Entry 011
In Entry 007, I wrote about the last day I had my fourth child with me on this earth. The day he was surgically removed. While writing that blog, I was recovering from surgery. But not the surgery I was writing about.
It was Wednesday, October 12th that I was on the operating table having my baby suctioned out of my body. The surgery was routine and everything went as it should. That was the third time I had this operation so I knew what to expect. It was the weeks to follow that I wasn’t prepared for.
After a dilation and curettage, the post-op nurse will make sure you can drink and pee, give you your packet of paperwork and maybe some medication for the pain. They’ll routinely remind you not to lift anything over 10 pounds for two weeks and to call your doctor if your bleeding fills a pad from front to back in an hour or less, then send you on your way.
Six days after the operation, I was at work when I stood up and felt a gush of liquid warm the inside of my thighs. Thick, red blood saturated everything below my waist. My gray underwear was red and so was the floor in front of the toilet. I called my doctor’s office with the expectation of spending the afternoon in the hospital. But like every time I call the doctor, nobody was available to talk to me. So I drove home, showered the blood off my body, and sat on the toilet for half an hour before a nurse called back. I told her about the amount of blood and how the pad was filled in a timeframe closer to 3 seconds than an hour. The nurse, who was aware I’ve lost four pregnancies and of the operation a week prior, said it was probably just my period. Because that makes sense, right?
The next night, it happened again. But I didn’t call the doctor that time because I knew what I’d be told. I mean, it was just my period, right?
Another handful of days go by and the blood didn’t stop. It would occasionally lighten and the color would be less violent just to be followed by more pain, clots and deep red blood. This put us 12 days after the operation and the day of my follow-up appointment with my doctor (who was also the surgeon). I told the nurse—the same nurse who I spoke with on the phone while I bled directly into the toilet the first time—about the worsening pain and continuous bleeding. Then I told the doctor the same thing. It didn’t seem to phase either of them. Neither did the golf ball-sized clots at the bottom of the toilet in the photos I showed the doctor.
Days pass and so do more clots and chunks of tissue. The pain, that I can only describe as what a soaking wet washcloth must feel when being rung out, became constant with stretches of such agonizing pressure that I couldn’t speak or stand upright. But it was just period cramps, right?
Another week goes by along with another trip to Target for more pads. There wasn’t a second of the day I wasn’t wearing a pad—and I’m talking about those ones you wear at night on the heaviest day of your period that you can see the shape of through tight pants. I became proficient in tightening all the muscles in my body in hopes they’d absorb the feeling in my uterus. And when the pain got bad enough, I would sit on the toilet and push and wait for the wave of blood and tissue to make its way out. I’ll never forget the sight of sheets of tissue the size of my palm lining the bottom of the bowl. Definitely not what you see during your period.
On Tuesday, November 8th, I finally listened to my husband and contacted the doctor again. I had already looked at the notes of my interactions during the weeks prior and saw that neither my phone call nor my complaints of pain and heavy bleeding were recorded. At least not anywhere I could see. This time, I submitted a message through my patient account because I needed something to be in writing. The next day, I received a call from a different nurse from my doctor’s office. She was flabbergasted that I’d been bleeding and in pain for nearly a month and she scheduled an ultrasound to see what was happening inside my uterus. I wonder how different those weeks would’ve been if she was the one who called me back the first time.
Three days before the scan, I was paralyzed by the pain. I spent the evening in the fetal position crying until I my body put itself to sleep. The next day, the pain in my uterus was so intense that tightening all my muscles only magnified the sharpness. I would find myself with my eyes closed tight and my entire body shaking while I tried to push whatever clot or chunk of tissue was causing the pain out, while simultaneously trying not to puke.
My husband drove me to the ER where I saw a different set of doctors—ones that I wish I could see for everything going forward. They ran blood and urine tests and immediately performed an ultrasound. I hadn’t been having a period for the past 31 days. I was having contractions as my body did its job to remove what was left behind after my baby was taken out. She found a “complex collection” in my lower uterine segment, including a mass measuring 2.3 by 1.6 centimeters that was preventing anything from escaping.
I was given three options.
Let my body continue trying to remove the “collection” naturally
Take a medication that could possibly help the process above speed up
Have another D&C
Since it was the only sure thing, I chose to have my fourth D&C in 10 months. After the first three, I felt discomfort and some pain for a while. But when I woke up in the OR recovery room after this last time, I could swear I’ve never felt better. I know I was in the same discomfort and pain as I should be after having my uterus scraped out; that’s how I know how bad the pain was before.
It’s hard to grieve when you are battling intense physical pain. So I didn’t. My mind was consumed by thoughts of bleeding through my pants at work or while out in public. Instead of thinking about life without my fourth child, I was running my day’s schedule through my head figuring out when I’d have time to change my pad.
31 days of sleeping with a towel under my midsection because I didn’t want to have to wash blood out of the sheets every day. 31 days of wearing sweaters or jackets that covered my butt in case I bled through my pad again. 31 days of going to the bathroom more times than I ever did when I was pregnant just I could wipe the blood pooling in my crotch away. 31 days of contractions because I didn’t insist on being cared for. Because I didn’t challenge it being my period even though I knew it was much more than that.
Do not feel like you are a burden. Do not worry about if the nurses will think you’re annoying for calling so many times. Listen to your body when it tells you something is wrong and advocate for yourself. Unlike I did.
Emily Lindquist