The past 48 hours have been filled with lots of interesting happenings (for lack of a better term).
On my drive back from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara on Tuesday, I stopped by to see Devon on the way. We had dinner at a cute restaurant in Burbank, and I got back on the road after rush hour had passed. It worked out perfectly- or so I thought!
When I got back to Santa Barbara that night, I discovered that something I had eaten did not agree with my stomach. I am pretty sure it was food poisoning. Food poisoning, 9 months pregnant...not too much fun!
I got to bed around 4am on Wednesday morning, and when I woke up a few hours later, I realized that the saga was not over. Because of all the food poisioning (and what goes along with that), I had developed a gigantic thrombosed external hemorrhoid. Now, I knew what that was because I had one with Paprika, and it required surgery when I was about 37 weeks pregnant. I guess I had more modesty on my blog back then because I didn't blog about it! But, now, anything goes. ;-)
Anyway, this condition is waaaaaay different than a regular ole' hemorrhoid. Way different. (Trust me, I know these things). As soon as I woke up, I knew what had happened because I had the same exact thing happen in my pregnancy with Paprika. I also knew that I was going to have to have surgery on it immediately. Having a thrombosed external hemorrhoid is bad enough...but, having one when you have a 7 1/2 pound baby pressing down on it is much, much worse!
Pat and I spent the morning calling colo-rectal specialists and surgeons, but we weren't able to get in to see anyone that day...so we decided to go to the ER.
Mr. Mustard left work and met up with me, Pat, and Paprika at the first ER we went to. After Mr. Mustard got there, Pat took Paprika to the park and out to do fun stuff, so she wouldn't have to wait in the ER. I was so grateful for that!
After waiting (in absolute agony) for 3 hours at the first hosptial, they told us that they didn't have any surgeons on staff and that we'd have to go to a different hospital's ER to be treated.
So, we went to the other (much better, much nicer, much more helpful!) ER on the other side of Santa Barbara. We waited there about an hour before they decided I needed to go to Labor and Delivery to be monitored during surgery.
At that point, we were admitted to Labor and Delivery and they monitored the baby's heartrate and any contractions I was having. It's amazing how tied into the mom's body a baby is- because when I was in pain, the baby's heart was very elevated. After being set up in Labor and Delivery, we waited and waited and waited to see a doctor. After about an hour, we met with the head OB, who then called the surgery staff.
About two hours after we met with the OB, we met with a surgical resident (who had no idea what he was doing). Then, an hour after that, we met with the head on-call surgeon. She decided that I did need surgery right away (duh!) and made all the preparations for that. It was nice being in Labor and Delivery, because they made sure all the medications I was taking were safe for the baby. They also wanted to monitor me because they thought the surgery and the medication they gave me might throw me into labor.
So, aroud 10pm last night, they did the surgery. After the surgery, I started having strong contractions and vomitting violently, so they wanted to keep checking me to see if I was going into labor. Then they kept me for about four hours after surgery for observation, and then we got discharged to go home after they determined that contractions had stopped, everything was okay with baby, and everything was okay with me!
I am supposed to rest the next few days. I can't drive or go anywhere, or lift anything, and have to be laying down. That's all fine, because the recovery part isn't too much fun, and I want to be all healed up before the baby arrives and I have to push!
So, that's our past few days here! Life is nothing but exciting, isn't it?!
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