Initiation

through the portal I go.. [part 1]

Six years ago, I woke up with a sore stomach.

Really sore, I couldn’t stand up straight. But.. I was fine. So I lay on my couch for two days and did my best to look after my 1 year old. It didn’t get any better so I dragged myself to the dr in an uber because I was too sore to drive.

She examined me and sent me for a scan because something didn’t seem right.. I had blood in my urine and I was in a lot of pain. I tried to convince her I was ok but she was not happy so I begrudgingly hobbled through the hospital to have a scan. And I was right.

The radiographer very rudely asked me why I was even there.. everything look fine.

On my way back home my dr phoned me with alarming blood results that showed incredibly high infection markers. She wanted me to be admitted to hospital.

But I couldn’t go.. it was my son’s birthday the next day so I HAD to be available. And I was so sure I would be feeling better the next day. She gave me her direct line with strict instructions to monitor my heart rate and temperature.

I woke up the next day no better, but for some reason I was still determined that I was feeling better and pleaded with my dr to stay at home. I could stand a bit more upright so surely that was a good sign. She insisted. So I tearfully left home and went to hospital.. where I KNEW that the CT scan would should nothing and I would be labeled as being dramatic.

Into the CT room I went, they had to inject a dye into my veins to have a good look. Something went wrong when they did that and I felt a huge burst of paint that sent me into a spiral of tears. I suddenly accepted and faced the reality that I was not fine. I was in a serious amount of pain and something was horribly wrong. My thoughts started spinning.. (My children! How would they survive without me. My work.. I am letting so many people down, I can’t possibly just not participate in my own life without things disastrously falling apart. My husband! how would he know what do to with the kids, how could he manage EVERYTHING alone. That is an impossible task. Way too much for one person to do alone. My baby was only 1, I’m still breastfeeding, she needs me, she can’t sleep without me, she doesn’t understand where I’ve gone. My son’s birthday.. the cupcakes, the school birthday circle, his BIRTHDAY. I’m missing his BIRTHDAY. What a failure of a mother I am) Funny how I was absolutely sure that the role I filled was impossible for one person to do alone. How on earth did I think I could keep it up then? I was so cruel to myself.. I was failing at being a mother because I was in hospital? I could only value the weight of my role in the family if I had to consider other people doing it? What a state I was in. The saddest part about these thoughts is that a mother’s mental world is often like this. And no one has any idea what she is living through. A self inflicted hell of self criticism and torment.

Back to the hospital.

The scan was clear?! Ok so I am fine and I am being dramatic again.

Enter my surgeon. Another woman who had an intuitive feeling that something was horribly wrong. She had a look at the scan herself and discovered that there was a mass around my ovary area. That didn’t really explain the infection markers or the pain but she said she needed to operate to establish what was going on. That sounded a bit extreme to me. Surely I just needed a drip?

My husband sat next to me in tears, I wasn’t sure why he was so emotional. I seemed to be in some weird survival mode of being FINE. I consoled him and ensured him that I would be ok.

While I was waiting for my surgery the anaesthetist came and told me he would give me a pump that I could use to control my pain ofter the operation. It was not addictive and I could use it as much as I wanted, he didn’t want to be called in the middle of the night because I was in pain.

Alrighty.. sounds great.

Back to being ok and not needing surgery.

I was so fine and in clearly still in denial that when they wheeled me into surgery I tried to climb onto the operating table myself and everyone hustled around me to calm me down?! Jeez guys, just trying to make your job easier and show you how fine I am.

I felt so scared, I hate going under anaesthetic. An artificial sleep that takes you no matter what you have to say about it, and where exactly does it take you while someone cuts into your flesh. At that moment, I ‘saw’ and felt a line of people walking into the theatre and form a semi-circle around my head. They held hands and were there to protect me and keep me safe. I knew them, they were not strangers, they were not visible to anyone else, but they were there just for me and I was then ok to let those chemicals take me away because I knew that they would keep ME safe. The me inside that is not attached to my body that needs to be operated on. I could finally let go, and be NOT fine. The tears rolled and I fell into the unknown space of anaesthesia land.

What the drs found when they operated on me was that the mass was not on my ovary, it was my appendix. So enlarged and infected that it disintegrated when they tried to remove it. The tissue was so infected it melted away. A bit tricky to suture up so a second surgeon came in to assist.

I woke up in the ward, breasts hard, bulging and leaking milk from two days of not breastfeeding. I did not feel fine now. I felt sick. Really sick. I slipped in and out of sleep for a few hours. At some point my friend had come to see me and I remember her sitting in the room crying and watching me. My husband was there too and I could just manage to tell him how sick I felt.

My second round of blood tests came back and showed my infection markers had increased.

Fabulous..

Part 2 incoming. I need a coffee! Haven’t told this story for a while, definitely bringing up all the feels.