You've been warned.
Also, this is a long post. Containing various types of TMI.
I'm not even sure why I want to get this all down, much less post it for all to read. I guess recording the good, bad, and ugly will make the experience stay real to me. It's beginning to feel as though I dreamed it all up, and I don't want it to seem like a dream. I want to keep it real, because I did live it, dammit. And in order to keep the lessons learned, it needs to stay real to me.
And because I feel that if I thoroughly gross everyone else out with my full disclosure, I am much more likely to scare you into checking for ticks. This blog is primarily self-serving, but it does have some altruistic intent. After all, you are people I like.
I suppose the catalyst for this post was the removal of my PICC line. It was last Thursday. Once, I overheard it happening in the infusion suite, but didn't see it. It sounded to be a quick and simple process. So when it came for mine to come out, I wasn't really worried. The visiting nurse came to the house, took off the dressing, and basically just whipped it out of my arm. Way fast. Way faster than the process I heard in infusion. The nurse there, Mary, took it out over a period of like 15 seconds and told the guy to cough a couple times. My nurse, Regina, yanked it out in a matter of 3 seconds and left me staring at the 14" bloody catheter before me. At that moment I thought, I gotta write it ALL down.
I don't even really know how far back I should go with the TMI. I mean, it goes way, way back to the week before I went into labor, when I was crazy sick with 6 billion symptoms. Actually, if you think about it, it goes way back to when I had a disgusting tick attached to me somewhere for 48 hours without even knowing it. That still makes me shudder.
I guess the meningitis is a good place to start.
Don't get meningitis. It is excruciating. I could not move anything from my shoulders up. Like not even my eyeballs, my jaw, everything. If I tried, it was immensely painful. Plus, the worst headache ever showed up and did not go away for 5 days. I've never had a migraine, but that is what I assume it to be like. Sensitivity to light and sound, a lot of misery, etc.
So along with other early Lyme symptoms, I was one sick pregnant lady. As soon as my OB saw me at the end of the week, she sent me to the ER to test for every ailment under the sun. And then, in the ER, I went into labor. I didn't even want to tell anyone at first, because I was... I don't know, in denial or trying to figure out a way to make it go away because I was so scared to give birth in the condition I was in. But I said something, and we went upstairs, and long story short, it was the worst experience ever by far, but then I had a beautiful perfect baby and afterwards they gave me Percoset. Yay Percoset. I've never been on big pain meds before, I could see why people get hooked. But they aren't for me, I don't even like to take Tylenol. I'd rather have a few swigs of whiskey if you are going to saw off my arm in a field.
Here's a good one: After we were released and I went to see my awesome neurologist Dr. Stackman the next day, he sent me immediately for more tests (including a Western Blot for Lyme) because of the Bell's Palsy. I had to go to the Convenient Care lab. So, Rick dropped me off and drove around with the kids in the car while I was inside. When I went into the room, the tech asked me, which arm do you want me to draw from? I then studied at my arms, stammering a bunch of uhs and ums and I realized what I looked like. My arms were full of holes from IVs and lab pokes at the ER. I hadn't showered in 6 days, hadn't slept in 7 days, and had given birth once. Oh, and half my face was frozen. If you didn't know me, which none of these people did, I looked like the biggest smackhead in Ithaca.
"Um, I think there's a vein over here, uh, hee hee, heh heh." Get me out of here.
Speaking of not showering, do you know that if you don't shower for 5 days but don't leave a 10ft x 14ft room for said days, that you won't smell or be greasy? I do. I found out. But, the catch is that you still feel totally gross.
That's enough of my TMIs, on to Rhys'. OH, but there is one which involves both of us. The night we were admitted, exactly one week after my smackhead visit to Convenient Care, Rhys had to take his turn and get a plethora of lab tests and get an IV. Plus, he had to undergo a lumbar puncture. Basically, it had been a crazy day, we hadn't eaten for God knows how long, and we were exhausted and sick. When the nurses asked if I wanted to be in the room with him for the tests, I said yes. They asked if I was squeamish at needles and blood. I almost laughed, but instead assured them that I was not.
And then, I passed out after they put the IV in but before the lumbar puncture. Wham. Face first.
When I came to, seconds later, there was blood on the floor and on me, and two nurses trying to hold Rhys and wake me up, and then a parade of sprinting people wearing scrubs and lab coats came into the room. I busted my chin open, and they wheeled me down to the ER to get stitches while they finished Rhys' tests. I laughed through the huge pack of ice on my face, thinking, "Last week, I was being wheeled from the ER to Maternal & Child, this week, I'm being wheeled from Maternal & Child to the ER. This is my life." I mean at that point, you just laugh through the grossness.
Poor Rhys. Seeing your tiny, completely innocent baby suffering is the worst. It's torturous. Of course, he'll never remember any of it, and is no worse the wear. But what he lacks in memory and physical scars, I make up for in emotional scars. I don't think I can write any of them down. Those specific instances don't seem like dreams, they seem like nightmares, and I'd rather not remember them. Plus, I don't think I'll be able to forget, so writing them down is pointless.
But I will overshare one Rhys-related TMI. It's about poop. Pretty fitting, since so much of a newborn's life centers around poop, regardless of their health situation. But for Rhys, just as his system was getting its digestive enzymes on task, it was assaulted by consistent doses of high-octane antibiotics. The thing about antibs is that they kill all the bacterias, they don't discriminate between the good and bad. So the good bacteria that digests food gets eradicated. And then, the digestive system is completely impaired.
Do you know that poop changes colors while traveling through the digestive system? I do. It starts out moss green and soupy, laden with stomach bile. Then, it turns into a sort of yellow-tan, like the "maize" colored crayon from an old-school Crayola 64 box. At that point it curdles into a seedy texture, as well. Then, as it "matures" (Dr. Snedeker's term, which I found hilarious, as if we were discussing a bottle of Bordeaux), it turns brown and solid.
After the first bowel movement, called meconium (black-green and tarry), a newborn's poop turns into the seedy maize stuff. A few days after he started the antibs, Rhys's poop started getting watery. Then, it started getting green. By the end of his treatment, he had raging moss green diarrhea, a broke, blistered diaper rash, and a yeast infection on top of that. Yes, boys can get yeast infections. Especially baby boys.
He still isn't regular. It's getting better, the poop off and on yellow again, but the rash is still there. And it's hard to tell if it's just his poor tortured hiney, or if it's sustaining yeast. It's going to be a couple more weeks before everything is totally resolved. My poor, poor baby.
So, that's enough TMI, I think. Besides, it's all I can recall at this time. There's plenty more, I assure you. But apparently it's already buried in my subconscious. I'm pretty cool with it staying there, who knows what all it is.
We have follow-up labs tomorrow. I'm nervous. But at least I will be walking into the lab showered and sans track marks.
Don't forget: CHECK YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES FOR TICKS.
