That first night in the hospital, I slept on my back. That was the first time I slept on my back for months. As I wrote about in this blog: http://babygoodwin.com/post/4078107201/all-the-things-i-worry-about they advise pregnant women not sleep on their backs because the uterus can push on an artery as well as disturb flow to the placenta. Well it turns out that is crap at least based on the several doctors and nurses that took care of me. Our main doctor, who will deliver our baby, looked at me like I was crazy and said she slept on her back through all of her pregnancies, well thank goodness because laying on my side was very painful.
The leg, blood clot reducing machine had to run all night and by the middle of the night the lower left leg part would not stay velcro’d. It would pop open, lose pressure, and the machine would start beeping, I would have to push the call button to get help. And every time the lady called over the intercom in response to my button push, “yes, do you need something?” Elliott would half wake up and say “huh, everything alright?” and I would have to update him on why the commotion.
One time during the night I woke myself up coughing and the pain was horrendous. In my struggle to sit up, hold my stomach, and not scream I think I pushed the call button. Joy came straight in and I apologized I explained I woke up coughing and hit the button by mistake. She said coughing was great, coughing and deep breathing would help stave of pneumonia. Pneumonia! Really. I just had to have my fricking appendix out and now on top of blood clots in my legs I have to worry about pneumonia. It hurt to breath deep, it hurt every time my ribs expanded, but I breathed as deep as I could every time I woke up and remembered for the next day.
In the morning the sweet pregnant woman was still on duty. I felt a little bad when she had to empty my pee collection. I woke up about 6:30am and waited until 7am to wake up Elliott so he would hand me my phone so I could call my mom. When he woke up he was alarmed my pee collection area was so empty, he said I had gone through a lot of IV liquid, which he was right, he had just missed the emptying, I thought it was sweet he was that observant of my pee situation.
When I called my mom, I will never forget, I said “Mom, its Teresa,” and she said, “Thank god!” with the most true, heartfelt relief you could hear over the phone. I was glad I had called first thing. I spoke to many of my family members that morning and it was great to feel so loved and cared for.
I also ate that morning, actually I had a yogurt the night before as well, and I had another yogurt and a couple of jellos for breakfast, the first food I had in 24 hours. Everything they serve in the hospital is low fat, low sugar stuff, not stuff we generally eat, personally I like full fat, no sugar, so the jello was overly fake sweetener tasting but it was good to get something down.
The nurse soon took the catheter out and I was happy to go to the bathroom, there was a bathroom and shower in our room. Going to the bathroom (#1, stories of #2 will come later) was one of the firsts after my surgery that I would celebrate.
Eventually there was a shift change and I met my new nurse. There would be many nurses it seemed and I don’t remember all of their names although this one was unforgettable. She didn’t have the same confidence that Joy had. She tried to fix the leg blod clot reducer device and she struggled. The two leg pieces looked different since the left one had came off for most of it. She said something about having two different pieces because of my knee surgery. All I could think of is, oh no, she thought I had come in for knee surgery and I looked at her and I said I had my appendix out. She told me she knew that and I eventually realized she was talking about my 10+ year old knee surgery, phew I am really glad we were on the same page.
