extracting nefarious liquids from my body . . . through my fucking nose.

Then came the tests. EKGs, CAT scans, x-rays.

Another memory: having an x-ray that required me to get on a Frankenstein-like slab. With a catheter attached. You don't think I could pee at this point do you? The slab: you stand on a platform, grab handles at your side and then they flip you so you are horizontal. . . except you lose sense of balance and vertigo sets in, so it feels like your feet are above your head and you are sliding down head-first. I had a panic attack.

And another: IVs wrecking every vein in my arm. My levels went whack and I had to have bags of potassium drips. I thought I knew pain before, but potassium makes you feel like you are burning from the inside out. Screaming, wresting pain. I remember begging for a banana. Oh yeah, no food, Ms Tuby-Nose. Good one.

Rushed into surgery 3 days later for bowel obstruction. Two things I recall with great clarity: the confident breeziness of my middle-aged lady anethesiologist, and the falling-up feeling coming out from the anethesia.

And now for the potentially litigious finale: they found a piece of placenta attached to my gut. One of the residents said it looked like a "dog ear". They called it a "goomba".

No one really had a sufficient answer to why a chunk of placenta had made its way into my stomach cavity. Or why my body fought it off like an alien invasion.

Ten days of recovery later they sent me home. My first fresh air and sunshine in 25 days. I could barely walk; staples still in my gut and my feet swollen to grotesqueness. It took me 10 minutes to get up the stairs to the guestroom. My forearms were black from IV bruises; the ladies still in the NICU.

Our house looked taller and out of proportion to my memory.

8:32 p.m. 2007-11-14

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